chance beckons me
my first trimester as a young Visual Arts teacher at the Marignane college will be my last
At the end of December I was asked to draw the future case of a future computer. I discovered Paris and the world of computer scientists in such an authentic “start-up” that the word didn’t yet exist.
A radical change: my fellow teachers left school on time. On the contrary, the geeks stayed late in the evening. Worse: they came to the office on Sunday because “they had an idea”. I knew it: before the end of the second month I was there on weekends too.
For us, the 80s went by quickly and well. The oldest are 35 years old and everything seems possible to us. This is also the opinion of the shareholders who encourage us. Like them, the artist in me feels that there are things to do with these machines.
Coming from the art world, it is obvious to me that they have a poetry of their own. PCs already help artists create images or sounds, but what comes out of the ugly beige boxes interests me less than the small components hidden inside. I think Steve Jobs had the same impression when he had the internal screws of NEXT gold-plated.
We have to stand out from our ancestors, IBM and Bull. We decide that our computer will be called Goupil. The team approves my brightly colored cases. Goupil takes up the shade of the perfume “Opium” by Yves St Laurent (pure coincidence if it is close to the color of foxes). It’s well played: we are noticed at the salon.
Used for what it knows how to do, the computer of the 80s is a good tool. We can create, invent… François Bayle shows it with his acousmatic concerts that I will listen to at the Maison de la Radio.
François Bayle in concert
I have the impression that the pile of wires, boxes and adjustments necessary for François Bayle act as a bulwark, while the technique could be light on the eyes as well as on the mind; we must seek simplicity.
The components seduce me by their tiny size in contrast to their great possibilities. They are too magical to remain hidden. Now that I know them a little, I must take these little things out of their boxes.
the four musketeers present in all my Luchrones
And aesthetics count!
We receive a prototype motherboard. Without even plugging it in, Olivier Rodi looks at it, sighs “It’s not good when the drawing is ugly”. Here my art studies are useful to me in IT! It’s the same thing with programmers: ugly code is suspect.
in test: the small copper square will be replaced the following year by a chip of a few millimeters
To the despair of my parents, after my industrial initiation, I take back my freedom. Having become vaguely technician, I remained an artist. An artist aggravated, if you will, by what he learned. Because all that gave me lots of ideas. With the doc in one hand and the soldering iron in the other, I launch into the creation of the first Luchrone: Nemo.