February 28, 2025 • 53 mins
Growing up in a small seaside town just north of Liverpool, artist Brendan Dawes was always determined to make something of himself. Leaving school at 16 with no formal qualifications, he found himself propelled forward by the rise of revolutionary computer technology and a passion for Acid House.
"The computer was like this amazing box where I could make creative things. I always wanted to make stuff in some form, back then it was music. But with computers, I thought, this is incredible. You could just type into it, and it would do things. It just spoke to me." (Brendan Dawes)
A self-taught coder, Dawes developed a unique approach to his work, leading him to opportunities worldwide. In 2004, he created Cinema Redux, a pioneering work that transformed an entire film into a single visual and earned a place in the Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) permanent collection in New York.
Never one to stand still, Dawes became a key figure in the rise of NFTs, with Black Mamba’s Revenge, an abstract work based on the final fight scene in Kill Bill Vol.1, that sold at auction within the first hour of its release in 2020.
This milestone marked a new evolution in his work leading him to collaborate with director Gary Hustwit, in 2024, on the groundbreaking documentary Eno, based on the extraordinary life of musician Brian Eno. The film, the first generative documentary ever shortlisted for an Academy Award, was hailed as a “revolutionary cinematic experience.”
In February 2025, always at the center of creative disruption, Dawes took part in Christie’s inaugural AI art auction in New York, a controversial event that divided the art world. While some saw it as an inevitable evolution of artistic practice, others condemned it as a fraudulent attempt to profit from AI-generated works trained on artists’ intellectual property without consent.
Always a true radical, Dawes continues to push the boundaries of contemporary art, seamlessly blending technology, data, and visual storytelling. Whether digital or physical, his work remains at the forefront of cultural upheaval, redefining what art can be in an era of constant transformation.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
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sea. You're right back.
When I did the Cinema Redux thing that got into Momo, you
know what? I could just bang those out
forever and I could make it intoa template and just bang that
shit out and I have no interest in doing that.
I want to make new things, different things.
(01:25):
But there's a lot of artists that they actually do that.
They make money and they get collected and it's just so
boring. Complacency is the C word.
It's a horrible thing and once you get once complacency sets in
it, it's game over. Without doubt, punk's defiance
was a rejection of the stale corporate world.
(01:46):
It challenged every aspect of society's ordinary expectations.
It was raw and it was loud and it was built on the belief that
anyone could pick up a guitar and make something that
mattered. Then, as post punk bloomed into
electropop, acid house emerged from the clubs, swapping drum
machines for guitars and hypnotic loops for three chord
(02:06):
anthems. It was no longer just about
sound, it was about breaking thesystem.
Then, as the 90s took hold, Manchester swagger and
manipulated brake beats rewired culture and the rave scene was
born. Bands like Happy Mondays and A
Guy Called Gerald dominated. The underground was no longer
just physical, it was digital. It wasn't just something to
(02:28):
make, it was something to generate.
And even though the tools of rebellion had changed, the
energy remained the same. Creativity was becoming
inseparable from code. Artists were using algorithms to
reshape visuals, putting digitalworks into tradable assets,
pushing the limits of what creativity could be.
In episode 9, we meet someone who spent a lifetime riding
(02:50):
these cultural waves, from punk to code, from dance floors to
data streams, always pushing hiswork into the unknown.
My name is Richard Smith, I'm anart director and a film maker,
and I'm your host. Welcome to Destroy England 1976.
They are frank rockers. Disillusioned youth.
(03:13):
Raw, outrageous and crude. Anarchy.
Striking miners. The new praise, they tell me.
Mountains of rubbish, the winterof discontent.
Worthless. Nasty.
Societal decline, No future chaos Welcome to Destroy, a
podcast about how the punk movement of 1976 or the Cultural
(03:37):
Revolution still being felt today.
You. Have to destroy in order to
create. Destroy is produced by B Right
Back Studios. Visit
brightbackstudios.com/destroy tolearn more.
If you're enjoying the show, visit our website
destroypunkpodcast.com to learn more about every episode,
(03:58):
including interview transcripts,show notes, music videos,
curated playlists, and more. Thank you for listening.
The use of technology to reimagine art and culture was
always on the periphery of punk.Yet punk's Do it Yourself
attitude inspired multiple generations to leverage
technology's power to compose and create.
(04:21):
At the end of the late 80s, under the influence of acid
house, my guest today was kicking around a small coastal
town just north of Liverpool called South Pole.
Not knowing what to do with his life, his early love of video
games, computers and break beatsbrought him to where he is now.
He is an artist and the PC created, titled The Pandora
(04:42):
Variations, was one of the firstNFTS to be sold at auction by
Sotheby's. And most recently, his
groundbreaking collaboration on the film Eno, directed by Gary
Hustwit, is already looking Oscar worthy, which if you've
not seen it, is very well deserved.
Please welcome to the show Mr. Brendan Doors.
Brendan, welcome. Very happy you you made time to
(05:02):
be here today. Well, thank you, Richard.
That's that was a lovely introduction and thanks.
So as I said, you grew up in Southport and that's where you
live now, north of Liverpool. And growing up you were
influenced by computers and video games and you left school
at 16. You didn't really know what you
(05:23):
wanted to do. Just talk to me about your child
a little bit, that the influenceof computers and the love of
video games. Well, it's always interesting to
me the context of your environment and how that
influences you. And maybe you only realize that
later on, But because I lived ina seaside town where we had
(05:44):
tourists in the late 70s, early 80s, we had video game arcades.
So every weekend I would just spend all my time at video
arcades. And there was one in particular,
which weirdly was in the basement of a hotel because it
was in a basement, it was dark, and they had all these light,
(06:05):
ultraviolet lights in there. It was just like another world.
Outside was this Victorian seaside town.
And then he's in this thing and you're like, wow, this is like
futuristic. It's like Tron.
Tron, War games, things like that.
They were the friends that were around at the time.
So yeah, these things really influenced me, but it was the
(06:27):
experience of it. I thought, wow, this is like
really empowering and just very inspirational and wasn't my
normal life. And so then I got a Sinclair
ZX-81 computer. My granddad bought it me.
You plugged it into your TV and it came with a book about the
programming language BASIC. And you plugged it in and it
(06:48):
just had this cursor that just blinked at you.
That was it. There's no graphical interface.
So it forced you. You had to learn how to program
with it. So that's what it did.
And for some reason I just connected with it.
It all seemed to make sense to me.
The interface is very similar tothe movie War games, right?
(07:09):
But there's no mouse or anythinglike that.
It didn't have sound. It was right.
So you had to be very inventive and you could make games on it
and stuff, but you had to reallybe very inventive about how you
did it. And so that's what I did, and I
just taught myself how to code. How did it inspire you?
So you had control, you weren't consuming, you were creating.
(07:32):
And that was like a huge deal. And now we're mostly consumers
of, of stuff. But back then, you know, I
wanted to be able to make my ownthings.
And I was just fascinated with the possibilities of it.
Even though you couldn't really do much with it, it made you
think, you know, constraints arealways good, I think in
(07:53):
creativity. And there was, there used to be
a shop called Dixon's and it wasthis computer shop and they
would have these ZX-80 ones likelined up hooked up to TV's.
So I would go in and you could write a program like within
seconds, 3 lines and you just put loads of swear words on the
(08:14):
screen and it would just scroll up and down infinitely.
It would run forever. I love that you go into this
electronic shop and you're beingmischievous and devious and
using this new computer to do all this stuff and probably
nobody knew how to turn it off. Well, they didn't.
That was the thing because they didn't know how to shut it off.
So I'd have it saying bollocks as whatever it is and you know,
(08:37):
it was just funny. I would do stuff right, Right.
I wasn't ever going to steal anything or anything like that.
Yeah, yeah. To me that was.
It's kind of like early form digital graffiti in a way that.
Must have been brilliant. I guess it taught me the power
of these things very early on, that you could have command of
these things. I want to unpack a little bit
(08:58):
your music, love. I want to understand how that
was motivating you. What was inspiring?
You I was trying to think in relation to your podcast and in
75, I was nine, OK, So I startedto get into music, but it's one
of the early 80s. OK.
New Romantic. Right.
It's all kinds of stuff, but, and I guess I really got into it
(09:21):
when I, I got into the whole rave scene in Manchester because
I'd I'd started a sound engineering course.
This is in the late 80s. And like music production.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I I went and did a sound
recording course in Manchester as Eric Recording Studios and in
(09:41):
the same class was Graham Masseywho then went on to form 8 to 8
State. I was really into mixing and
vinyl mixes and stuff. My heroes were like Steinsky and
the mass media and cold corn, Eric B and all these kind of
people that use samples and bitsof vinyl and all this stuff to
(10:03):
make new things with things thatagain, these things existed and
then you manipulate them to create new things.
And then with acid house, it wasa digital sample.
They used like an MC2O2 from Roland and stuff.
So I had one of them, I think I had an MC3O3 and the three O 3
was like the acid house machine.So you know, all that beep,
(10:24):
beep, beep, beep, beep, all thatkind of stuff that came from
that. And I, I bought one second hand
and I was like, this is amazing.So yeah, I'm, I'm doing all this
and I'm trying to make these tunes.
So all these parts are starting to come together.
What brought you to that point wanting to be a recording
engineer? Well, I, I didn't really know
(10:45):
what I wanted to do. I left school at 16.
You know, I always went to school, but I didn't really
enjoy it. The best class I did the best in
was art. But I left school with like
pretty much no qualifications. I was a photographer for a
couple of years, you know, doingnews photography, bit of sports
(11:05):
as well, that kind of stuff. But I didn't feel it was my
thing. There was like a sound
engineering course and I thoughtI'd go for that because it just
sounded fun and experimental anda bit different.
I always knew in a way that I wasn't going to have the normal
job. I knew that at school I just
(11:26):
felt different. But I thought I'm not going to
have a nine to five job. And then I got into the music
stuff. And because he could buy the
Atari St. and you could add these MIDI ports, of course.
And that was the music computer.So I basically just started
messing around with music and sound.
