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| Doppelgängers |
In the first part of my interview with the artist and space researcher Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian about her highly creative documentary, Doppelgängers, we discussed contrasting visions of what space exploration means, the importance of taking a decolonial approach, and means by which we might exceed our current capacity as humans. In part two we look at alien aesthetics, Armenian tradition, how space invites us to question our understanding of our physical bodies, and the music that helping bring Nelly’s complex vision to life onscreen.
“I mentioned our blind spots within knowledge, but I also think there is another one,” she says,” excited by the questions it presents in the way that other people get excited about facts. “Of course, I come from a creative angle. The other one I think is really important for us to consider, and we can consider right now, it's not a future question. It's actually a very contemporary question which is about aesthetics and what sort of aesthetics, what sort of narratives are being broadcast to members of the public.
“One thing that I'm speaking a lot about is the fact that rockets don't need to be white, for example – but yet they are white. And so I guess that starts there. It's about questioning these visions that are being shared with members of the public who are designing them, and also taking ownership of that agency that we have as graphic designers, as creatives, in trying to broadcast another form of aesthetics that is not just pure black and white, that doesn't exist within these binaries, that's actually really pluralistic as well. And so a big part of what I'm always talking about is this notion of alien aesthetics. What do they look like? You know, you can see my nails already.”
I’ve been admiring her nails throughout the interview. They’re multi-toned and iridescent, clearly painted with great care.
“The way I like to seek inspiration is coming from nail artists and people that are looking at different materialities and different textures, like in paintings. There's so much work being done in pigments. But then also if you go all the way to indigenous and ancestral culture, all the way to Neanderthals with Lascaux Cave and so forth, it’s like trying to understand and trying to embrace rituals as part of this next phase of your humanity and acknowledge that, and bring it with us as opposed to just eradicating it.
“I'm half Armenian, half Algerian, and in Armenia we have this tradition of making carpets. And each carpet, whenever you go anywhere in Armenia, you can recognise where this carpet come from, because the pomegranate pattern that is beneath to it is just so different from one region to the other. And this is inherited from tribes that were there before, even after the Armenian genocide happened in 1914 and 1915. So they are always a form of resistance, these patterns. They are there as a form of resistance.
“For me, it's always been really interesting to see how textile and textile history can also have a role to play in the definition of these textures and these aesthetics that we're going to share with members of the public to get everyone to take part in this reclamation of these features and these utopias that we are trying to build in outer space and also on this planet. And I do think there is a value in considering, first, how we can acknowledge the past in this journey, but then also how can we center values such as compassion, care, inclusivity at the core of what we are proposing.
“I think what we currently have on offer is basically dictated by people that do not understand genuinely what space mission design is about. I have to be really clear there, that someone that is considered on this planet to be disabled is much more able to exist in microgravity. Your way to actually be mobile on this planet is obviously informed by the experience that you've had. If your body has been in a wheelchair, for example.”
I explain that I’m in that situation myself, and she tells me it would be a positive advantage in space.
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| Doppelgängers 5 |
“You would actually be teaching anyone that believed that they are abled; you would be the one that is taking them by the hand and showing them the way. I think this is the thing that we need to really understand, that all of these systems that we have built are completely irrelevant to space. And I think for me space is really the urgency to shift from this really patriarchal, ancestral way of thinking that we have inherited from the industrial revolution.”
There seems to be another central question in the film which is about people's roots and about race and experiences of ancestry, and thinking about how much that influences the different ways that we're able to conceptualize the future. Does she think that we come to different futures if we come from different pasts, and that we can use that to help us get a richer understanding of the possibilities?
“For sure,” she says. “That's what Kari Stefansson, the neurologist [interviewed in the film], is also saying. If you were to take a person from the Armenian population before the genocide and the Armenian population after the genocide, you will find a completely different blood pattern. The generation that comes after the traumatic event is much more inclined to mental health issues, namely schizophrenia and like things that are actually connected directly to your genetic heritage.
“That's what Uday Mehta, who is a political scientist, is talking about with this notion of madness as well. People that are considered to be mad on this planet are much more able to think outside of the box when it comes to going in outer space. So the paper is definitely saying that people that have experienced traumatic experience or a different type of heritage than the patriarchal Western white abled men will probably be much more able to come up with different reflections.
