DIE & RETRY
Video game interface, ongoing lore development of the DIE & RETRY project.
Direction: Flora bouteille
Développement 3D: Louis Ravard
Création sonore: Victor Villafagne
Newsletter No. 1, September 2025.
Performance as a cognitive warfare simulator?
What if practicing a multiplicity of realities, the coexistence of different points of view, and the simultaneous experience of multiple truths were the key to embracing a state of irreducible instability—a state that does not call for resistance through force, but rather new tools, new weapons?
In her book Technopolitique, Asma Mhalla proposes a symbiosis between the real and the virtual, between the public and the private, between the intimate and the nation, which would lead to a “symbiotic democracy.” This would be based on four pillars: a new democratic narrative, new freedoms—including cognitive freedom—the rebuilding of the school system, and finally the politicization and cognitive empowerment of citizens.
I found her proposal particularly interesting because “cognitive freedom” and “the cognitive empowerment of citizens” echo certain ideas that Victor Villafagne and I are exploring in our new creation, DIE & RETRY. In it, we analyze the discreet omnipresence of cognitive warfare in our daily lives, an invisible war that fabricates narratives, infiltrates our emotions, guides our behavior, and shatters our shared perception of reality.
For this research, we use aesthetics as a weapon and performance as a tool. Through this creation, we will experiment with simulation, anticipation, and immersion. We will attempt to create training spaces, places of practice where, through play and devices, we will teach our bodies that other versions of reality exist.
DIE & RETRY is currently supported by Providenza (main residency program June 25), the Fiminco Foundation (10-month residency season 25/26), Les Magasins Généraux (exhibition-residency 2026), DRAC Île-de-France, Le Lieu Unique (national theatre in Nantes), and Le Cube, Garges.
Please contact us with any questions, collaboration requests, or ideas for support.
DIE & RETRY EP.1 : REMAKE, 2024, Lafayette Anticipations.
DIE & RETRY (EP.1) revolves around the description of a murder that took place just before the public arrived. The scene is re-enacted by the Angels’ Front team from the point of view of the victim, then that of the potential assailants, and finally that of the ‘technical apparatus’, in this case, the cameras. The event is replayed over and over again until the audience votes on which version to believe.
Production, supports: Lafayette Anticipations, Artagon
Diffusion: Lafayette Anticipations
Research topics: Fetishisation, Group psychology, Post-truth
Methods: Reconstitution, Social psychology, Live filming & editing, Live VFX, Programming
Mediums: Performance, Video, Sound
Performers: Dima Emelianenko, Charlotte Lecuit, Claire Toubin, Etienne Caloone
Video apparatus, live music: Victor Villafagne
Video editing live: Mathilde Chazaud-Kretschmer, Antoine Mayet
Images: Marine Leleu, Mickael Vis
CANNIBALES EP.4 - BLACK BOX VERSION
La Villette, Initiatives d'artiste 2023-2024.
Creation season 2023-2024.
Winners of the FoRTE #6 programme, the company took up residency at La Villette as part of the Artists’ Initiatives programme to create a stage performance combining cinema, immersive theatre and visual arts.
Production, supports: Région ile-de-France (FoRTE), La Villette, Le Lieu Unique, FRAC Pays-de-la-Loire, Le 104.
Diffusion: La Villette
Research topics: Algorithmic biases, Empathy towards a virtual character, Group psychology, AI Ethics
Methods:Social psychology, Game design, Recording & editing live, VFX live
Mediums: Performance, Sculpture, Video, music
CANNIBALES EP. 1, 2 and 3.
PARIS PERFORMANCE PROGRAM 2023-2024, Pernod Ricard Foundation.
CANNIBALES is a performance series structured as an evolving game, inviting participants to make moral decisions that shape the personality and psychology of a virtual character. Across its first three episodes, the series developed an unfolding narrative, with each installment taking place in a different location within the Foundation.
Production, supports: Fondation Pernod Ricard, the 104, FRAC pays-de-la-Loire, ADAGP, Artagon
Diffusion: Pernod Ricard Foundation
Research topics: Algorithmic biases, Empathy towards a virtual character, Group psychology, AI Ethics
Methods: Social psychology, Game design, Recording & editing live, VFX live
Mediums: Performance, Sculpture, Video, music
ANGELS'FRONT
Direction: Flora Bouteille
Video direction and live music: Victor Villafagne
Video editing live: Mathilde Chazaud-Kretschmer
Photography: Marine Leleu
Performers: Dima Emelianenko, Charlotte Lecuit, Aurore Serra, Marie Rasabotsy
CANNIBALES EPISODE 3: Sorry, it´s the techno-feudal times.
5th of June 2024, PARIS PERFORMANCE PROGRAM, Pernod Ricard Foundation, outdoors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQXK0sbbGME&t=7s
CANNIBALES EPISODE 2: I ate you.
3rd of March 2024, PARIS PERFORMANCE PROGRAM, Pernod Ricard Foundation, auditorium.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNdsm8URmPo
CANNIBALES EPISODE 1: Enter Aurore.
3rd of December 2023, PARIS PERFORMANCE PROGRAM, Pernod Ricard Foundation, main hallway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yipiQ1gBNm8&t=39s
UNFAKE, Températures series, short film.
This film, directed in collaboration with Victor Villafagne, is an exploration of future psychoses in which we follow Aurore, a woman convinced she is an artificial intelligence. She is searching for certainty about her existence and authenticity.
Co-production Frac Centre-Val-de-Loire and Antre Peaux, with financial support from the Centre-Val de Loire Regional Council
Premiere: FRAC Centre-Val de Loire Biennial, 2023
Actors: Aurore Serra and Marie Rasabotsy
Director of photography: Jérémy Saintout
Assistant director: Gabriel Gallardo
Sound mixer: Luc Aureille
Makeup and FX Artist: Pauline Meola
Editor-in-chief: Mathilde Chazaud
Colorist: Chloé Terren
Illustrip: Vadim Epstein, Ryan Murdock, Jonathan Fly, @eduwatch2, Dekxi
Rave: a variational autoencoder for fast, high-quality neural audio synthesis by Antoine Caillon and Phillippe Esling.
Unfake Movie: https://vimeo.com/758750919