And I'd already been a DJ makingmy own mixes and selling them
(11:50):
illegally and making like, breakbeat albums for a record company
in London. Really.
Yeah. I would go round vinyl record
shops and find obscure breakbeats.
I remember my brother telling meabout that phenomenon.
I I was like, people buy recordslike that or buy whatever like
that. It makes no sense to me.
(12:11):
I would compile these breakbeat albums, but I was using tape.
I didn't even have a sample. I can't remember.
I was using Ampex tape, quarter inch tape, and I would splice,
record the loop multiple times and then splice it together
manually. And I remember sending the tape
down the first time I'd done this of these bits for this
(12:33):
album. And the guy you own the record
label, He rang me up. He said, Brendan, you know, you
can buy a sampling. I said, well, I can't afford 1.
He said, there's nothing wrong with it.
You cannot tell. You know, it's beautifully done,
but how long it takes. I said fucking hours.
So I got into that and then and then I started to get a bit more
equipment and, and got into sequencing with computers and
(12:55):
started making dance music. And I took a cassette into Three
Beat Music in Liverpool, which is a record shop, but they also
had a label. And I was working in a factory
at the time because I was getting married and I was
working in an electronics factory drilling holes in
fibreglass. Your back story is fascinating.
Listen, let me tell you now, I've had a lovely life.
(13:16):
I think it's I I always like thephrase inspir look has to find
you working. I often think back what if I
just went from a meat and potatopie, just sat in the car and
just moaned. I love that.
So yeah, I took this cassette inthinking they're never going to
rape me and they rang that week.The following week they said
(13:40):
come in and talk to us as we want to release a couple of
singles. So I was thought, wow, this is
it. I've.
Made. It this is it, I've made it.
And I released like a couple of 12 inch singles and my brother,
we played the club that would then become cream before cream.
And I thought, well, if I'm going to be on stage, I need
(14:01):
someone else with me. So my brother who was massively
into like ease and drugs and everything I said, do you want
to sit on stage with me? And he says, yeah.
So he he pretended to play the keyboards.
The whole thing was the PA. It was all on tape.
Yeah, so that was fun, but I made about.
Up £400. So you went from wanting to be a
(14:22):
musician making music, then the the computer elements of the
music making inspired you to move to the next whatever.
I think that's the commonality. The computer was like this
amazing box where I could make creative things.
I was just, I always wanted to make stuff in some form.
(14:46):
Back then it was music because I'd done this sound engineering
course and it taught you how to use a certain machines.
But computers, I just thought there's this amazing thing where
you could type into it and and make it do stuff.
I don't know why, but it just spoke to me.
It just made sense to me how youmake decisions and loops and
(15:07):
things. I think what what was
interesting you said about how you got into music, there's a
part of the premise of the show is that there's a correlation.
All of these events like a journey starting with that time
75 ish and then going into the early 80s and then house music,
acid house, techno, all of that.The music, in many ways, was the
(15:31):
thing that spurned one thing into the next.
So I'm not trained in programming, I wasn't a
musician, I didn't even have qualification, I didn't go to
university. So even though obviously I was
too young for the whole punk thing, I still looked at that
whole aesthetic or that whole manifesto behind it, really the
(15:53):
idea of punk. But my execution of it
eventually would take the form of code and the power that gave
me of being able to control thisbox.
So I think that's maybe the correlation.
The message of the podcast is you don't have to follow the
rules. It's not about just having a
successful career. I'm not talking about monetary
(16:15):
value. I mean creatively successful or
fulfilled or whatever. So you don't have to follow the
traditional route. If I look back on my career, I
think the common, there's a few commonalities, but one of them
is that I was always using what what Duchamp might call as ready
made, what you call ready made. So back then it was samples or
(16:38):
it was my influences were cold caught and Steinsky and people
like that, which is why I was looking for these break beats.
So I was using things that existed, but then I would twist
them into different forms, whichis what you did when you were
mixed DJ or scratch DJ or, or when you put these records
together from samples. I think that's what I'm still
(16:59):
doing. I just use code and a lot of
it's visual now. The Eno film is very much that.
It's footage, but then we scramble it all and put it
together in different ways. There's also generative scenes
that are all generated in, you know, real time and all that.
But again, it's all from taking existing stuff and just looking
(17:21):
at it in in different ways. What I like a lot about what you
said is that one, there's a connection and two, that you're
very passionate, right? It it's feels like it it was
fuel for you. And I think the subconscious
thing though as well, I think it's probably more subconscious
for me than I think. Pretty much most of the work
(17:43):
that I've made even like taking data and representing it in
different ways is that idea thatwhich to me is a very punk
thing, but that that definitely comes from my music background.
Definitely, you know the idea ofa sound.
I always say data by itself is not enough.
(18:04):
Data needs poetry. And by that I'm meaning that I'm
looking for the in between things, the things that resonate
with people. I think it's this unknown
quantity, this X Factor, you know, fuzziness, slightly messy,
like cracks in the concrete. Whatever it is, they're the
(18:26):
interesting things. There's the space between the
notes and I wanted to try and dothat with data and that's made a
name for myself and I got a lot of work.
Because of it. So I know you've been flying all
over the world promoting the Enofilm, talking about it's
creation, and you know, for me it's a truly remarkable work of
art and I'm curious how the filmcame about.
(18:49):
Well, I've known Gary. I first met him at a South by
Southwest conference panel, A friend of ours, Jim Coodle,
who's one of the creators of theField Note notebooks.
He invited me onto this panel and I went over to Austin, TX
and I met Gary for the first time and we were on this panel
and talking about creativity andall all that kind of stuff.
(19:12):
And we just became friends from then on.
And over the years we've always wanted to work on something
together and some things we've kicked around but never really
manifested anything and we've always been talking.
And in 2019, in January, Gary emailed me and he had this idea
(19:34):
for a film that is different every time it's shown.
So. Great.
Using a, a generative process created with software and would
I be interested in in working onit?
And I just emailed back and said, yeah, sounds amazing.
(19:56):
And so we then started on makinga, a prototype.
Brian Eno's name wasn't mentioned.
That's all At this point, we started to use as a kind of
demo. Gary's previous film was about
the designer Dieter Rams. So we had all that footage.
So I started building this system that created this movie
(20:16):
on the fly, compositing things and all kinds of stuff.
You've been making films or moving imagery or whatever you
want to describe it for a while before that, correct?
Was Gary familiar with that? Yeah.
Oh, yeah. I you know why he was interested
in working with me. You know he.
Got it. He.
Does a lot of my previous work and weirdly a lot of my previous
(20:38):
stuff has been informed or inspired by films and cinema.
The 1st work I got into the permanent collection of the
Museum of Modern Art in New York, which was shown in 2008
and was this thing called CinemaRedux.
And it's a still image and it shows an entire film in one
(21:02):
image. So each row is 60 frames and
then it, it builds all these rows up of, of little images,
little thumbnails, which I created in 2004 just playing
around. And then MoMA got in touch and
in 2007 and said, we've seen this work on the Internet and
(21:22):
we've got this exhibition calledDesign in the Elastic Mind
opening in 2008 and we'd like tofeature this work.
And that obviously blew my mind because I've never been to art
school. I didn't have any connection
with anyone at MoMA, so it showsthe power of the Internet and
putting your work out there, just doing stuff, making stuff.
(21:44):
So yeah, Gary had seen that and we knew my other work.
So yeah, Long story short, because Brian had done the
soundtrack to his Dieter Rams film, he knew he had a bit of an
in with Brian. So as you mentioned, it's a
generated film, so explain that a little bit to me how that
worked. Yeah, so there's pre edited
(22:05):
scenes and and we kind of pin scenes.
So the beginning and the end of the same.
Well, then the rest is chosen bythe the system.
But we can also impose a kind ofnarrative arc.
So it's not like complete chaos,randomness.
We're giving it an emotional compass as as it were.
(22:26):
So that was the hard stuff to figure out.
Let's do that because people watch it and think that it's
just going to be a load of random clips and it's not.
Well, then there's millions and millions of permutations.
I remember growing up, I used tolove those books on rock family
history. I guess where this comes from is
that notion of like everything is connected.
(22:47):
It's such a sprawling mass. I think the film that you and
Gary made, it's almost like a visualisation of this sprawling
mask. When Gary approached him
originally, he turned Gary down because he didn't want to make a
documentary about his life. He said there's more than one
truth about someone and he he painted documentaries that
present one idea. So when Gary came to me, it was
(23:10):
just the idea of a film that is never the same twice.
That was the thing we were working on.
And then we did a prototype and we took it to Brian and Gary
took it to him and he said, look, this is what we're
thinking. And Brian was like, yeah, this
is really cool, let's do it. So.
And obviously, Brian is the perfect subject for a
documentary that is generative. So that's the thing that people
(23:32):
love it. It shows different aspects of
Brian every time you go and see it.
And you might get Roxy Music, but you might get the art
school, you might not. You might get ambient music.
You might not get ambient music.You might get all these light
sculptures, but it is an optimistic film and it talks
about climate change as well at the end, because the beginning
and the end are the same. It's very inspirational about
(23:55):
creativity and art and why we have art in our lives.
So people love it for that. But the reaction to the film is
has been beyond our expectations.
It's all a bit mad really that Iremember being told we got into
Sundance. I was like, we haven't even got,
you know, I've got to make this thing.
(24:19):
And there was a crucial moment where I've got it to a certain
level. And then Gary was like, can you
come out to New York for a week to work with us, me and the two
editors? It'd be good to have you in the
same room. So I went out there for four or
five days and during the screening as well.
And I watched the screening and I came out and they were quite
(24:45):
joyous about it. And Maya, one of the ads said,
what do you think, Brendan? We were on the street and
fucking freezing cold in upstateNew York.
And she goes, what do you think?I said, I think I've just
watched something where there's no evidence that I've worked on
it. And she was like, what do you
mean? I said, well, it's not
generative. So I then, you know, couldn't
(25:08):
sleep that night and we went back to the office the next day.
So I then I had a rant about it.We had the poster behind us and
he says a generative documentary.
And I said, it fucking says generative.
