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- [00:03]
A
Daft Punk and the robots. It was really performance art. I had absolutely no intention of making music as a living. After 30 years of playing with tools and technology, was I just the product of technology or could I be a musician without any of that technology?
- [00:21]
B
To go back to the personal process of your 12 year old self, you didn't come from classical music, but there were some piano lessons, I believe, that were formative. Can you tell me about the origin story, the hero's journey and a 12 year old Thoma? What were you listening to and what was guiding you as you and Guy took that journey together?
- [00:41]
A
I guess what drove us together is the love of art. What is very interesting is that we met at 12 years old. I mean, I was 12, he was 13.
- [00:51]
B
This is Guimanuel de Omen's Cristo.
- [00:53]
A
Yes, Guimanuel de Ohman Cristo. And. And for five years we pretty much didn't create anything together. We just went to the movie.
- [01:02]
B
Because you were in high school, because you were 12.
- [01:04]
A
Yes, but we didn't have a creative. I mean, it was the love of art in general and the love of pop culture. And eventually, I think five years later, when we were 17, we said, oh yeah, let's try to do a rock band like Darling.
- [01:19]
B
Yes, short lived Darlin. How long did Darlin last?
- [01:24]
A
A few months. A few months. But we did it also with Laurent Brankovitz, who ended up creating Phoenix with his friends as well. So speaking of surprise, you know, all of this was completely unexpected and very surprising because even at that time I had absolutely no intention of making music as a living.
- [01:41]
B
And so it felt like a short era. But actually there was a review of Darlin that might have defined the name of your future band. Can you tell us about that insult perhaps? And what did that insult give you?
- [01:55]
A
There was in the Melody Maker, a really bad review of this Darling record that we had released on Duophonic, which is Stereolab's label. And it really said something like, it's daft punky trash. And so this is when we this decided to stop making electronic music after that moment at the Centre Pompidou, after discovering that music and looking at these people that were dancing and this energy that was around this music without knowing what music was being played. And the energy was very different than in the rock concert at that time. And we didn't have any names and we basically turned this bad review into something good.
- [02:42]
B
You know, never let a good crisis go to waste is a very, very useful lesson for musicians, artists, humans, And I think 10 years after that fateful meeting with Guy, the album Homework arrives.
- [02:54]
A
Yeah.
- [02:54]
B
With around the World and defunct. And suddenly a very specific French Parisian club sound becomes a global language. But then we move through discovery, of course, into Random Access Memories. And what I found interesting is that happens two years after Spotify launches. And this is an interesting moment, I suspect, in terms of the advent of Spotify and Apple music. Get lucky. Five Grammys in 2014. How did the advent of Spotify and the streamers perhaps evolve the way you thought? Or again, were you just not thinking about the distribution or the audience? You were just making magnificent music that was widely celebrated.
- [03:33]
A
The interesting thing is that as much as not thinking about the audience, any creative act, I feel, is the response to the environment around you at a certain time. So if you're asking me to go back in my mindset in 2010 or the years leading up to Random Access Memories, I feel that there was both a desire to think that, okay, we are at a time where the technology is allowing a lot of things musically that you can create in very easy way. And that there was this opportunity to pay a certain respect to a certain craftsmanship that was really fading, both generationally, because there was a lot of people that were very good at creating a lot of these records that we loved, and they were aging, and there was this desire to interact with this older generation. And then there was really this idea of almost creating a film without camera for an album as well. Random Access memories. There are 150 people that worked on the record, and somehow it really felt we were directing this album almost as a director, which was very different from the process of the first Daft Punk. Three albums that happened very intimately in My Child's Bedroom, where we were just working in a very reclusive way. And here it's the total opposite, being in Paris and Hollywood and with orchestra. And there was something. I felt it was a little bit nostalgic on one hand, but it's almost also the idea of saying, okay. You look at the eras in the 70s you had on Sunset Boulevard, these huge billboards with these iconic albums. And rather than taking a time machine to say, okay, I want to live in 1977, there was more desire of saying, okay, we want to take what was magic there and kind of. And take it and bring it in 2012 or 2013. And it feels like that's the way of turning the nostalgia or the romantic side of, oh, things were better before into something very hopeful, which is. No, no, no, no. Actually, things were not Better before, for so many people it was worse. But there's actually great things that are disappearing and there's an urgency to look back, doing Get Lucky. We were working with the session musicians, but not recording them at the same time, you know, so we had Nile Rogers and I remember, like working with each musician and I could see the excitement in the bass player and Nathan is playing and that excitement would translate, passed along, passed to the sound engineer, that would translate to the people in the studio, that eventually translated to the audience. And this was obviously at that point, it's an accident. You know, all of these things are completely accidental, but you can only witness that if there's something genuinely communicative. There's really this unlimited potential of it.
