Jean-Louis Costes (born 13 May 1954) is a French

noise music Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise within a musical context. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical ...

ian,

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

ist and

film actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), lite ...

. Costes has been described as the French version of

GG Allin Kevin Michael "GG" Allin (born Jesus Christ Allin; August 29, 1956 – June 28, 1993) was an American punk rock musician who performed and recorded with many groups during his career. Allin was best known for his controversial live performances ...

, though unlike Allin's rudimentary brand of

hardcore punk Hardcore punk (also known as simply hardcore) is a punk rock music genre and subculture that originated in the late 1970s. It is generally faster, harder, and more aggressive than other forms of punk rock. Its roots can be traced to earlier punk ...

, Costes' music is largely

synth A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and f ...

-driven, relying heavily on looped beats, overmodulated vocals, and random outbursts of screaming and

glitch A glitch is a short-lived fault in a system, such as a transient fault that corrects itself, making it difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, in circuit bending, as well as among ...

fills.

Career

He was once married to

Lisa Crystal Carver Lisa Crystal Carver (born November 9, 1968, Dover, New Hampshire), also known as Lisa Suckdog, is an American writer known for her writing in ''Rollerderby''. Through her interviews, she introduced the work of Vaginal Davis, Dame Darcy, Cindy Da ...

with whom he performed in Suckdog. He helped write the backing music for the "noise opera" music of the Suckdog Circus. His albums include '' Hung by the Dick'' from Nihilist Records.

Shows

I
2003
he performed a so-called "porno-social opera" entitled the ''Holy Virgin Cult'' (''Le Culte de la Vierge'') across the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

with two other performers credited as "Tristan" and "Nesi". The performance was approximately 90 minutes long, with three distinct acts and shorter vignettes, and followed a prerecorded soundtrack. Each act began with the performers dressed in elaborate costumes; priests and a nun, a salesman, child and a housewife, ancient templegoers or gods, and ended with all three actors nude and performing simulated and semi-simulated social taboos, scaring audiences with a barrage of apparent flung

feces Feces ( or faeces), known colloquially and in slang as poo and poop, are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine, and has been broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. Feces contain a relati ...

urine Urine is a liquid by-product of metabolism in humans and in many other animals. Urine flows from the kidneys through the ureters to the urinary bladder. Urination results in urine being excretion, excreted from the body through the urethra. Cel ...

blood Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood in the c ...

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

d screaming, public

sex Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing animal or plant produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce smaller mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm, pollen), while females produce larger ones ( ova, of ...

and

religious symbolism A religious symbol is an iconic representation intended to represent a specific religion, or a specific concept within a given religion. Religious symbols have been used in the military in many countries, such as the United States military chapl ...

. The performance was written by Costes, reportedly based on his childhood in France. In 2007, Costes and Lisou Prout completed the "Les Petits Oiseaux Chient" ( en, Little Birds Shit) tour across the United States and Canada.

Music

Costes is considered as one of the first

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

DIY "Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and sem ...

French artists, self-releasing dozens of tapes and CDs from the early 1980s to nowadays. His discography is surprisingly rich and outlandish, melding

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when ...

spoken word Spoken word refers to an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a late 20th century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics of ...

electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...

, sometimes hip-hop or

metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...

, often parodying the French variety-song culture. It consists of more than seventy albums, some recorded in English, German or Japanese. In 2015, a show played on a grand piano was released as his first live album, ''Le fantôme d'Archie Shepp'' (''

Archie Shepp Archie Shepp (born May 24, 1937) is an American jazz saxophonist, educator and playwright who since the 1960s has played a central part in the development of avant-garde jazz. Biography Early life Shepp was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but ...

's ghost''). In 2020 he worked with

Kommissar Hjuler Kommissar Hjuler (born Detlev Hjuler; 1967) works as a sound recordist in the field of Noise and Post-industrial music, visual artist, film maker and police officer at Flensburg, a town on the German border with Denmark. He often works together wit ...

for the album "Völlig Bescheuerte Musik" (Psych.KG).

Writing

Costes also published a variety of books, including collections of short stories, novels, comic-strips or photo-novels. His first novel, ''Viva la merda!'', was published in 2003, by the

underground Underground most commonly refers to: * Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth Underground may also refer to: Places * The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston * The Underground (S ...

editor Hermaphrodite. In 2006, ''Grand-père'', a semi-fictional biography of his own grandfather (labeled as a "fascist and anti-french racist immigrant", according to the title of the short story published in 2002, which was developed into this novel), was published by the major

Fayard Fayard (complete name: ''Librairie Arthème Fayard'') is a French Paris-based publishing house established in 1857. Fayard is controlled by Hachette Livre. In 1999, Éditions Pauvert became part of Fayard. Claude Durand was director of Fayard ...

editor (which for instance published

Michel Houellebecq Michel Houellebecq (; born Michel Thomas, 26 February 1956 or 1958) is a French author, known for his novels, poems and essays, as well as an occasional actor, filmmaker and singer. His first book was a biographical essay on the horror writer ...

