Damien Cuypers and Benoît François reveal the charming Stories of Philosophies

Date
8 November 2012

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It’s not often that two of our favourite creatives pop up out of the blue with a fully-functioning collaborative piece ready to go, but it’s happened! Damien Cuypers who has been making his way in the art and fashion world with his two-minute portraits and Benoît François of French curators bureau FiZZZ BZZZ! have been very busy making an animation project inspired by their lack of understanding of philosophy during their time at school together.

We asked Damien for a little bit of information on this charming digestive exploration of the world’s most prolific thinkers came about, and he replied with this delightful story on how it began…

“Benoît and I met in high school 15 years ago and have been friends ever since. We know all the dirtiest, bad-fashion secrets of each other from that time. I used to fall asleep in every philosophy class we had, no matter how interesting, so much that our teacher thought I was a narcoleptic. It’s just that her voice worked like a sleeping spell on me! Benoît tried to understand the lesson, usually understanding that he didn’t understand.

“We’ve wanted to work on something together for a long time so I booked a ticket to visit him in Berlin to maybe brainstorm and find inspiration. Two days prior to my getting there we talk again on the phone and some magic occurred: we had some sort of a ping-pong more than a dialogue, idea after idea as if in some sort of half-awakening and it just so happened the whole thing made sense and we knew what we’d work on.

“The project then took us about 10 months to finish the pilot and now it is set we’re looking for producers and TV channels who’d want to be part of the project. We are very proud and excited about it and we hope it’ll entertain and open new perspectives to the people who watch it, even those who sleep in class or think they don’t understand.”

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Damien Cuypers and Benoît François: Stories of Philosophies

Above

Damien Cuypers and Benoît François: Stories of Philosophies

Above

Damien Cuypers and Benoît François: Stories of Philosophies

Above

Damien Cuypers and Benoît François: Stories of Philosophies

Above

Damien Cuypers and Benoît François: Stories of Philosophies

Above

Damien Cuypers and Benoît François: Stories of Philosophies

Above

Damien Cuypers and Benoît François: Stories of Philosophies

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About the Author

Liv Siddall

Liv joined It’s Nice That as an intern in 2011 and worked across online, print and events, and was latterly Features Editor before leaving in May 2015.

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