- [06:51]
B
Since choosing Life after the Robot Suit of Daft Punk, it's been fascinating to see the context in which you've chosen to appear so personally. For me, the last time was at the Pompidou. That was another moment in an iconic setting amongst the Wolfgang Tillman's exhibition. After 16 years not DJing, what brought you back to Beaubourg for that final moment before it closes?
- [07:13]
A
For five years, all of this is very personal. The Centre Pompidou was really the place where I discovered Aften culture. This was before Internet. When I was a teenager with Giman, my partner in Daftunk, I think we
- [07:29]
B
would go
- [07:31]
A
every Saturday and every Wednesday to the bp, the Bibliothec of Information. And we would basically surf the different alleys of the library and going through microfilms and making Xerox copies, cutups, and really discovering Andy Warhol, the factory architecture, Richard Neutra, I don't know, like anything that it was really this process of this web of culture. And that was really Almost, yes, around 12, 13, 14 years old. And then a few years after, in 1992, at the sixth floor, that's really where I discovered electronic music. And there was this rave organized with a few hundred people. So there was definitely this connection of this place, which has been so important for me on so many level as a Parisian. And when this closing happened, it made sense to do this.
- [08:36]
B
Yeah, it reminds me of the Winston Churchill quilt. This is not the end. This is end of the beginning for the Pompidou. So I think we're so excited about what happens next. But. But when I interviewed Nile Rogers last year, I remember him telling me that with the immediacy of streaming services, he felt what devalued was the actual physical listening experience. And he said, in the old days you had to Be where the music was. Was there an invitation from Laurent Le Bon that brought you physically into that moment? What brought you back after those 16 years to that physical place?
- [09:08]
A
I've always been interested in the ritualistic nature of. Of art. And it's true that a lot of the technology and distribution systems over the last 30 years have devaluated this ritualistic power and the symbolic power. You know, I was never interested in the economical value of things, of art, rather than the symbolic value of art. And so I feel it was an opportunity here because this place is a temple, you know, and it's a temple of beauty, of culture, of thoughts, of ideas, of arts and understanding. Also the relationship between society, technology, all these things that I've been interested in all these years. And it made also sense because again, you know, Daft Punk and the robots, it was really performance art. I really. I've always thought this was just like a very elaborate, 20 years long marina Abramovic act where, okay, we dress as robot. And at that point, you just don't want to spoil this game or this line between fiction and reality. So there was not an opportunity to be able to do this. And it's not something that I would have loved sometimes, the opportunity to have these things coexist. But this was a dispositive which required a lot of discipline and a lot of secrecy. The secrecy enhanced the mystique, but it had also some limitation on the inability to be there with people right now and to be able to communicate. Because it's not just about creating through opacity, you know, and this removal of the human face.
- [10:45]
B
When you came back to the Pompidou, there was unmasking.
