Everyone’s heard of Daft Punk, but not everyone’s seen the faces behind those famous robotic DJs (unless this pic counts). Xavier Veilhan is fortunate, even lucky, to be among those who have seen the faces of the French artists, which he was privy to when scanning the Daft Punk duo for a series called Producers, part of a larger double exhibition called Music, opening in New York and Paris this week at Galerie Perrotin’s dual locations.
In an interview with The Creators Project, Veilhan says that scanning them without their helmets wasn’t even his idea, “The funny thing is I didn’t even ask them. It was a very logical response to my proposal: I proposed to introduce them as producers, not as musicians, and so after talking to them, we decided that they should appear with their civilian names. […] They proposed to me: ‘Okay, we should make the sculpture the non-existing image of us. So if somebody wants to see how we are like in real [life] they’ll have to look at the sculpture.”
Thomas Bangalter & Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, the humans that hide behind those robotic visages, are among a long list of producers in the artist’s series, a list that includes: Nigel Godrich, Quincy Jones, Giorgio Moroder, The Neptunes, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Rick Rubin, Philippe Zdar, and more. The 3D scanning and fabricating of the sculptures was actually the easiest part of the project. The most difficult obstacle was actually getting in touch with the producers. Veilhan explains, “I had been thinking about it for a few years and we made the decision quite late. Everything was done in a rush, but it was a great energy, because the biggest part was not to make the actual sculptures, but to contact the actual producers and I didn’t have a clue about how much they would respond to the idea.”
Using two Artec wide-angle scanners and 1 Artec Eva, Veilhan was able to capture the iconic producers, who produced such important artists as Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Kanye West, and Lady Gaga, among many other musicians. The idea for Veilhan was to bring the producers out from behind the curtain of the studio and make them visible. Veilhan tells Forbes, “I conceptualized this project a long time ago but had to put it off because it was difficult to coordinate.” In the end, the icons weren’t so difficult to work with. He says, “They were all kind of easygoing with the fact that I showed up and made their portraits, and it was not such a big deal. It was more of a discussion, you know? I came with my small sketchbook with a drawing inside.”
And, while many of the statues were 3D printed, all 3D printer users know that the post-processing work can be intense. He explains to Forbes, “Of course the 3D printed statues are machine-made, but I spent many hours finishing them by hand to make each resemble the real person.” Def Jam producer Rick Rubin was particularly difficult to refine, especially his beard. Veilhan describes to The Creators Project, “The light gets lost in the hair, so you have to reconstruct it in post-production after the scanning, and of course Rick Rubin’s beard is kind of extreme. We looked a lot at several renaissance sculptures, which were interesting because when you’re doing a marble sculpture, you also have this problem of how to give the rendering of hair. We looked at a lot of Classical sculptures, especially Bernini, and we tried to find a kind of compromise. But I think it worked quite well in the end.”
Alongside Producers, the artist produced Mobile, a mobile made up of 30 spheres, and several other Mini Mobiles, meant to represent the music made by the producers. He describes them in a press release by saying, “The mobiles are interesting because they are very freely moving. They don’t have a definitive shape. They’re always changing, but they are also strongly filling the air, like music does.”
Music will be on display from now until April 11 at Galerie Perrotin in New York and France and it may be the closest you’ll ever get to seeing the real Daft Punk in person.
Hat tip to my brother, Ethan. Thanks, brodeo!
