Q&A with Meriem Bennani
Welcome to the CAPS, a fictional island in the mid-Atlantic created as a result of teleportation gone awry. Our guide to this low-fi, sci-fi world built on Moroccan YouTube and amateur hip hop is a neon green CG crocodile with an implacable accent (she is voiced by Crotchet Fiona, a Spanish rapper originally from Equatorial Guinea) who cheerfully assures us that “CAPS” stands for “capsule,” not “capital.” The latter, however, undoubtedly applies. The CAPS series was shot in Morocco, and it makes no attempt to conceal this setting beyond digital effects that depict teleportation-related side effects like “mega ear” and “plastic face syndrome.” The colonial presence, meanwhile, is everywhere: in ads for a used car company called Atlantic Cars and the mostly offscreen menace of American troopers. Some CAPS residents collaborate with these occupiers, while others plot insurrection with tactics like cutting the fiber optic cables laid deep in the ocean. At one point it’s suggested that this gives rise to CAPS literature — hacked lines of code. The result is a delirious, frayed, and endlessly energetic scramble of digital signals. - Genevieve Yue