This exhibition springs from The House of Dust, a seminal yet under-recognized late 1960s work by Fluxus artist Alison Knowles. Originally called The Play House, this intermedia piece serves as an entry point into contemporary investigation of the relationships between architecture, technology, and performance. In a text titled Shelter or Playground, R.M. Schindler described his house as a “playground” that “grows with its inhabitants” and where “life will regain its fluidity.” Today, the house open its doors to contemporary artists who have been invited to produce site-specific works, responding to both architectures by Schindler and Knowles and translating them into multiple performative forms.

Steve Roden, Lucky Dragons, and Simon Leung presented new performances as part of the exhibition Routine Pleasures, organized by Michael Ned Holte. Each performance was a response to the site and the context of the exhibition but also a continuation of each artist’s ongoing work. Steve Roden began with a sound performance utilizing a grouping of modular synthesizers from his collection. Lucky Dragons continued their exploration of plural delectation, presenting poems in two voices. Concluding the program, Simon Leung returned to the theme of the train (in a nod to Jean-Pierre Gorin’s film which gave the exhibition its title) with a live/video work that mirrors his ongoing dialogue with Warren Niesłuchowski, the subject of his feature video War After War (2011).