A show dedicated to the memory of French rebel playwright and author Jean Genet. As an exhibition in two stages, Act One is curated by artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz while Act Two features, among other things, Mona Hatoum's ceramic grenades. At Nottingham Contemporary until 2 October 2011
Photograph: Holger/Galerie Max Hetzler
Ron Arad's shimmering cylinder of hanging silicon rods is set to fill Camden's Roundhouse like a disco shower-curtain, creating a live-performance space as well as a walkthrough film screen. There'll be music from the London Contemporary Orchestra, while Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything is Illuminated, will deliver a 'rude oracle'. From Tuesday to 29 August 2011
Photograph: Ron Arad/Camden Roundhouse
James Capper has designed his own set of metal jaws, with which he will scour the ground, aided by an excavator vehicle. These will bite into issues such as urban regeneration, while drawings and blueprints illuminate the artist's thinking back at the gallery. At Modern Art Oxford until 22 September 2011
Photograph: Cass Sculpture Foundation
His films are less movies than evocative fragments. With an overall theme of nocturnal reverie, the experimental works on show here give a fantastic impression of drifting in and out of sleep. At Irish Museum of Modern Art until 31 October 2011
Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian
Sculptor Matthew Houlding curates a moving exhibition of more than 100 paintings, photographs, sculptures, audio works and films on a theme of half-doomed optimism. At Ceri Hand gallery until 3 September 2011
Photograph: Ceri Hand gallery
The title is lifted from Sol LeWitt: 'Conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.' This show by nine artists includes the psychic questionings of Susan Hiller (pictured) and Cornelia Parker's The Collected Death of Images. At Ingleby Gallery until 29 October 2011 Photograph: Todd-White Art Photography
In Rick Davies's Gursky-like photos of the changing Welsh landscape, spires of ancient churches are echoed by factories, while train tracks, metal pipes and monster mining operations seem to overshadow the distant mountains. Both industry and countryside appear equally lonely and abandoned. At Ffotogallery at the Dairy, Thursday to 27 August 2011
Photograph: Rick Davies/Ffotogallery
Artist duo Sue Corke and Hagen Betzwieser present 101 Harmless Scientific Experiments to Try at Home, a six-week art laboratory with workshops and family days, plus auditions for astronauts, time-machine building, and how to go anti-gravity. At Acme Project Space, London E2, from Thursday to 25 September 2011
Photograph: Acme Project Space