- [10:49]
A
It started the project with a very high sense of this anonymity manifesto which you had in the underground dance culture. You know, my favorite dance music act is from Detroit called Underground Resistance. And this was a DJ collective that would just hide their face. And it's true that there was really this idea at the beginning to go within the corporate music industry and to just like hide your face as a way to bring these ideas of electronic music and to stand against the obligation to be okay, you're an artist, you need to show your face. So this was the first step. After the first album, it felt like, you know, we had run out of ideas of masks. You know, we'd use all these things and we say, okay, it's kind of. It's becoming boring. And that's where the idea of working with filmmaking techniques and science fiction and special effects, practical special Effects came about where it was probably the main inspiration is Friedznang Metropolis, you know, when you have that robot and obviously you have it in George Lucas. Star wars with C3PO, which is very inspired by Metropolis, and Darth Vader, which is very inspired by Akira Kurosawa and samurai movies. So what really was exciting to me during these robot years was filmmaking, production. And you're almost doing this 20 year long feature film. But it's the audience which becomes a director and there's no camera because the camera becomes the society itself. And how popular culture is connecting and making that choice, you know, it's only an offer, but everything that grew after completely out of proportions with the amazing attention and unexpected success, was really the choice of the audience itself. But the audience was the director. So it felt a little strange because you're not in control at that moment. You just are creating a series of situations.
- [12:53]
B
We're here at the Foundation Beiler in Switzerland, the heart of Art Basel. And Saturday, thousands of people, some of them undoubtedly here, came to watch you at an immersive event you created with Julien Charriere and Rampa as the finale of Art Basel week. I know that there were no phones allowed. I did hear by word of mouth that the set list included Fame by Irene Cara, anthems from Daft Punk and chic, and 10 minutes of Eleanor Roosevelt reading. Can you please tell us a little bit more about Warehouse artifacts?
- [13:25]
A
What we wanted to do is to put in context the Declaration of Human Rights in this very polarized times that we live right now with the principles of house music, and how there was a parallel between the Reve culture, the Klepp culture that originated in Chicago, and how we could create this dialogue between these texts. And we used a recording of Eleanor Roosevelt's voice in 1948, which is reading the Declaration of Human Rights. We this recording on a tape machine with almost a distress amplification system. And it was enclosed in a glass monolith. So we sealed this recording in this glass monolith almost 4 meters high. Glass monolith about 10 days ago. And for 10 days it was continuously rolling nonstop. You couldn't really hear the signal because the amplification was being obstructed by the glass monolith. And it was a lot of sound that we had created around mostly a drum sound, which is the TR808 drum sound, which is basically this most single important sound in techno and electronic house music. And we took that sound, which is a doom, and we stretch it about a thousand times, and Made it circulate around. It is an artifact, it is a sonic artifact, and it's also a cultural artifact. That was the part of the installation. The second part was really on Saturday where 4,000 people came and pretty much danced around this structure. They couldn't really hear it because it was enclosed. And at some point there was another tape machine on stage and we were able to press play and to listen to this beautiful reading. And eventually people start to dance again. It was neither a rave, neither an art installation. It was maybe both at the same time.
- [15:32]
B
I'd love to move on to the stage and dance, which is something that both of us are very passionate about, became something very prominent in your life. So I'd love to ask you where that passion from dance came from and also explore both Mythologies and Mirage.
