Readings

March 29, 2014

Jasper Coppes
Stijn Verhoeff

Saturday March 8, 2014 at 16:00
Saturday March 29, 2014 at 16:00

Moderator:
Philosopher Rikke Kühn Riegels

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Two writers, one I. With It is a roller Jasper Coppes and Stijn Verhoeff jointly engaged in this experiment. The protagonist of their book wanders though the wet grass in his cotton slippers, from the kitchen window he keeps a close watch on his garden. Through the course of a single day we follow the thought trails of this ‘neurotic thinker’ as he strolls around on his property and surrounding. In his thoughts he takes off to distant places, philosophical matters and social issues, while his direct surrounding invites him to stay rooted to the ground.

‘All the more I enjoy my nightly excursions. I switch off the lights in my house, shut the door behind me and surrender to the dark. It is never really dark. Not outside. Because outside, the night is sometimes transparent like armored glass, at other times damp and diffuse. I inhale the fallen night, and I feel a cold foreboding flowing through my nostrils. A return of presumptions. The night has fallen so gracefully. Not like a wooly blanket or a dark cloak. It has definitely not fallen unfortunately, but certainly unavoidably. A deep, endless, recurring urgency, to which no man knows a better response, than to close his eyes. Because why would you keep staring? Looking only makes sense if there is something to see, right?’ (Scharrelaar / It is a roller, 2012, Jasper Coppes and Stijn Verhoeff)

This passage of the book has been the point of departure for the film and the installation on show at New Shelter Plan. To get back to their initial ideas Jasper Coppes and Stijn Verhoeff will read this and other passages from their book. The reading will be taken as an opportunity to open up a discussion around the ideas that are addressed in the book, in the film and in the exhibition. What does it mean these days to retreat into the country, to create one’s private environment? In what way are we connected to others, or to the past? How can we prevent ourselves from being distracted with all the information that reaches us with the speed of light? How can we live locally while thinking globally? And what does it mean to collaborate?

Visual artists Jasper Coppes (Amsterdam, 1983) and Stijn Verhoeff (Amsterdam, 1981) make films, spatial installations, sound-performances and. Silent objects, people who say no and areas where the natural and the cultural merge are topics that frequently appear in their work. They have independently and collaboratively participated in exhibitions, film festivals and lecture series across Europe and in the United States.