This is what we're making. And you know, when Gary, you
know, he wished he'd filmed all this because it was like, And so
(25:30):
it galvanized the vision, the idea of the movie, that it
needed to be made with software.That was the whole point of it.
You can't be a lie. And so when I was leaving, I was
like. Has it been worth me coming
over? And Gary was like, are you
fucking kidding me? So.
At that point, how was it constructed?
(25:52):
I didn't real so I I'd built thesoftware, but there's still a
few problems with it. And so Gary had put a cut
together that was done in Premier, was edited.
Right, I see. And that's what was screamed.
And I didn't know this though. We watched this film, I think he
(26:12):
told me just before we screamed it.
And I was like, fucking what? I've just made this software,
but it it had been cooked together in premiere and I was
like, what? So that really like messed with
my head. So that's why I said what I said
when we came out in cinema. But it sounds like that was like
a really pivotal moment. It were, it absolutely was.
(26:35):
It really was. Gary still talks about it.
Me and the editors, we were suchgreat friends.
And that was a thing I have to learn how to work with the
editors from their point of viewbecause they edited over these
all these individual scenes thatare fucking amazing.
And so, yeah, it's been a gift. The whole thing is going around
the world doing it live or doingQ&A S and you know, Sundance was
(27:00):
I want to. Go back to one thing as you're
talking the the influence of punk.
So I was thinking about what you're doing currently, the Eno
film, and, you know, as somebodywho's always been at the
forefront of music and. Challenging.
Musicians to work differently and so.
(27:21):
It's sort of interesting. That you are continuing to
enable. Well, you know what there was.
Something that Brian said one was when he was talking about
his time and you know, it was aninterview when he was at art
school and stuff and he was saying that in this Roxy Music
time, he. Moved from the.
Element of skill to the element of judgement.
(27:44):
So he realised that he wasn't a great musician, but what he
could do, he could twiddle all these things and he could judge
whether it was good. Oh, it sounded interesting at
least. And there was like this old
interview where he he wore a tiedye thing and he describes tie
dye as bad dyeing. You know, it's like he realised,
(28:08):
he said he's made a career out of failing.
Well, so when I was watching allthis, particularly the skill
versus judgement thing, there's way more talented programmers
than me and stuff. But the ability that I have is
to be able to judge it, to make something interesting where a
(28:29):
lot of coders and programmers, they just get into the real
geekery of it, or then the output doesn't resonate.
And some a lot of the stuff I dois really simple from a punk.
Or the idea of just. Not worrying about the.
Rules and making your own rules and blowing things up.
(28:49):
I think there's more interestingthings happen when you're on the
edge of oblivion. You're on the edge, you know,
destroying things. I think that's where you should
always be as an artist. I always describe it as there's
the things you know and outside of that, much bigger is the
things you don't know. And you should place yourself as
(29:09):
an artist on that event horizon between the two.
You shouldn't be like in the middle of all the things.
That's boring. That's why I, and I get why some
artists, particularly in the digital sphere, they just bang
out the same stuff. And I, I get it because it makes
some money and it's easier for me.
I've always found that a bit boring and I, well, I just don't
(29:31):
want to do that. So I'm just constantly looking
to do new things or work in new mediums or work with new people
or so that's what interests me you describe.
Yourself as a artist, but in thedigital sense or you don't even
qualify in that way. So it's such a loaded.
Word, we always has a problem with the word artist and and so
(29:54):
I thought I'm a designer, right?But I think design the word
designer suggests that you like solving problems and I'm
providing answers. I don't think I'm providing
answers, nor do I want to. I want to leave people with more
questions so it feels to me thatwhat I do is more outlet because
(30:16):
no one employs me to design the logo or whatever it is more
like. As an artist now.
And not just embrace it now because I, like I said, it's
quite loaded. You know, you're like a family
party and someone goes what you do and they just go, oh, I did,
I make things and now I just go,I'm an artist.
And then just wait for the silence and they go, oh, they're
(30:38):
like, you're unemployed then. Are you like some more Brussels?
Sprouts. Yeah, yeah.
Exactly. Yeah, get me away from this
weirdo. So I don't even qualify anymore.
Hi there, sorry for the. Interruption, but if you're
enjoying the show, please leave a review or a comment for the
latest news and updates. Make sure to also follow us on
Instagram at destroy Punk podcast.
(31:00):
Thank you. And now back to the show.
You know I know you. Sold some stuff in Sotheby's,
that right? Yeah, I've done, yeah, I've done
a couple of some of his auctions, couple of Christie's,
various other auctions. I I got well into the NFT scene
in 2021 did change a lot of things for me which was amazing.
I mean the first NFT sold in an auction house in Paris was mine
(31:23):
in first. NFT sold in in an auction house
in China was mine. I basically made like this
abstract sculpture from the fight scene at the end of Kill
Bill Volume 1. So again it manipulating movies
and things and it was called Black Mamba's Revenge and and it
(31:44):
was bought within an hour. But obviously NFTS was a whole
phenomenon and people are sayingthat they're dead and yet they
are still being sold and collected.
Not in the same way. But what was interesting for me
was it then got me in front of contemporary art galleries who
already had digital artists and a gallery in Mayfair called
(32:07):
Gazelle Art House. They got in touch and I did a
group show with them and then they said, oh we want to
represent you. So I've done various shows with
them and they look after my worknow and they're like a family to
me and they're amazing and they're a full on contemporary
art gallery. And so it opened a lot.
Of doors for me so. As you're talking, I'm thinking
(32:29):
outside of the coding. Aspect the technology.
Aspect. Which seems like a means.
To the end, what would you say your art is all about?
What are you trying to say? Yeah, I, I.
Want it to resonate? Well, here's the thing.
I don't think the work is completed if it's ever completed
(32:50):
it. It's not finished until someone
sees it and experiences it, and that that completes the loop.
If no. One sees the work.
I don't think the work actually exists.
It's that context what I'm trying to do.
Yeah, I, I'm guessing it's, for me, it's a conduit to, it's a
lens to look at the world in a different way.
(33:14):
And just. Stop and question things.
The best comments I've had was one guy who said this completely
stopped me in my tracks. I thought job done but I'm not
thinking of that when I'm makingit.
I'm just making because it's theonly thing I know to do.
But when someone says that it means a lot or it but it made
(33:35):
them cry or it made them, you know, lots of people have seen
the Eno film, you know, they've been in tears watching it.
And that's obviously because of Brian and what he's saying and
all that. But you.
Make this work and if it I mean,if it doesn't resonate with
someone, I think it it's failed.And if people hate it, I, I
don't think I ever want to make work that people go, yes, all
(33:56):
right, No, you want it to be like extremes of like, you know,
fuck me, I hate that work. Or well, I I really like it.
I think I don't just want to make an Instagram like making
machine. Some people just do.
I'm not interested in that kind of shit.
So yeah. I think it's.
That I think it's hard to describe sometimes why you do
(34:18):
what you do for me I've. Always thought that it comes
from wanting to have a voice so.Wanting to be.
A little subservient. Not subservient.
I'm subversive, sorry. And I think that's where punk
really had an impact on me, because it.
It was. Like, oh wow, it legitimized a
(34:40):
little bit the ability to take on the establishment.
I was never one. I never put myself out there.
I didn't really dress like a punk.
I didn't really do all of that. All of that inspiration.
Led me to what I do because it gave me a a way to express
myself starting out as a designer Oh yeah, I can now have
(35:01):
a voice and sorry that was like a confession just.
No, no, I think that's really interesting.
I think creating anything is an egotistical act because you're
essentially playing, you know, you're like God in your own
environment. Yeah, whether that's an
environment is a piece of paper or whatever.
So I always felt that's what that is.
(35:23):
So when people say I really likethat, it's a hell of a thing,
it's thing you've created from nothing and now it deserves a
place in the world. And often times I think you're
creating work that doesn't existin any other form, so therefore
you feel you need to make it exist.
No way. Gary as well, he wanted to make
films that he wanted to watch, but they didn't exist.
(35:44):
So that's why he made Alvesker and and Gardner as well.
So I guess it's a similar thing.But so it's always interesting.
I'm just reading Nick Cave's book at the minute, which is
incredible. There's a lot of things in there
about his journey and his creativity and stuff, but I I
just find all those conversations really
interesting. Something you also.
Touched on and I wanted. To ask.
(36:06):
Was. So you met Gary at South by
Southwest but. When I looked.
At some of your work, there's a there's a lot of familiarity
with existing work and the Eno film.
So is that where a lot of the inspiration came from?
Well, it's weird. I was.
Only recently I think. I posted on Instagram yesterday
(36:28):
about this thing I made in 1998 where you could re edit this
shower scene in Psycho. Oh yeah, I said.
That well I've only. Recently realised that it was
like an early prototype in a way.
I was massive, still am obviously massive Alfred
Hitchcock fan and. Back then I was.
(36:49):
Trying to make a name for myselfin the whole web design and
stuff like that and interaction design.
And I'd done a site. About soul bass and the first
ever sold bass website, not unofficially and that got a lot
of press and so an offshoot of that was the psycho thing.
This little online application where you could re edit the
(37:12):
shower see and then you could save your own version.
It was quite disturbing how people titled them.
Someone was like die bitch and Ithink some people are obviously
a bit disturbed, but anyway, it was a timeline and you could
drop things in a timeline and itwould generate this thing.
And it was only recently that I thought, bloody hell, I forgot
(37:35):
that I'd made that that long ago.
So yeah, there's and I made a lot back then.
I made a lot of like interface things and that was kind of what
was I was known for was weird interfaces and just things that
didn't look like anything else. So.
So I guess I've always seen. The idea of.
(37:57):
Software applications in an artful way anyway, because to
me, why can't they be artworks? Why can't software that you've
made be a piece of art? I didn't think of it like that
back then, but that's just was my outlet for making things.
(38:19):
I always say you make a thing tomake a thing.
You know, you're making a thing,you're making a thing that makes
a thing. So which is the whole point of
generative work. I've always done that.
So there's there is these like little connections with what I'm
doing now from way back. You strike.