- [15:48]
A
My father was a music producer and composer, and my mother was a ballet dancer, both classical and contemporary. And so I was really raised in the world of ballet. And this was really my life as a child. So somehow, after an overdose of technology, maybe I really felt that I wanted
- [16:12]
B
to
- [16:15]
A
go back to something that is extremely tangible and extremely physical. And there's nothing more physical and tangible and ephemeral, I feel, even in art forms than choreography and dance. Because it's just in the moment, you know, I mean, we're here at the Fondation. You can have all these masterpieces there on the walls, but if you think about Mercy Cunningham, about Pina Bosch and all the greatest choreographers, it's really forces you to enjoy something that cannot be captured in the moment. And also, we're really in this fight right now between technology and virtual worlds and human beings. But it feels, when you think about. About ballet, that it's simple, you know, there's not really competition. And as a dancer, you're there and you just live through the motions of your body in the most essential, essential way. So there was this really ritualistic aspect. Mythology was the first project that I did after Daft Punk. It was, for me, an intention of wanting to make music. And it was an experiment. I was asking myself, after 30 years of playing with tools and technology, was I just a product of technology? Or could I be a musician without any of that technology? So this was, I feel, more a test. And I ended up stopping to use any machines for two years and reading orchestration 3D. I don't have a classical background from Berlioz and Rimsky Korsakov, and just like, trying to really go in this almost retro, futuristic way of thinking, but doing things from the 70s like we had done. But here it's more like the 1770s or the 18th and 70s. So it was a different way of retrofuturism. And when the Bordeaux Opera commissioned this mythology piece, it was really by looking at that venue, which is a 900 people venue with the 20 dancers, the 55 piece music orchestra, the 40 technicians. And I felt, okay, here I'm interested in this ritual because I feel here that it's actually much more heighten, you know, in some way the ritualistic nature of it, rather than other ways of distributing music at a certain time that can be diluted. So this was really a combination that brought me towards that. And speaking about ritual, the Damien Jalet and Koi Nawa project Mirage was even more radical way of going in that direction because the nature of the Mirage ballet is a ritual in itself. So it's a very ritualistic aspect of these 16 dancers. And we did it initially in a workshop and it premiered in a primary forum in the south of Japan in Fukuokai, in a theater for just 100 people. And so, you know, I've said it before, but the daftunk like billions of views of numbers on YouTube are on the Internet. These billions of views on the Internet, I cannot assimilate this thing. It remains something that I cannot really apprehend. And whereas I can be here and preying that moment in a much more tangible way.
- [19:35]
B
We're talking about the physical space. We're here in this incredible Lorenzo piano building. And I know that one of your mentors, perhaps Yannis Dinakis or an influence, also was a disciple of Courvoisier. And I'm curious to really think about the built environment and what discoveries you've made or what is exciting to you about architecture of today.
- [19:55]
A
You know, in some way I said that filmmaking is the ultimate creative form. But I think probably I'm wrong. You know, I think architecture probably goes above filmmaking because architecture is probably the creative form of all art forms where there's no more limits between fiction and reality. And you've crossed it and you actually were able to put that fiction and make it a reality. We are so fortunate to be able to enter into the fictional mind of these creators and to be able to inhabit those spaces. It's hard to put it into words. You know, again, it's interesting. My relationship to creation and my relationship to art is mostly happening at a deeper level which does not express itself through words. That's probably why I'm not really interested in the creative usage of artificial intelligence for Many reasons, but the main one probably is because it goes through a verbal expression which is prompting. And I feel really the most interesting part of the creative process is happening not at all on an intellectual level, on an expressive level, where you actually go into a process which is about understanding your feelings. And I feel it's the same, you know, where we're sitting here about architecture. So I liked this idea, when I was taking some time to answer you, that I'm actually at a loss of words, because it's exactly that thing that I'm trying to feel.
- [21:30]
B
I just had the pleasure of also speaking with Linder, whom you and I were with together in a small Kyoto nightclub, listening to Richie Houghton's Somewhere Late one Night about a month ago. And Linda said that among her boxes where she creates collages, she likes to have the flowers and she likes to have the trees, and. And sometimes she will put in a rocket ship or an octopus image, just so when she reopens the box, she manages to surprise herself. So that feeling of discovery feels like one that you are chasing or seeking. Would that be fair to say?
- [22:03]
A
Completely. I feel that is the number one goal of this entire process, is surprise. People ask me sometimes what was with our reaction or interaction or with people's expectation or with the idea of an audience? And I've always answered that I've never thought about an audience at any point of the process in the most respectful way. I think in the creative process, it's an experiment. There's this film, Altered States from Ken Russell, where you have the protagonist, which is creating all this weird experiment on himself. And I feel I've been able to do that for the last 35 years.