's fourth novel '' La possibilité d'une île'' the year before). On 1 April 2006, he was a guest at the Saturday evening show '' Tout le monde en parle'' (his only appearance on mainstream television), where he read an excerpt of the book (for two minutes straight, in complete silence of the host and the other guests, which itself was an oddity with regards to the usual hectic routine of that show) ; the show's host

Thierry Ardisson Thierry Ardisson (; born 6 January 1949, Bourganeuf, Creuse), is a French television producer and host and a movie producer. Many of his shows have some of the longest run times on French television, such as ''Paris Dernière'', ''Tout le mo ...

expressed how much he was impressed by the writing style, which he likened to that of

Louis-Ferdinand Céline Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches (27 May 1894 – 1 July 1961), better known by the pen name Louis-Ferdinand Céline ( , ) was a French novelist, polemicist and physician. His first novel ''Journey to the End of the Night'' (1932) won the ''Pri ...

. His next novel, ''Un bunker en banlieue'' (''A Bunker in the Suburbs''), about a violent outburst from a middle-aged man called Jean-Louis, described as an "eternal loser" and waging his personal revenge against the whole world, was refused by Fayard, as well as 23 other publishers, before it was finally published in 2007 by the underground Eretic publishing house.

Filmography

He appeared in the controversial movies ''

Baise-moi ''Baise-moi'' is a 2000 French crime thriller film written and directed by Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi and starring Karen Lancaume and Raffaëla Anderson. It is based on the novel by Despentes, first published in 1993. The film recei ...

'' (2000), ''

Irréversible ''Irréversible'' () is a 2002 French experimental psychological thriller film written and directed by Gaspar Noé. Starring Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel and Albert Dupontel, the plot depicts the events of a tragic night in Paris as two men a ...

'' (

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

) and '' Life Pornography'' (

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

). Following the shooting of ''Irréversible'', he published a text entitled "Irrécupérable" ("Irredeemable"), recounting this experience and his disappointment about it, laughing at the fact that even

Gaspar Noé Gaspar Noé (, ; born 27 December 1963) is an Argentine filmmaker based in Paris, France. He is the son of Argentine painter, writer, and intellectual Luis Felipe Noé. In the early 1990s, Noé along with his wife Lucile Hadžihalilović were ...

Vincent Cassel Vincent Cassel (; ; born 23 November 1966) is a French actor. He first achieved recognition for his performance as a troubled History of the Jews in France, French Jewish youth in Mathieu Kassovitz's 1995 film ''La Haine (Hate)'', for which he ...

Albert Dupontel Albert Dupontel (; born 11 January 1964) is a French actor, film director and screenwriter. Following his father's path, he studied medicine but eventually switched to theater, disillusioned by hospital life. He started his career as a stand-up c ...

(each known for their controversial works) were shocked by his behaviour and genuine underground credentials, or that they were willing to produce filthy movies but unwilling to get anywhere near actual filth or filthy people, labeling Noé as a "stuffed rotten

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

controlled by the

CNC Numerical control (also computer numerical control, and commonly called CNC) is the automated control of machining tools (such as drills, lathes, mills, grinders, routers and 3D printers) by means of a computer. A CNC machine processes a p ...

created by Pétain" and Cassel as a " spoilt brat starlet".

"Yeah, ’cause my career in cinema, it's the guy who gets cornholed (as in ''Baise-moi'' by
Virginie Despentes Virginie Despentes (; born 13 June 1969) is a French writer, novelist, and filmmaker. She is known for her work exploring gender, sexuality, and people who live in poverty or other marginalised conditions. Work Despentes' work is an inventory of ...
) or the guy who masturbates his ass. Costes, the Mister Anal of french cinéma. Well, you see, it sounds lousy, but it's gonna get me some job, since none of those Dupontel-
Cassoulet Cassoulet (, also , ; ; from Occitan and cognates with Spanish: ''cazoleta'' and Catalan: ''cassolet'') is a rich, slow-cooked stew containing meat (typically pork sausages, goose, duck and sometimes mutton), pork skin () and white beans (), ...
wants to get butt-fucked in front of a camera, so I get the
monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...
of 'artistic' onscreen ass!"

Bibliography

* * *Costes, Jean-Louis (2007) ''Un bunker en banlieue''. Eretic. * Léo Guy-Denarcy (dir.), ''L'Art brutal de Jean-Louis Costes'', éd. exposition radicale, 2012.

References

External links

Official Costes site
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20051104112834/http://www.a-lab.org/article_us5b48.html?id_article=82 PRISM Escape interview regarding The Holy Virgin cult tourbr> Fecal Master newest Release

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070510012804/http://3voor12.vpro.nl/artikelen/artikel/34530579 Costes performance cancelled in club 013, Tilburg, text in Dutchbr>Costes at the International Noise Conference in Miami 2007 (caution: graphic)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Costes, Jean-Louis 1954 births Living people French male singers French male film actors Noise musicians