“The documentary, I think, is perhaps inconclusive in a way. Not for my doppelgängers, who have gained a lot of new knowledge in their experience going into space. I feel like the documentary had to end at a certain point, and perhaps we could have done a presentation of the paper and the findings. But as a viewer, I would say it's unfair to say that you leave the cinema thinking that we have reached something different, because I didn't feel this way while I was doing it. Maybe the doppelgänger experiment is not going as planned, but you've learned something along the way with all of the minorities that come and present their vision.”
It feels like the start of a journey rather than the end of something, I suggest, and she agrees.
There are so many big ideas in the film – how did she approach developing it in a way that would help as many people as possible to understand those ideas and develop enough interest to go and find out more?
“I always forget to say it, but obviously there is a lot of people involved in making this film happen,” she says. “From the inception of the film, I wanted it to be about deconstruction. You know, obviously, Frantz Fanon and Derrida are big influences, and then trans feminists and others really influenced the way I think. I don't come from a film background. I'm much more within this obviously creative but then also political philosophy kind of background. So with that in mind, I wanted from the beginning to build this film as a piano piece, you know, like a bit like jazz.
“I've always listened to Sun Ra and a lot of jazz as I make films or as I make paintings, and so I like to think about all of these polyphonic aspects. I wanted to be polyphonic like that in the way that the film was built. So you have four editors on this film, and they each bring something completely different to the table. They each work at the same time as the others, which is complete chaos, right? Yet at some point, they have to fine tune with each other because we have to deliver a film and there is a deadline attached to it. So there were four editors attached. Then when it comes to the music, there were also four people doing that: Pussy Riot.
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| Doppelgängers |
“That was also about traumatic for her because it was when Putin was killing all of her friends, basically, such as Navalny. And then she made this music that was called Rage, which is in the film when I find water. It’s basically a curse. It was supposed to exist as a curse to Putin. So she burned up the face of Putin and then made a witch kind of ceremony, and that became a music. And this music is inside the film, when I believe I found life. And so it exists as a curse within the film and that you can hear on a regular basis.
“Asmodessa, who is an amazing DJ from London, did another piece of music. That was when I meet with Myriam [one of the doppelgängers] and Miriam is kind of having a conversation with Lucia [Kagramanyan – another] through the sink. Then we had Mirrored Fatality, a young punk noise artist band that, if you look at the film, they introduce the thing. Initially it was supposed to be a quote by [Sergei] Parajanov. Parajanov is obviously the Armenian maestro. I'm sure you've seen The Color Of Pomegranates.
“I went to interview the director of the Parajanov Museum. We had a whole section about the Parajanov Museum initially, and then that didn't make it into the final cut. And then I thought, although I have a lot of respect for Parajanov, I wanted the introduction of this film to be by Mirrored Fatality. Because when they did the music, they were about 26 or 27, and for me, they represent a certain generation and they represent a refusal of what society has got to offer. And they believe that noise and noise music can be used as a form of healing. I found that absolutely mind-blowing and super interesting. And also they are farmers. They are multi-polyphonic humans as well. They call themselves creatures. And so their music is inside the film as well.
“The film came out for South by Southwest in Austin, and the film was supported by the Mirrored Fatality duo. And then one band member, Lawu, passed away in March in a car accident. And we now have to understand this film as something else because, of course, it's got their music, it's got an essence of their soul that they brought into this project with such force, such belief, such passion. And now the film is also, for me, a space for grief. So every time I see this film, I'm reminded of how we are not eternal beings, but also I'm reminded about our ancestors. I think now I have to understand that Lawu and Mirrored Fatality is partly there as an ancestor, and also that their legacy within the film changed the meaning of the film and how it's being perceived.
“Sundance supported some of the film, and the British Film Institute. Then there is a scientific body called the Kármán Project, which is all about global peace projects with space leaders that also funded the space experiment, and the SETI Institute, the search for silent aliens, that funded the film. So it's not so many parties there, but they supported us to make it to the end, so we’re grateful.”
Doppelgängers screened as part of Docs Ireland 2025.