- [22:43]
B
You know, I remember when I interviewed Pharrell Williams for this podcast, apropos Collaborators, he said, if you have all the ideas and you have all the answers, well, how boring is that? And so I wanted to ask you, in terms of how you choose your collaborators, you've had some of the most magnificent collaborators across film, music, dance. You mentioned Nile Rogers, Georgia Moroder, the Weeknd junior, Damien Joll, choreographers, filmmakers, orchestras. Fred again, most recently, what makes a good collaborator?
- [23:14]
A
It's these unexpected encounters. I think it's. I mean, it's a combination of fantasies from your childhood, when we got the opportunity to work with Giorgio Moda and with Nile Rogers. And there's really these things, like, there's a one in a million chance to be able to have that interaction. And at the same time, I mean, the last five years of the series of Projects I've been doing have been happening completely organically and flowing into these surprise encounters. And with not having any kind of technology in between, almost always face to face encounters as if there was not even a post office needed or an email service needed either. So it's really a combination of both. But the surprises, you know, the ability to not knowing where this creative process will take me and not taking anything from granted, you know, that's something that
- [24:16]
B
AI with prompt decidedly can't do. The surprise is why we feel so smug sometimes as creative people that the surprise is harder to reach.
- [24:26]
A
Yes, I think this is definitely something that AI really focuses right now on the results, on the result. It's all about the output. My creative process is absolutely not about the output. I don't decide anything. I think the artists that have the idea that they're in control and I'm deciding this is my master plan, I think it's bullshit a little bit, because I really think it's not the way to respect the fact that we're not in control of anything and that this feeling drives the process. And then the output is really the whole journey to maintain that process in the most spontaneous, intuitive and instinctive way. That's what I think.
- [25:13]
B
And the orchestral music, was that a way of removing the machine? I'm thinking of Mythologies in Mirage or going back to the piano. What was the prompt or discovery or catalyst that drove you to the orchestral music which was so surprising for the audience?
- [25:29]
A
I mean, we had worked with deftunk for the Tron Legacy score, with orchestra and also in Random Access Memories there were orchestra. The very hard thing, and that's why it took a lot of time sometimes to make music, is that it's actually, I find it very hard to work with machine and put soul in the process with electronic instruments. And it takes sometimes days, months or years. And you can't really match the delicacy and the nuance of expressivity of the human hand and the human sensibility. So what I found amazing as a producer, as an arranger with an orchestra, is that you can write an idea compositionally on one piece of sheet music and have an orchestra play it. And it can be an amazing moment to do the same thing with machines can sometimes take much, much more time. At that point I was also asking myself, who am I the advocate of? You know, what do I want to emphasize? And it all comes down to this tension between technology and human, where at some point there was no more for me purpose or comfort in being in this robot avatar I love that tension
- [26:50]
B
that you're currently manifesting in Paris on the Pont Neuf with some live collaborators bringing forward the spirit of Christo, who I had the honor of realizing his final project with at the Serpentine. And I remember Christo, when Han Solo Gobrest and I brought his final work to life, always felt like we couldn't extend it for a couple of months. As we pleaded and begged, he said, it's like a tent that goes up in the desert. You have to make the pilgrimage to go see it. And it was that ephemera of chasing the physical moment, which I feel probably connects you to Christo and bringing the Pont Neuf work back to life 40 years on. Can you take us back to Paris for the final moments of this podcast and tell us how the Pont Neff project with yourself, with jr, that is currently on? For those who can still visit it in the last couple of days, can you tell us how the Pon of came to life and when it was that you first saw that project in your youth?
