As a composer, Mathias Coppens himself provides the music, with an ambitious score that meditates on the formation of minerals. It is no coincidence that these are the building blocks of a planet that make existence possible. It is also no coincidence that Mathias links the idea of collective participation in the performance to the most important political and ideological question of the 21st century: how do we live together? How do we, as humanity, treat the earth, and what can this behaviour lead to?

Visually, I was responsible for an abstract translation of the score, with sinuous figurative motifs referring to geological processes. This aesthetic never becomes demonstrative, not even when the fog machine is brought out. On the contrary, with the artistic team we managed to create immersive worlds with minimal resources. It is the use of generative video and sparse lighting that makes the effect unparalleled.

‘Minerals’ (2024) – Mathias Coppens
Performed by:
Mathias Coppens, Composer
BRYGGEN Bruges Strings, Musical Performance
Jolente De Maeyer, Musical Director
Maya Fridman, Cello
Klaas Verpoest, video artist
Menno Buggenhout, App Development
Constantin Binard, Light & Sound Design

“Minerals” is a coproduction of De Singel
26 April 2024, Festival CARTA – Blauwe Zaal, De Singel (B)

All pictures © Björn Comhaire 2024

Initially, I was supposed to join Benjamin on this journey but was unfortunately prevented from going. A month later, we undertook a trip along to the locations that impressed Benjamin the most. I recorded these through 3D scans, with those impressions I went to work and created various worlds that the tour depicts internally and externally. As a viewer, you step along, as it were, to the rippling music.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) 6 Suites for cello, BWV 1007-1012
Performed by:
Benjamin Glorieux, cello
Klaas Verpoest & Johan Van Mol, video artist
Steven Reymer, Light Design

“Weg van Bach” is a coproduction of Klara Festival and Bozar
11 March 2023, Klara Festival – Bozar, Henry Le Boeuf Hall (B)

Imagine if we could analyse a recording of ‘Why Patterns?’ using the same mathematical algorithms employed to study exoplanets, and we were able to discover and analyse unique patterns. What if, based on these recurring patterns, we could attribute unique surface characteristics to the world of ‘Why Patterns?’, allowing us to shape this world and represent its evolution over time in an abstract visual narrative? What if this method also enabled us to interact with other so-called celestial bodies within the Feldman universe, such as the new compositions by Jean-Luc Fafchamps and David Fennessy?

Het Collectief – Chamber Music Quintet asked composers David Fennessy (IRL) and Jean-Luc Fafchamps (B), both of whom have a strong affinity with Feldman’s work, to compose new works for the same unique ensemble. I was asked to develop a visual counterpart for these three compositions.

In this project, Professor Leen Decin, an astrophysicist at the Institute of Astronomy at KU Leuven, and her team play a key role. Her research on exoplanets, which uses mathematical algorithms, offers an innovative approach to analyse the recording of Feldman’s ‘Why Patterns?’ in a similar way. By examining patterns in the music as one would with exoplanets, her contribution provides new insights that help shape the visual representation of the composition. This scientific perspective enriches the artistic interpretation, making the potential patterns in Feldman’s work visible to the audience.

The performance consists of the following works:
Why Patterns? (1978) Morton FELDMAN (1926-1987)
New work by (2026) David FENNESSY
For Morton Feldman (2025) Jean-Luc FAFCHAMPS
Why Patterns? (2026) Klaas VERPOEST

Performed by Het Collectief
Toon Fret, flute
Thomas Dieltjens, piano
Tom De Cock, percussion
Klaas Verpoest, video performance

In collaboration with
Prof. Leen Decin, Institute of Astronomy KUL
Mediated Environments Reserach Cluster, LUCA School of Arts

March 2026: Première Belgium – Kortrijk Festival, Kortrijk (B)
April 2026: Première Ireland – New Music Festival, Dublin (IRL)
27.05.2026: TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht (NL)

_{Het Collectief in coproduction with Kortrijk Festival (B), New Music Festival Dublin (IRL) and TivoliVredenburg Utrecht (NL)}

Is there life elsewhere in the Universe? How do we detect exoplanets? How do we hope to find life on exoplanets light-years away? What is “TRAPPIST-1”? What do exoplanets tell us about the famous “Fermi’s Paradox”?

The Copernican Revolution taught us that our Earth, far from being the center of the Universe, is only one among the many planets orbiting the Sun, which is itself similar in every respect to the stars lining the celestial vault. Later, astronomy revealed that there are hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way, our galaxy, and that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in our expanding Universe. Faced with such immensity, it is very tempting to hypothesize the existence of other inhabited planets out there, and even of other advanced civilizations. Long confined to speculations, the existence of exoplanets, i.e. planets in orbit around other stars than the Sun, became a proven fact at the end of last century. Since then, more than 4000 exoplanets have been detected at an ever-accelerating pace. A few dozens of these are “potentially habitable”, i.e. they could be rocky worlds harboring oceans of water on their surface, like our Earth. Imagining complex forms of life on some of these planets is but a small step away, one that is happily crossed by science-fiction. But our imagination will eventually be replaced by real scientific measurements, as upcoming giant telescopes will soon be able to probe the atmospheric compositions of some of these extrasolar worlds, and, who knows, to reveal chemical traces of life out there. If so, our view of the Cosmos will change forever…

This concert was performed and recorded on October 24, 2021, Flagey Brussels

Event organized by Science & Cocktails in collaboration with the International Solvay Institutes.

Performers:
Composer: Benjamin Glorieux
Cellists: Benjamin Glorieux, Bryggen String Orchestra
Vincent Caers: electronics
Klaas Verpoest: live video

‘The Solitary One’ is a performative installation transforming the most extreme and paradoxical object that our universe harbours – a black hole – into an immersive audiovisual experience.

Visual artist Klaas Verpoest, sound artist Vincent Caers and cellist-composer Benjamin Glorieux tend to unite art and science in their individual work. A shared fascination for the inexplicable aspects of a black hole and the concepts of space and time led to a joint venture in which they explore the artistic potential of their combined disciplines for illustrating these themes. Along the way they collaborated with theoretical physicist Stéphane Detournay. Their aim is not to provide a scientific explanation, which remains the scientist’s task, but instead to create an immersive installation offering the audience an opportunity for experiencing cosmological phenomena and the incredible forces driving them.

October 23, 2021 – Februari 27, 2022: ‘Cosmos’ Exhibition – CID Grand Hornu, Hornu [B]
October 23, 2021: Opening performance ‘Cosmos’ Exhibition – CID Grand Hornu, Hornu [B]
February 18, 2022: Closing performance ‘Cosmos’ Exhibition – CID Grand Hornu, Hornu [B]
September 8, 2023 – February 4, 2024: Space is the Place exhibition – MUDAC, Lausanne (CH)
December 7, 2023: Space is the Place performance – MUDAC, Lausanne (CH)

Credits:
Vincent Caers: Sound Artist
Benjamin Glorieux: Cellist/Composer
Stéphane Detournay: Scientific Advisor
Klaas Verpoest: Video artist