Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter is interviewed in a new issue of art magazine Whitewall , the first interview given by the duo in the two years since their pyramid live show ended it retina burning run. Bangalter talks about art and technology—but if there’s a new project in the works, he’s not talking. One continuing theme however is collaboration.
Speaking about the duo’s longstanding faceless persona, Bangalter reveals it has as much to do with the rise of a certain generation of video directors as it did the duo’s need for privacy:
WW: Was there a point when you decided your identities had to drop out of the picture?
TB: Now it seems like a normal thing to have music videos without the performers, but 10 years ago that was very uncommon. And I remember where we were with the PR people, just prior to signing a record, we said we weren’t going to show our faces, and everyboy was like “What’s going on? This is not possible.” And same thing for videos. When we met Spike Jonze or Michel Gondry or some of these directors at the time, I think the had started to show their creativity, and do supercool music videos at that time. But they [hadn't] really [had] the opportunity of having a music artist say, “We don’t need to be in the video…just do your vision or a short dream of total freedon.” Which is completely acceptable now, which is everywhere.
Banglter goes on to state that “I don’t think we’ll go on tour right now either, until we define new kinds of experience,” before expressing frustration with technology’s, er…lack of frustration…
TB: I saw a USB flash drive with like 64 gigs on a small flash drive. And what it means is that now, with the popularity, the accessibility of memory, there is no limit anymore with technology. And all the 20th century has been realy plagued by the limitations of technology. I think it’s a good thing to work with that limitation, creatively. It puts you in a structural canvas, because then your imiagination is trying to push that limit. I think any kind of human behavior has to be put up against some kind of frustration. It’s the same thing that the richest man in the world is probably very, very depressed—because he can do anything, so he doesn’t know what to do.
Read the full interview at Whitewall
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