Me as somebody. Who's not afraid of failure, or
you're not afraid of imperfection or you, you want to
(38:44):
see what happens. I mean, you could say, you know.
You watch like a Kubrick movie, and I was watching 2001 again
and the other day and you look at that movie and go, some of
it's like, how did they even film this?
And it's a perfect science fiction film.
But I'm sure if Kubrick looked Kubrick looked at it, he'd go,
Nah, it's that bit's not right. And I'm sure that's how it was.
(39:05):
So there's you aim for perfection, but you always want
these little, like I said, theselittle things that have these
little cracks in them that I think that's what defines a bit
of humanity in the work. I think if it's too perfect, but
you want that little bit of naivety in it.
I think that's the kind of stuffthat I'm interested in the, the
(39:27):
whole point about being on the edge.
There's the things you know, andthen the other side of that is
the things you don't know, whichis huge and infinite.
And you want to position yourself between those two
things. You don't want to be like right
in the middle of the things you'd know because that's
boring. So you want to be always on the
edge of that unfamiliarity. That's where you want to
(39:50):
position yourself as an artist. And I think as any creative
person, that's what fuels you. Like what if I do this?
It could be terrible and it could blow my computer up or
whatever it is, or it could be adisastrous business fail.
You have to give it a go becauseit's actually way more
interesting. So this idea of.
Oblivion and also from making a generative system where you're
(40:14):
making a system where you have rules and then you press a
button and then the system makesitself.
There's a vulnerability to that.You're putting yourself in a
vulnerable position because you're not quite sure what it's
going to make the rules. In place.
Like a kind of mini God, but this still could go different
(40:34):
places and I'd love that aspect.So I think it speaks to the idea
of this like tension between oblivion and success.
It's amazing. How your life has been, this
series of stumbles and falls, but somehow it's less about
falling over and you. Have.
(40:55):
Always gotten where you wanted to go making a name for yourself
I. Think the main.
Thing is, being adaptive to the culture and the times, that's
the number one thing. And I've real, I've only
realised this recently. You've got to adapt.
(41:15):
That's what Darwin said. It's not about survival of the
fittest, it's about those that can adapt to the surroundings.
They're the ones that survive. And so I've always managed to
find a way to adapt to my surroundings, culturally and
technology, society, whatever. I've always managed to find a
(41:36):
way to understand what the zeitgeist is somehow.
Which is weird because I don't live in London and I'm miles
from anywhere like that. Yeah, that's the number one
lesson I've learned in my life, is to adapt.
Because if you don't, you becomelike stone and you just refuse
(41:57):
to change. I've just learned to adapt to
the times and now it's the AI and stuff.
But the discussion around AI, obviously you see a lot of it.
It just steals people's work andit's like a very naive reaction
to it. So we can't discount AI
completely and, and we shouldn'tbecause it's another tool that
(42:19):
can lead to areas that we've noteven thought of.
I think that's what we need to hold onto.
There's lots of concerns, absolutely, but you don't want
to discount it. I think there's a lot of
creatives and artists who who really do get it and see that
it's a new form of creativity, and I think it's best when it's
(42:40):
combined with human beings. The way I use it, I'm creating
like the forms of a thing myself, but then I'm using AI to
then augment it. But it cannot make what I've
seen without me. That first bit, I'm still
crafting everything. It's not like going in some
(43:01):
magic porridge pot. I'm still having to figure out
how it does that. But that for me, that's
absolutely fascinating. You know, a new form of beauty.
I was. Curious what's next for you And
just as you were talking, it made me think we've.
Obviously had this. Crazy year with the Eno film,
(43:22):
and obviously that's taking you here, there and everywhere.
I don't even know if you think in those terms of what's next,
practically what's. Next, me and Gary have started
our own company to do other filmprojects.
We've already got the next one lined up that is not our project
we're consulting on. We go to New York in January for
(43:43):
a, for a workshop on that and then a couple of other big
projects that are very exciting,could be huge, but we'll see
where that goes. But then there's the other side.
I'm represented by a Gallery in London, Gazelli Art House.
Mila, who owns the gallery, had not seen the film before she
came and she was blown away. And then another art guy was
(44:06):
there and they were both saying to me, where does this leave you
though? Was a as your art practice?
Are you just going to be like you and Gary now?
No, no. I just see this as another
element to, to what I do. I'm still exploring making
things, probably going to do a new solo show next year.
(44:28):
I'm working on ideas for that. But yeah, I do, I do.
Honestly, I'm I don't really know where it where it's going
to go. I think I'm just trying to learn
all the time. I think of of new, new things
and new inputs. Coming back to what you said a
minute. Ago.
This is what you do. This is what makes you happy or
(44:49):
gets you excited or what motivates you.
And in many ways, continuing to do more of the same.
I want to make work. That is is remembered and and
leaves a mark. Not everything I do does that,
you know, even David Bowie did the laughing.
No, you make lots of shitty things, but then hopefully you
(45:11):
then make something significant.So I.
Think that's what's. Been the true joy with this
film. But yeah, so that was a keep me
going and it seems that you get.A lot from people's
interpretations or the the fact that you put it out there and it
gives it meaning and I I love that.
And also they bring. Something else to it that I
didn't even or it resonates in away that I didn't.
(45:34):
That's the best thing you mentioned.
Marcel Duchamp But to me, that is everything.
Is it a work of art is a urinal or a urinal?
I never remember the pronunciation.
That's the American me again. It's it's a It's an example that
I try to expressed to everybody I work with.
Coming from an. Agency.
(45:56):
Advertising agency, Branding agency World.
Everyone. Is.
Afraid it's always about what you shouldn't do.
Or will the client be happy? Sometimes they're just like,
let's just do it, let's just seewhat happens.
There's a piece. In the Eno film where Brian
talks about that piece in particular, the idea of his
ready maids. You know, these things that
(46:16):
already exist and now you can take those and put them in other
artworks and make new things from them.
You know, when I was making break beats and all that kind of
stuff, I didn't know you could term those as ready made though.
I realised that there was a correlation with the ethos of
Marcel Duchamp and all the wholeabsurdity of Dadaism and all
(46:40):
that kind of stuff. Dadaism came out of the response
the the horrors of the First World War.
The reason it's absurd is because of that.
Those things have just always interested me.
I'm not interested in the familiar.
I don't, I, I think you should always make a stranger of
familiarity. You know, I could have, when I
(47:03):
did the Cinema Redux thing that got into Momo, You know what?
I could just bang those out forever, and Ditto with a lot of
my work. I could just make it into a
template and just bang that shitout, and I have.
No. Interest in doing that.
I want to make new things, different things.
But there's a lot of artists that they actually do that.
(47:25):
They make money and they get collected and it's just so
boring because they've just become familiar with things.
They've been familiar with theirown processes.
They're not trying new things because they've become for
complacency. Complacency is the C word.
It's a horrible thing. And once you get once
(47:46):
complacency sets in, it's game over.
I always describe. It as when I do like talks at
uni's and stuff, I always say you've got to deviate from the
expected when you do that. It's like having some people
swear on bunks, swear on nationwide was like, it's like,
(48:06):
and it's still being talked about now.
That's why you should never follow trends because you're
just following everyone else andyou're just standing the noise
and you don't stick out. I've I've never followed trends
at all. So yeah, no, it's good to
deviate from the everyday and then the expected.
You mentioned, you said that you'd work with Peter Savile.
(48:28):
That was when Peter. Was creative director of
Manchester, so the agency I was with at the time, they were
doing a massive rebrand. And so we had a lot of meetings
with Peter where we'd show him like the idea for the website
and and stuff like that. And he often commented on the
typography choice and that kind of thing.
(48:49):
But as he said to you, he's not into technology.
He doesn't use technology, so hefound it all quite as he
described. It's quite quaint.
I work with Tony Wilson as well,and he's rang me up once and he
said, Brendan, he says, what would it sound like if you could
hear the Happy Mondays being downloaded?
(49:10):
I said, well, he said, could youmake some code to do it?
Said yeah, yeah. So I I.
Made this like quick little software application where you
could put like any song game butin this case Happy Mondays you
can't remember which one it was and it like you heard the the
code version of it right and So what Tony did because he was
(49:35):
clever he didn't have any of therights to the Happy Mondays
songs and so I'd. I'd created this piece.
So that's what Tony did. We just gave you dangerous
ideas. I think that's why, you know,
when Gary emailed me, it was thedangerous idea.
How do you make a film? It's never the same again.
So yeah, these people are amazing to have in your lives.
(49:56):
They just drop these ideas on you and you can either say no or
you can say, yeah, I think I canfigure something out.
I feel like you keep chatting. Forever, but I'm going to let
you go because I know it's getting late for you and it's
probably getting close to dinnertime.
But Brendan, thank you so much for making time again.
And like I said, I know you've been super busy.
(50:17):
I wish you luck with so many of these things, you know, next
week I'm. Actually doing a a podcast
interview, a video, and it's about Savile Row tailoring.
Yeah. Because that's the kind of stuff
that I wear that's so. Interesting.
Wow, brilliant. So I've now.
Ingratiated myself to be again, trying to be like I think I want
(50:42):
to be known for. Dressing well and stuff.
And I've managed to do that so much that I've now been invited
on to interview. You just blew my.
Mind with that that was. Wow.
Wow, I've got to see these Savile Row pictures.
That's brilliant. That's brilliant.
(51:03):
You know, I appreciate. Craft in all its forms.
So totally, yeah. I can tell that that's brilliant
and I'm pretty. I'm honoured that you are on the
show, so thank you. Well, listen, I'm honoured.
To be on the show, you know, I right from episode 1, I just I
loved what you were doing and the the the Peter Saville
episode is fantastic. So to be asked to be on it is is
(51:24):
a real thrill. So thank you again.
Well, I'm hoping that. It achieves greatness like
yourself, I'm sure it will all right.
Thank you. Thanks, Richard.
Cheers mate, see ya. Bye.
My name is Richard. Smith and I'm Your Host.
I'm a filmmaker and art directorand Once Upon a time I was part
of the big 80s. I designed record covers for
(51:46):
Depeche Mode. I danced with Bono, discussed
art with Mick Jagger and drank tea with Suzie Sue.