- [27:45]
A
Well, going back to the Pon of wrapped, I was 10 years old in 1985 when the PON of rap happened. And it is by far my most important memory of art as a child. And it really defined what was the, yes, the most impactful art piece I've ever seen. First, it's not for Sale, which I thought was so pure. And then it was really the ultimate feeling of this tension between fiction and reality on an unprecedented scale, and also so minimal. And the minimalism and the radical aspect of it was so important for me. So when jr, I had worked with him on Key Optera with Damien Jalais, he told me about this opportunity with Vladimir Chris Nephew, to pay homage to Pon Efrap. And he had this idea of creating this cavern on top. He asked me for some ideas on the sound approach in the music. And I told him right away, there is not an option for music here. And I told him, look, I have this idea to really wrap this structure with one synthetic sonic fabric. And what worked? I went in the bigger warehouse in Orly, at the airport warehouse in January. On site, we had a tenth of the scale, full scale, but a tenth of the structure. And I arrived with synthesizer equipment. I wanted to be synthetic. So I said, okay, I'm not going to record any real sound, but I'm going to use a modular synthesis technology from the 60s, you know, no computer to create the sounds. And I was just like a Foley artist in front of this, you know, cavern facade, like Georges Melies black and white silent film. And just trying sounds and created gradually, you know, from this kind of rumbling tones, low frequencies to give depth to these inflatable structures are very airy. So I said to Gia, we need to have this kind of. To make it feel more mineral. But I remember having done some interviews before, and the journalist was asking me, so when it's how it's going to be, how this? And I was like, I don't know. I don't know, because it's not done yet. And it's not done because any of my preconceived ideas and logic and theories and process again, they have to be confronted with the result. And if the feeling is not there, then the output needs to change. And going back to the AI, that's why AI, I feel, doesn't work in the creative process for me, because this is, again, focused on the output and a way to bypass the creative process where it. It is actually the creative process which I find the most interesting. And why would I want to bypass the moment that I'm passionate about that's
- [30:40]
B
such a beautiful and human place to get to the final moment of our time together. And if I can leave you with some final questions that you can either pass or answer, I promise I will not ask you about unrealized projects, because there's still decades and decades and decades for that. And so, if I may end with a quick fire round of questions. What are you listening to or what are you reading?
- [31:04]
A
Last night I listened to the new Jeff Mills album, A Trip to Vega. Right now I'm reading this book about improvisation called Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovich, which Keith Jarrett. I was reading on the backside, and Keith Jarrett loved it. He said it was the best book about improvisation. So that's what made me pick it.
- [31:24]
B
What sound do you never get tired of? What sound do you dislike?
- [31:28]
A
The sound of my alarm clock, I dislike. And then the sound I never get tired of is the voices of my family.
- [31:38]
B
What was the last live performance or artwork that surprised you?
- [31:42]
A
I mean, we're here. I think it was the Pierre Wigue exhibition, which I thought was amazing.
- [31:48]
B
What idea have you changed your mind about?
- [31:50]
A
I feel that I tried not to have any conceived ideas because I know that the answer is not in this preconceived ones.
- [31:59]
B
And in conclusion, what is the most overrated technology or the most underrated human virtue?
- [32:08]
A
I think the most overrated technology is the latest one, because I feel the problem is, like, there's really this fascination for the latest developments in technology. And so we tend to value more the most recent technology before even thinking from a ethical perspective of is this gonna make the world a better place
- [32:29]
B
and what is the most underrated human skill?
- [32:32]
A
Unpredictability. I feel. I feel that unpredictability is what will save this society because everything that happens are surprises. There are bad surprises, but it can only happen also through good surprises. And that's really the complex world today because on one hand, unpredictability and disruption needs to happen to get us all of this mess. But it cannot happen from the machine because if you have unpredictability from artificial intelligence, then this is very dangerous. Everything that happened in history is through an impulse of collective derailment from society. So it's complicated because we need to surprise ourselves and to be more and more unpredictable and we can't have technology do that for us.
- [33:21]
B
Thank you tomorrow for such a profoundly human and enjoyable conversation. Thank you.
- [33:25]
A
Thank you, Yana. Thank you, thank you.