Private: Beside, too

Greg Nijs & Clémentine Coupau / Brussels, Belgium — Okt 24, 2016

besides, too is a collaborative project in speculative fabulation between writer/sociologist Greg Nijs and visual artist Clémentine Coupau which comprises a web series of several small video episodes: a lo-fi, soft sci-fi multispecies webnovela. The project joins the SUPRAINFINIT universe in that the story is situated here, but not here, now, but not now: a here-too and a now-too narrating an otherwise-possible. Taking a step aside from dominant imaginaries, in besides, too there is no center stage for no human hero, rather the human-only stance is deflated to include the other-than-human. To that end, it brings a realm in which timespacematter is simultaneously compressed and expanded. Matter becomes an event, and the impalpable becomes a persistent presence. Symbolism is done away with while meaning is modified. Subjunctive storytelling, poetry and uncreative writing amalgamate with low-res video, gif and other lo-fi effects to bring together a phone, a girl, a lion, a fire, a ghost, some plants and their containers. Amata the girl has tender gestures towards Lif the lion, under the benevolent glow cast by Astrée the fire. In the meantime, Cosima the phone is reaching out close to Percival the ghost, who shines on a shelf surrounded by the Luzies, a gang of plants whose roots are floating and growing – some in soil, some in transparent containers.

Greg Nijs (*1980, BE) is co-director at c-o-m-p-o-s-i-t-e, a Brussels-based non-profit art space (http://www.c-o-m-p-o-s-i-t-e.com). By staging exhibitions, Greg tackles knowledge production in the field of art and society at large. To do so, he draws on a range of social scientific and philosophical sources (science & technology studies, cultural studies, cognitive science, pragmatism, …). In his spare time, he is a committed writer and sms poet.
Clémentine Coupau (*1988, FR) graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux and the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Kunst in Frankfurt (class Simon Starling). Since 2015 she lives and works in Brussels, developing her work between object making, film writing and production of atmospheres & environments.