I also grew up during those turbulent times in England in
the late 70s and was driven by the Do it Yourself ethos with
punk. I obsessed over bands like Joy
Division and New Order and went on to work for the album cover
designer Peter Savile. I believe that year, that moment
in 1976 when a bunch of foul mouthed jobs cursed and swore on
(52:10):
national television, changed thefuture of culture forever and is
what brought us to where we are today.
So where do we go from here? Will emerging new technologies
be the catalyst that tears down the walls of mediocrity,
throwing culture and society into chaos and revolution again?
We'll have to wait and see. This has been another episode of
Destroy. Thank you for listening.
(52:32):
Destroy is a BE. Right Back Studios production
learnmore@berightbackstudios.comand please tune in again for
another episode of Destroy the Influence of Punk podcast.
Wherever you listen or download,be right back.
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(00:42):
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(01:02):
sea. You're right back.
When I did the Cinema Redux thing that got into Momo, you
know what? I could just bang those out
forever and I could make it intoa template and just bang that
shit out and I have no interest in doing that.
I want to make new things, different things.
(01:25):
But there's a lot of artists that they actually do that.
They make money and they get collected and it's just so
boring. Complacency is the C word.
It's a horrible thing and once you get once complacency sets in
it, it's game over. Without doubt, punk's defiance
was a rejection of the stale corporate world.
(01:46):
It challenged every aspect of society's ordinary expectations.
It was raw and it was loud and it was built on the belief that
anyone could pick up a guitar and make something that
mattered. Then, as post punk bloomed into
electropop, acid house emerged from the clubs, swapping drum
machines for guitars and hypnotic loops for three chord
(02:06):
anthems. It was no longer just about
sound, it was about breaking thesystem.
Then, as the 90s took hold, Manchester swagger and
manipulated brake beats rewired culture and the rave scene was
born. Bands like Happy Mondays and A
Guy Called Gerald dominated. The underground was no longer
just physical, it was digital. It wasn't just something to
(02:28):
make, it was something to generate.
And even though the tools of rebellion had changed, the
energy remained the same. Creativity was becoming
inseparable from code. Artists were using algorithms to
reshape visuals, putting digitalworks into tradable assets,
pushing the limits of what creativity could be.
In episode 9, we meet someone who spent a lifetime riding
(02:50):
these cultural waves, from punk to code, from dance floors to
data streams, always pushing hiswork into the unknown.
My name is Richard Smith, I'm anart director and a film maker,
and I'm your host. Welcome to Destroy England 1976.
They are frank rockers. Disillusioned youth.
(03:13):
Raw, outrageous and crude. Anarchy.
Striking miners. The new praise, they tell me.
Mountains of rubbish, the winterof discontent.
Worthless. Nasty.
Societal decline, No future chaos Welcome to Destroy, a
podcast about how the punk movement of 1976 or the Cultural
(03:37):
Revolution still being felt today.
You. Have to destroy in order to
create. Destroy is produced by B Right
Back Studios. Visit
brightbackstudios.com/destroy tolearn more.
If you're enjoying the show, visit our website
destroypunkpodcast.com to learn more about every episode,
(03:58):
including interview transcripts,show notes, music videos,
curated playlists, and more. Thank you for listening.
The use of technology to reimagine art and culture was
always on the periphery of punk.Yet punk's Do it Yourself
attitude inspired multiple generations to leverage
technology's power to compose and create.
(04:21):
At the end of the late 80s, under the influence of acid
house, my guest today was kicking around a small coastal
town just north of Liverpool called South Pole.
Not knowing what to do with his life, his early love of video
games, computers and break beatsbrought him to where he is now.
He is an artist and the PC created, titled The Pandora
(04:42):
Variations, was one of the firstNFTS to be sold at auction by
Sotheby's. And most recently, his
groundbreaking collaboration on the film Eno, directed by Gary
Hustwit, is already looking Oscar worthy, which if you've
not seen it, is very well deserved.
Please welcome to the show Mr. Brendan Doors.
Brendan, welcome. Very happy you you made time to
(05:02):
be here today. Well, thank you, Richard.
That's that was a lovely introduction and thanks.
So as I said, you grew up in Southport and that's where you
live now, north of Liverpool. And growing up you were
influenced by computers and video games and you left school
at 16. You didn't really know what you
(05:23):
wanted to do. Just talk to me about your child
a little bit, that the influenceof computers and the love of
video games. Well, it's always interesting to
me the context of your environment and how that
influences you. And maybe you only realize that
later on, But because I lived ina seaside town where we had
(05:44):
tourists in the late 70s, early 80s, we had video game arcades.
So every weekend I would just spend all my time at video
arcades. And there was one in particular,
which weirdly was in the basement of a hotel because it
was in a basement, it was dark, and they had all these light,
(06:05):
ultraviolet lights in there. It was just like another world.
Outside was this Victorian seaside town.
And then he's in this thing and you're like, wow, this is like
futuristic. It's like Tron.
Tron, War games, things like that.
They were the friends that were around at the time.
So yeah, these things really influenced me, but it was the
(06:27):
experience of it. I thought, wow, this is like
really empowering and just very inspirational and wasn't my
normal life. And so then I got a Sinclair
ZX-81 computer. My granddad bought it me.
You plugged it into your TV and it came with a book about the
programming language BASIC. And you plugged it in and it
(06:48):
just had this cursor that just blinked at you.
That was it. There's no graphical interface.
So it forced you. You had to learn how to program
with it. So that's what it did.
And for some reason I just connected with it.
It all seemed to make sense to me.
The interface is very similar tothe movie War games, right?
(07:09):
But there's no mouse or anythinglike that.
It didn't have sound. It was right.
So you had to be very inventive and you could make games on it
and stuff, but you had to reallybe very inventive about how you
did it. And so that's what I did, and I
just taught myself how to code. How did it inspire you?
So you had control, you weren't consuming, you were creating.
(07:32):
And that was like a huge deal. And now we're mostly consumers
of, of stuff. But back then, you know, I
wanted to be able to make my ownthings.
And I was just fascinated with the possibilities of it.
Even though you couldn't really do much with it, it made you
think, you know, constraints arealways good, I think in
(07:53):
creativity. And there was, there used to be
a shop called Dixon's and it wasthis computer shop and they
would have these ZX-80 ones likelined up hooked up to TV's.
So I would go in and you could write a program like within
seconds, 3 lines and you just put loads of swear words on the
(08:14):
screen and it would just scroll up and down infinitely.
It would run forever. I love that you go into this
electronic shop and you're beingmischievous and devious and
using this new computer to do all this stuff and probably
nobody knew how to turn it off. Well, they didn't.
That was the thing because they didn't know how to shut it off.
So I'd have it saying bollocks as whatever it is and you know,
(08:37):
it was just funny. I would do stuff right, Right.
I wasn't ever going to steal anything or anything like that.
Yeah, yeah. To me that was.
It's kind of like early form digital graffiti in a way that.
Must have been brilliant. I guess it taught me the power
of these things very early on, that you could have command of
these things. I want to unpack a little bit
(08:58):
your music, love. I want to understand how that
was motivating you. What was inspiring?
You I was trying to think in relation to your podcast and in
75, I was nine, OK, So I startedto get into music, but it's one
of the early 80s. OK.
New Romantic. Right.
It's all kinds of stuff, but, and I guess I really got into it
(09:21):
when I, I got into the whole rave scene in Manchester because
I'd I'd started a sound engineering course.
This is in the late 80s. And like music production.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I I went and did a sound
recording course in Manchester as Eric Recording Studios and in
(09:41):
the same class was Graham Masseywho then went on to form 8 to 8
State. I was really into mixing and
vinyl mixes and stuff. My heroes were like Steinsky and
the mass media and cold corn, Eric B and all these kind of
people that use samples and bitsof vinyl and all this stuff to
(10:03):
make new things with things thatagain, these things existed and
then you manipulate them to create new things.
And then with acid house, it wasa digital sample.
They used like an MC2O2 from Roland and stuff.
So I had one of them, I think I had an MC3O3 and the three O 3
was like the acid house machine.So you know, all that beep,
(10:24):
beep, beep, beep, beep, all thatkind of stuff that came from
that. And I, I bought one second hand
and I was like, this is amazing.So yeah, I'm, I'm doing all this
and I'm trying to make these tunes.
So all these parts are starting to come together.
What brought you to that point wanting to be a recording
engineer? Well, I, I didn't really know
(10:45):
what I wanted to do. I left school at 16.
You know, I always went to school, but I didn't really
enjoy it. The best class I did the best in
was art. But I left school with like
pretty much no qualifications. I was a photographer for a
couple of years, you know, doingnews photography, bit of sports
(11:05):
as well, that kind of stuff. But I didn't feel it was my
thing. There was like a sound
engineering course and I thoughtI'd go for that because it just
sounded fun and experimental anda bit different.
I always knew in a way that I wasn't going to have the normal
job. I knew that at school I just
(11:26):
felt different. But I thought I'm not going to
have a nine to five job. And then I got into the music
stuff. And because he could buy the
Atari St. and you could add these MIDI ports, of course.
And that was the music computer.So I basically just started
messing around with music and sound.
And I'd already been a DJ makingmy own mixes and selling them
(11:50):
illegally and making like, breakbeat albums for a record company
in London. Really.
Yeah. I would go round vinyl record
shops and find obscure breakbeats.
I remember my brother telling meabout that phenomenon.
I I was like, people buy recordslike that or buy whatever like
that. It makes no sense to me.
(12:11):
I would compile these breakbeat albums, but I was using tape.
I didn't even have a sample. I can't remember.
I was using Ampex tape, quarter inch tape, and I would splice,
record the loop multiple times and then splice it together
manually. And I remember sending the tape
down the first time I'd done this of these bits for this
(12:33):
album. And the guy you own the record
label, He rang me up. He said, Brendan, you know, you
can buy a sampling. I said, well, I can't afford 1.
He said, there's nothing wrong with it.
You cannot tell. You know, it's beautifully done,
but how long it takes. I said fucking hours.
So I got into that and then and then I started to get a bit more
equipment and, and got into sequencing with computers and
(12:55):
started making dance music. And I took a cassette into Three
Beat Music in Liverpool, which is a record shop, but they also
had a label. And I was working in a factory
at the time because I was getting married and I was
working in an electronics factory drilling holes in
fibreglass. Your back story is fascinating.
Listen, let me tell you now, I've had a lovely life.
(13:16):
I think it's I I always like thephrase inspir look has to find
you working. I often think back what if I
just went from a meat and potatopie, just sat in the car and
just moaned. I love that.
So yeah, I took this cassette inthinking they're never going to
rape me and they rang that week.The following week they said
(13:40):
come in and talk to us as we want to release a couple of
singles. So I was thought, wow, this is
it. I've.
Made. It this is it, I've made it.
And I released like a couple of 12 inch singles and my brother,
we played the club that would then become cream before cream.
And I thought, well, if I'm going to be on stage, I need
(14:01):
someone else with me. So my brother who was massively
into like ease and drugs and everything I said, do you want
to sit on stage with me? And he says, yeah.
So he he pretended to play the keyboards.
The whole thing was the PA. It was all on tape.
Yeah, so that was fun, but I made about.
Up £400. So you went from wanting to be a
(14:22):
musician making music, then the the computer elements of the
music making inspired you to move to the next whatever.
I think that's the commonality. The computer was like this
amazing box where I could make creative things.
I was just, I always wanted to make stuff in some form.
(14:46):
Back then it was music because I'd done this sound engineering
course and it taught you how to use a certain machines.
But computers, I just thought there's this amazing thing where
you could type into it and and make it do stuff.
I don't know why, but it just spoke to me.
It just made sense to me how youmake decisions and loops and
(15:07):
things. I think what what was
interesting you said about how you got into music, there's a
part of the premise of the show is that there's a correlation.
All of these events like a journey starting with that time
75 ish and then going into the early 80s and then house music,
acid house, techno, all of that.The music, in many ways, was the
(15:31):
thing that spurned one thing into the next.
So I'm not trained in programming, I wasn't a
musician, I didn't even have qualification, I didn't go to
university. So even though obviously I was
too young for the whole punk thing, I still looked at that
whole aesthetic or that whole manifesto behind it, really the
(15:53):
idea of punk. But my execution of it
eventually would take the form of code and the power that gave
me of being able to control thisbox.
So I think that's maybe the correlation.
The message of the podcast is you don't have to follow the
rules. It's not about just having a
successful career. I'm not talking about monetary
(16:15):
value. I mean creatively successful or
fulfilled or whatever. So you don't have to follow the
traditional route. If I look back on my career, I
think the common, there's a few commonalities, but one of them
is that I was always using what what Duchamp might call as ready
made, what you call ready made. So back then it was samples or
(16:38):
it was my influences were cold caught and Steinsky and people
like that, which is why I was looking for these break beats.
So I was using things that existed, but then I would twist
them into different forms, whichis what you did when you were
mixed DJ or scratch DJ or, or when you put these records
together from samples. I think that's what I'm still
(16:59):
doing. I just use code and a lot of
it's visual now. The Eno film is very much that.
It's footage, but then we scramble it all and put it
together in different ways. There's also generative scenes
that are all generated in, you know, real time and all that.
But again, it's all from taking existing stuff and just looking
(17:21):
at it in in different ways. What I like a lot about what you
said is that one, there's a connection and two, that you're
very passionate, right? It it's feels like it it was
fuel for you. And I think the subconscious
thing though as well, I think it's probably more subconscious
for me than I think. Pretty much most of the work
(17:43):
that I've made even like taking data and representing it in
different ways is that idea thatwhich to me is a very punk
thing, but that that definitely comes from my music background.
Definitely, you know the idea ofa sound.
I always say data by itself is not enough.
(18:04):
Data needs poetry. And by that I'm meaning that I'm
looking for the in between things, the things that resonate
with people. I think it's this unknown
quantity, this X Factor, you know, fuzziness, slightly messy,
like cracks in the concrete. Whatever it is, they're the
(18:26):
interesting things. There's the space between the
notes and I wanted to try and dothat with data and that's made a
name for myself and I got a lot of work.
Because of it. So I know you've been flying all
over the world promoting the Enofilm, talking about it's
creation, and you know, for me it's a truly remarkable work of
art and I'm curious how the filmcame about.
(18:49):
Well, I've known Gary. I first met him at a South by
Southwest conference panel, A friend of ours, Jim Coodle,
who's one of the creators of theField Note notebooks.
He invited me onto this panel and I went over to Austin, TX
and I met Gary for the first time and we were on this panel
and talking about creativity andall all that kind of stuff.
(19:12):
And we just became friends from then on.
And over the years we've always wanted to work on something
together and some things we've kicked around but never really
manifested anything and we've always been talking.
And in 2019, in January, Gary emailed me and he had this idea
(19:34):
for a film that is different every time it's shown.
So. Great.
Using a, a generative process created with software and would
I be interested in in working onit?
And I just emailed back and said, yeah, sounds amazing.
(19:56):
And so we then started on makinga, a prototype.
Brian Eno's name wasn't mentioned.
That's all At this point, we started to use as a kind of
demo. Gary's previous film was about
the designer Dieter Rams. So we had all that footage.
So I started building this system that created this movie
(20:16):
on the fly, compositing things and all kinds of stuff.
You've been making films or moving imagery or whatever you
want to describe it for a while before that, correct?
Was Gary familiar with that? Yeah.
Oh, yeah. I you know why he was interested
in working with me. You know he.
Got it. He.
Does a lot of my previous work and weirdly a lot of my previous
(20:38):
stuff has been informed or inspired by films and cinema.
The 1st work I got into the permanent collection of the
Museum of Modern Art in New York, which was shown in 2008
and was this thing called CinemaRedux.
And it's a still image and it shows an entire film in one
(21:02):
image. So each row is 60 frames and
then it, it builds all these rows up of, of little images,
little thumbnails, which I created in 2004 just playing
around. And then MoMA got in touch and
in 2007 and said, we've seen this work on the Internet and
(21:22):
we've got this exhibition calledDesign in the Elastic Mind
opening in 2008 and we'd like tofeature this work.
And that obviously blew my mind because I've never been to art
school. I didn't have any connection
with anyone at MoMA, so it showsthe power of the Internet and
putting your work out there, just doing stuff, making stuff.
(21:44):
So yeah, Gary had seen that and we knew my other work.
So yeah, Long story short, because Brian had done the
soundtrack to his Dieter Rams film, he knew he had a bit of an
in with Brian. So as you mentioned, it's a
generated film, so explain that a little bit to me how that
worked. Yeah, so there's pre edited
(22:05):
scenes and and we kind of pin scenes.
So the beginning and the end of the same.
Well, then the rest is chosen bythe the system.
But we can also impose a kind ofnarrative arc.
So it's not like complete chaos,randomness.
We're giving it an emotional compass as as it were.
(22:26):
So that was the hard stuff to figure out.
Let's do that because people watch it and think that it's
just going to be a load of random clips and it's not.
Well, then there's millions and millions of permutations.
I remember growing up, I used tolove those books on rock family
history. I guess where this comes from is
that notion of like everything is connected.
(22:47):
It's such a sprawling mass. I think the film that you and
Gary made, it's almost like a visualisation of this sprawling
mask. When Gary approached him
originally, he turned Gary down because he didn't want to make a
documentary about his life. He said there's more than one
truth about someone and he he painted documentaries that
present one idea. So when Gary came to me, it was
(23:10):
just the idea of a film that is never the same twice.
That was the thing we were working on.
And then we did a prototype and we took it to Brian and Gary
took it to him and he said, look, this is what we're
thinking. And Brian was like, yeah, this
is really cool, let's do it. So.
And obviously, Brian is the perfect subject for a
documentary that is generative. So that's the thing that people
(23:32):
love it. It shows different aspects of
Brian every time you go and see it.
And you might get Roxy Music, but you might get the art
school, you might not. You might get ambient music.
You might not get ambient music.You might get all these light
sculptures, but it is an optimistic film and it talks
about climate change as well at the end, because the beginning
and the end are the same. It's very inspirational about
(23:55):
creativity and art and why we have art in our lives.
So people love it for that. But the reaction to the film is
has been beyond our expectations.
It's all a bit mad really that Iremember being told we got into
Sundance. I was like, we haven't even got,
you know, I've got to make this thing.
(24:19):
And there was a crucial moment where I've got it to a certain
level. And then Gary was like, can you
come out to New York for a week to work with us, me and the two
editors? It'd be good to have you in the
same room. So I went out there for four or
five days and during the screening as well.
And I watched the screening and I came out and they were quite
(24:45):
joyous about it. And Maya, one of the ads said,
what do you think, Brendan? We were on the street and
fucking freezing cold in upstateNew York.
And she goes, what do you think?I said, I think I've just
watched something where there's no evidence that I've worked on
it. And she was like, what do you
mean? I said, well, it's not
generative. So I then, you know, couldn't
(25:08):
sleep that night and we went back to the office the next day.
So I then I had a rant about it.We had the poster behind us and
he says a generative documentary.
And I said, it fucking says generative.
This is what we're making. And you know, when Gary, you
know, he wished he'd filmed all this because it was like, And so
(25:30):
it galvanized the vision, the idea of the movie, that it
needed to be made with software.That was the whole point of it.
You can't be a lie. And so when I was leaving, I was
like. Has it been worth me coming
over? And Gary was like, are you
fucking kidding me? So.
At that point, how was it constructed?
(25:52):
I didn't real so I I'd built thesoftware, but there's still a
few problems with it. And so Gary had put a cut
together that was done in Premier, was edited.
Right, I see. And that's what was screamed.
And I didn't know this though. We watched this film, I think he
(26:12):
told me just before we screamed it.
And I was like, fucking what? I've just made this software,
but it it had been cooked together in premiere and I was
like, what? So that really like messed with
my head. So that's why I said what I said
when we came out in cinema. But it sounds like that was like
a really pivotal moment. It were, it absolutely was.
(26:35):
It really was. Gary still talks about it.
Me and the editors, we were suchgreat friends.
And that was a thing I have to learn how to work with the
editors from their point of viewbecause they edited over these
all these individual scenes thatare fucking amazing.
And so, yeah, it's been a gift. The whole thing is going around
the world doing it live or doingQ&A S and you know, Sundance was
(27:00):
I want to. Go back to one thing as you're
talking the the influence of punk.
So I was thinking about what you're doing currently, the Eno
film, and, you know, as somebodywho's always been at the
forefront of music and. Challenging.
Musicians to work differently and so.
(27:21):
It's sort of interesting. That you are continuing to
enable. Well, you know what there was.
Something that Brian said one was when he was talking about
his time and you know, it was aninterview when he was at art
school and stuff and he was saying that in this Roxy Music
time, he. Moved from the.
Element of skill to the element of judgement.
(27:44):
So he realised that he wasn't a great musician, but what he
could do, he could twiddle all these things and he could judge
whether it was good. Oh, it sounded interesting at
least. And there was like this old
interview where he he wore a tiedye thing and he describes tie
dye as bad dyeing. You know, it's like he realised,
(28:08):
he said he's made a career out of failing.
Well, so when I was watching allthis, particularly the skill
versus judgement thing, there's way more talented programmers
than me and stuff. But the ability that I have is
to be able to judge it, to make something interesting where a
(28:29):
lot of coders and programmers, they just get into the real
geekery of it, or then the output doesn't resonate.
And some a lot of the stuff I dois really simple from a punk.
Or the idea of just. Not worrying about the.
Rules and making your own rules and blowing things up.
(28:49):
I think there's more interestingthings happen when you're on the
edge of oblivion. You're on the edge, you know,
destroying things. I think that's where you should
always be as an artist. I always describe it as there's
the things you know and outside of that, much bigger is the
things you don't know. And you should place yourself as
(29:09):
an artist on that event horizon between the two.
You shouldn't be like in the middle of all the things.
That's boring. That's why I, and I get why some
artists, particularly in the digital sphere, they just bang
out the same stuff. And I, I get it because it makes
some money and it's easier for me.
I've always found that a bit boring and I, well, I just don't
(29:31):
want to do that. So I'm just constantly looking
to do new things or work in new mediums or work with new people
or so that's what interests me you describe.
Yourself as a artist, but in thedigital sense or you don't even
qualify in that way. So it's such a loaded.
Word, we always has a problem with the word artist and and so
(29:54):
I thought I'm a designer, right?But I think design the word
designer suggests that you like solving problems and I'm
providing answers. I don't think I'm providing
answers, nor do I want to. I want to leave people with more
questions so it feels to me thatwhat I do is more outlet because
(30:16):
no one employs me to design the logo or whatever it is more
like. As an artist now.
And not just embrace it now because I, like I said, it's
quite loaded. You know, you're like a family
party and someone goes what you do and they just go, oh, I did,
I make things and now I just go,I'm an artist.
And then just wait for the silence and they go, oh, they're
(30:38):
like, you're unemployed then. Are you like some more Brussels?
Sprouts. Yeah, yeah.
Exactly. Yeah, get me away from this
weirdo. So I don't even qualify anymore.
Hi there, sorry for the. Interruption, but if you're
enjoying the show, please leave a review or a comment for the
latest news and updates. Make sure to also follow us on
Instagram at destroy Punk podcast.
(31:00):
Thank you. And now back to the show.
You know I know you. Sold some stuff in Sotheby's,
that right? Yeah, I've done, yeah, I've done
a couple of some of his auctions, couple of Christie's,
various other auctions. I I got well into the NFT scene
in 2021 did change a lot of things for me which was amazing.
I mean the first NFT sold in an auction house in Paris was mine
(31:23):
in first. NFT sold in in an auction house
in China was mine. I basically made like this
abstract sculpture from the fight scene at the end of Kill
Bill Volume 1. So again it manipulating movies
and things and it was called Black Mamba's Revenge and and it
(31:44):
was bought within an hour. But obviously NFTS was a whole
phenomenon and people are sayingthat they're dead and yet they
are still being sold and collected.
Not in the same way. But what was interesting for me
was it then got me in front of contemporary art galleries who
already had digital artists and a gallery in Mayfair called
(32:07):
Gazelle Art House. They got in touch and I did a
group show with them and then they said, oh we want to
represent you. So I've done various shows with
them and they look after my worknow and they're like a family to
me and they're amazing and they're a full on contemporary
art gallery. And so it opened a lot.
Of doors for me so. As you're talking, I'm thinking
(32:29):
outside of the coding. Aspect the technology.
Aspect. Which seems like a means.
To the end, what would you say your art is all about?
What are you trying to say? Yeah, I, I.
Want it to resonate? Well, here's the thing.
I don't think the work is completed if it's ever completed
(32:50):
it. It's not finished until someone
sees it and experiences it, and that that completes the loop.
If no. One sees the work.
I don't think the work actually exists.
It's that context what I'm trying to do.
Yeah, I, I'm guessing it's, for me, it's a conduit to, it's a
lens to look at the world in a different way.
(33:14):
And just. Stop and question things.
The best comments I've had was one guy who said this completely
stopped me in my tracks. I thought job done but I'm not
thinking of that when I'm makingit.
I'm just making because it's theonly thing I know to do.
But when someone says that it means a lot or it but it made
(33:35):
them cry or it made them, you know, lots of people have seen
the Eno film, you know, they've been in tears watching it.
And that's obviously because of Brian and what he's saying and
all that. But you.
Make this work and if it I mean,if it doesn't resonate with
someone, I think it it's failed.And if people hate it, I, I
don't think I ever want to make work that people go, yes, all
(33:56):
right, No, you want it to be like extremes of like, you know,
fuck me, I hate that work. Or well, I I really like it.
I think I don't just want to make an Instagram like making
machine. Some people just do.
I'm not interested in that kind of shit.
So yeah. I think it's.
That I think it's hard to describe sometimes why you do
(34:18):
what you do for me I've. Always thought that it comes
from wanting to have a voice so.Wanting to be.
A little subservient. Not subservient.
I'm subversive, sorry. And I think that's where punk
really had an impact on me, because it.
It was. Like, oh wow, it legitimized a
(34:40):
little bit the ability to take on the establishment.
I was never one. I never put myself out there.
I didn't really dress like a punk.
I didn't really do all of that. All of that inspiration.
Led me to what I do because it gave me a a way to express
myself starting out as a designer Oh yeah, I can now have
(35:01):
a voice and sorry that was like a confession just.
No, no, I think that's really interesting.
I think creating anything is an egotistical act because you're
essentially playing, you know, you're like God in your own
environment. Yeah, whether that's an
environment is a piece of paper or whatever.
So I always felt that's what that is.
(35:23):
So when people say I really likethat, it's a hell of a thing,
it's thing you've created from nothing and now it deserves a
place in the world. And often times I think you're
creating work that doesn't existin any other form, so therefore
you feel you need to make it exist.
No way. Gary as well, he wanted to make
films that he wanted to watch, but they didn't exist.
(35:44):
So that's why he made Alvesker and and Gardner as well.
So I guess it's a similar thing.But so it's always interesting.
I'm just reading Nick Cave's book at the minute, which is
incredible. There's a lot of things in there
about his journey and his creativity and stuff, but I I
just find all those conversations really
interesting. Something you also.
Touched on and I wanted. To ask.
(36:06):
Was. So you met Gary at South by
Southwest but. When I looked.
At some of your work, there's a there's a lot of familiarity
with existing work and the Eno film.
So is that where a lot of the inspiration came from?
Well, it's weird. I was.
Only recently I think. I posted on Instagram yesterday
(36:28):
about this thing I made in 1998 where you could re edit this
shower scene in Psycho. Oh yeah, I said.
That well I've only. Recently realised that it was
like an early prototype in a way.
I was massive, still am obviously massive Alfred
Hitchcock fan and. Back then I was.
(36:49):
Trying to make a name for myselfin the whole web design and
stuff like that and interaction design.
And I'd done a site. About soul bass and the first
ever sold bass website, not unofficially and that got a lot
of press and so an offshoot of that was the psycho thing.
This little online application where you could re edit the
(37:12):
shower see and then you could save your own version.
It was quite disturbing how people titled them.
Someone was like die bitch and Ithink some people are obviously
a bit disturbed, but anyway, it was a timeline and you could
drop things in a timeline and itwould generate this thing.
And it was only recently that I thought, bloody hell, I forgot
(37:35):
that I'd made that that long ago.
So yeah, there's and I made a lot back then.
I made a lot of like interface things and that was kind of what
was I was known for was weird interfaces and just things that
didn't look like anything else. So.
So I guess I've always seen. The idea of.
(37:57):
Software applications in an artful way anyway, because to
me, why can't they be artworks? Why can't software that you've
made be a piece of art? I didn't think of it like that
back then, but that's just was my outlet for making things.
(38:19):
I always say you make a thing tomake a thing.
You know, you're making a thing,you're making a thing that makes
a thing. So which is the whole point of
generative work. I've always done that.
So there's there is these like little connections with what I'm
doing now from way back. You strike.
Me as somebody. Who's not afraid of failure, or
you're not afraid of imperfection or you, you want to
(38:44):
see what happens. I mean, you could say, you know.
You watch like a Kubrick movie, and I was watching 2001 again
and the other day and you look at that movie and go, some of
it's like, how did they even film this?
And it's a perfect science fiction film.
But I'm sure if Kubrick looked Kubrick looked at it, he'd go,
Nah, it's that bit's not right. And I'm sure that's how it was.
(39:05):
So there's you aim for perfection, but you always want
these little, like I said, theselittle things that have these
little cracks in them that I think that's what defines a bit
of humanity in the work. I think if it's too perfect, but
you want that little bit of naivety in it.
I think that's the kind of stuffthat I'm interested in the, the
(39:27):
whole point about being on the edge.
There's the things you know, andthen the other side of that is
the things you don't know, whichis huge and infinite.
And you want to position yourself between those two
things. You don't want to be like right
in the middle of the things you'd know because that's
boring. So you want to be always on the
edge of that unfamiliarity. That's where you want to
(39:50):
position yourself as an artist. And I think as any creative
person, that's what fuels you. Like what if I do this?
It could be terrible and it could blow my computer up or
whatever it is, or it could be adisastrous business fail.
You have to give it a go becauseit's actually way more
interesting. So this idea of.
Oblivion and also from making a generative system where you're
(40:14):
making a system where you have rules and then you press a
button and then the system makesitself.
There's a vulnerability to that.You're putting yourself in a
vulnerable position because you're not quite sure what it's
going to make the rules. In place.
Like a kind of mini God, but this still could go different
(40:34):
places and I'd love that aspect.So I think it speaks to the idea
of this like tension between oblivion and success.
It's amazing. How your life has been, this
series of stumbles and falls, but somehow it's less about
falling over and you. Have.
(40:55):
Always gotten where you wanted to go making a name for yourself
I. Think the main.
Thing is, being adaptive to the culture and the times, that's
the number one thing. And I've real, I've only
realised this recently. You've got to adapt.
(41:15):
That's what Darwin said. It's not about survival of the
fittest, it's about those that can adapt to the surroundings.
They're the ones that survive. And so I've always managed to
find a way to adapt to my surroundings, culturally and
technology, society, whatever. I've always managed to find a
(41:36):
way to understand what the zeitgeist is somehow.
Which is weird because I don't live in London and I'm miles
from anywhere like that. Yeah, that's the number one
lesson I've learned in my life, is to adapt.
Because if you don't, you becomelike stone and you just refuse
(41:57):
to change. I've just learned to adapt to
the times and now it's the AI and stuff.
But the discussion around AI, obviously you see a lot of it.
It just steals people's work andit's like a very naive reaction
to it. So we can't discount AI
completely and, and we shouldn'tbecause it's another tool that
(42:19):
can lead to areas that we've noteven thought of.
I think that's what we need to hold onto.
There's lots of concerns, absolutely, but you don't want
to discount it. I think there's a lot of
creatives and artists who who really do get it and see that
it's a new form of creativity, and I think it's best when it's
(42:40):
combined with human beings. The way I use it, I'm creating
like the forms of a thing myself, but then I'm using AI to
then augment it. But it cannot make what I've
seen without me. That first bit, I'm still
crafting everything. It's not like going in some
(43:01):
magic porridge pot. I'm still having to figure out
how it does that. But that for me, that's
absolutely fascinating. You know, a new form of beauty.
I was. Curious what's next for you And
just as you were talking, it made me think we've.
Obviously had this. Crazy year with the Eno film,
(43:22):
and obviously that's taking you here, there and everywhere.
I don't even know if you think in those terms of what's next,
practically what's. Next, me and Gary have started
our own company to do other filmprojects.
We've already got the next one lined up that is not our project
we're consulting on. We go to New York in January for
(43:43):
a, for a workshop on that and then a couple of other big
projects that are very exciting,could be huge, but we'll see
where that goes. But then there's the other side.
I'm represented by a Gallery in London, Gazelli Art House.
Mila, who owns the gallery, had not seen the film before she
came and she was blown away. And then another art guy was
(44:06):
there and they were both saying to me, where does this leave you
though? Was a as your art practice?
Are you just going to be like you and Gary now?
No, no. I just see this as another
element to, to what I do. I'm still exploring making
things, probably going to do a new solo show next year.
(44:28):
I'm working on ideas for that. But yeah, I do, I do.
Honestly, I'm I don't really know where it where it's going
to go. I think I'm just trying to learn
all the time. I think of of new, new things
and new inputs. Coming back to what you said a
minute. Ago.
This is what you do. This is what makes you happy or
(44:49):
gets you excited or what motivates you.
And in many ways, continuing to do more of the same.
I want to make work. That is is remembered and and
leaves a mark. Not everything I do does that,
you know, even David Bowie did the laughing.
No, you make lots of shitty things, but then hopefully you
(45:11):
then make something significant.So I.
Think that's what's. Been the true joy with this
film. But yeah, so that was a keep me
going and it seems that you get.A lot from people's
interpretations or the the fact that you put it out there and it
gives it meaning and I I love that.
And also they bring. Something else to it that I
didn't even or it resonates in away that I didn't.
(45:34):
That's the best thing you mentioned.
Marcel Duchamp But to me, that is everything.
Is it a work of art is a urinal or a urinal?
I never remember the pronunciation.
That's the American me again. It's it's a It's an example that
I try to expressed to everybody I work with.
Coming from an. Agency.
(45:56):
Advertising agency, Branding agency World.
Everyone. Is.
Afraid it's always about what you shouldn't do.
Or will the client be happy? Sometimes they're just like,
let's just do it, let's just seewhat happens.
There's a piece. In the Eno film where Brian
talks about that piece in particular, the idea of his
ready maids. You know, these things that
(46:16):
already exist and now you can take those and put them in other
artworks and make new things from them.
You know, when I was making break beats and all that kind of
stuff, I didn't know you could term those as ready made though.
I realised that there was a correlation with the ethos of
Marcel Duchamp and all the wholeabsurdity of Dadaism and all
(46:40):
that kind of stuff. Dadaism came out of the response
the the horrors of the First World War.
The reason it's absurd is because of that.
Those things have just always interested me.
I'm not interested in the familiar.
I don't, I, I think you should always make a stranger of
familiarity. You know, I could have, when I
(47:03):
did the Cinema Redux thing that got into Momo, You know what?
I could just bang those out forever, and Ditto with a lot of
my work. I could just make it into a
template and just bang that shitout, and I have.
No. Interest in doing that.
I want to make new things, different things.
But there's a lot of artists that they actually do that.
(47:25):
They make money and they get collected and it's just so
boring because they've just become familiar with things.
They've been familiar with theirown processes.
They're not trying new things because they've become for
complacency. Complacency is the C word.
It's a horrible thing. And once you get once
(47:46):
complacency sets in, it's game over.
I always describe. It as when I do like talks at
uni's and stuff, I always say you've got to deviate from the
expected when you do that. It's like having some people
swear on bunks, swear on nationwide was like, it's like,
(48:06):
and it's still being talked about now.
That's why you should never follow trends because you're
just following everyone else andyou're just standing the noise
and you don't stick out. I've I've never followed trends
at all. So yeah, no, it's good to
deviate from the everyday and then the expected.
You mentioned, you said that you'd work with Peter Savile.
(48:28):
That was when Peter. Was creative director of
Manchester, so the agency I was with at the time, they were
doing a massive rebrand. And so we had a lot of meetings
with Peter where we'd show him like the idea for the website
and and stuff like that. And he often commented on the
typography choice and that kind of thing.
(48:49):
But as he said to you, he's not into technology.
He doesn't use technology, so hefound it all quite as he
described. It's quite quaint.
I work with Tony Wilson as well,and he's rang me up once and he
said, Brendan, he says, what would it sound like if you could
hear the Happy Mondays being downloaded?
(49:10):
I said, well, he said, could youmake some code to do it?
Said yeah, yeah. So I I.
Made this like quick little software application where you
could put like any song game butin this case Happy Mondays you
can't remember which one it was and it like you heard the the
code version of it right and So what Tony did because he was
(49:35):
clever he didn't have any of therights to the Happy Mondays
songs and so I'd. I'd created this piece.
So that's what Tony did. We just gave you dangerous
ideas. I think that's why, you know,
when Gary emailed me, it was thedangerous idea.
How do you make a film? It's never the same again.
So yeah, these people are amazing to have in your lives.
(49:56):
They just drop these ideas on you and you can either say no or
you can say, yeah, I think I canfigure something out.
I feel like you keep chatting. Forever, but I'm going to let
you go because I know it's getting late for you and it's
probably getting close to dinnertime.
But Brendan, thank you so much for making time again.
And like I said, I know you've been super busy.
(50:17):
I wish you luck with so many of these things, you know, next
week I'm. Actually doing a a podcast
interview, a video, and it's about Savile Row tailoring.
Yeah. Because that's the kind of stuff
that I wear that's so. Interesting.
Wow, brilliant. So I've now.
Ingratiated myself to be again, trying to be like I think I want
(50:42):
to be known for. Dressing well and stuff.
And I've managed to do that so much that I've now been invited
on to interview. You just blew my.
Mind with that that was. Wow.
Wow, I've got to see these Savile Row pictures.
That's brilliant. That's brilliant.
(51:03):
You know, I appreciate. Craft in all its forms.
So totally, yeah. I can tell that that's brilliant
and I'm pretty. I'm honoured that you are on the
show, so thank you. Well, listen, I'm honoured.
To be on the show, you know, I right from episode 1, I just I
loved what you were doing and the the the Peter Saville
episode is fantastic. So to be asked to be on it is is
(51:24):
a real thrill. So thank you again.
Well, I'm hoping that. It achieves greatness like
yourself, I'm sure it will all right.
Thank you. Thanks, Richard.
Cheers mate, see ya. Bye.
My name is Richard. Smith and I'm Your Host.
I'm a filmmaker and art directorand Once Upon a time I was part
of the big 80s. I designed record covers for
(51:46):
Depeche Mode. I danced with Bono, discussed
art with Mick Jagger and drank tea with Suzie Sue.
I also grew up during those turbulent times in England in
the late 70s and was driven by the Do it Yourself ethos with
punk. I obsessed over bands like Joy
Division and New Order and went on to work for the album cover
designer Peter Savile. I believe that year, that moment
in 1976 when a bunch of foul mouthed jobs cursed and swore on
(52:10):
national television, changed thefuture of culture forever and is
what brought us to where we are today.
So where do we go from here? Will emerging new technologies
be the catalyst that tears down the walls of mediocrity,
throwing culture and society into chaos and revolution again?
We'll have to wait and see. This has been another episode of
Destroy. Thank you for listening.
(52:32):
Destroy is a BE. Right Back Studios production
learnmore@berightbackstudios.comand please tune in again for
another episode of Destroy the Influence of Punk podcast.
Wherever you listen or download,be right back.
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