Lifelounge exclusive feature
Interview by Andy Roberts
As you may or may not be aware, the medium we call ‘music video’ has been taking some mighty kicks to the head in recent years. While the Internet allows us to watch our favourite videos whenever we like, and even download whichever tracks we want, it has also brought record companies to their knees. And so, what little money they’re still prepared to spend on a video is generally spent cautiously. More and more (mostly) starving directors are asked for something like the last successful video, just cheaper, and with more tits.
And yet, once in a while, a startlingly fresh vision somehow makes it to our screens and prospers. Such is the case with Pleix – a Paris-based collective of seven individuals, including directors, graphic designers, 3D artists and musicians. Who does what exactly isn’t clear, and it seems they like it that way. This interview with the mysterious Pleix was conducted, by request, via a series of emails and as such it is still debatable as to identity of its members, what they each do, and even who answered which question. Still, all that is important is the work – which can be found on music video channels, in galleries, and yes, on the Internet.
Pleix funds its own audiovisual experimentation by lending its sleek and open-ended visions to big name brands such as Adidas and Audi, and while the work is often littered with oblique pop-culture references, it remains ambiguous enough to invite deeper interpretations if the viewer is that way inclined.
Most recently Pleix’s playful, often subversive, and always technically polished touch can be witnessed in Groove Armada’s ‘Get Down’ promo, in which dancing rabbits fuck and multiply until they overrun the making of the video itself. But that is to get ahead of ourselves. First to their own creation…
‘We’ve worked together since 2001 but we’ve known each other for longer. Before Pleix, six of us worked in the same place, for very talented directors called Kuntzel & Deygas. We just wanted to do our own projects ... that is a good reason to come together and create a collective.’
And so in 2001 Pleix created its first film – Bleip:No – set to music by Pleix member Bleip. From there Pleix’s films grew in sophistication and ambition, until in 2003 it created three stunning films – the experimental art-films Sometimes and E-Baby, and the cyberpunk flavoured music video Pride’s Paranoia for Futureshock.
If you haven’t seen Sometimes yet, you may recognise it as the forefather of a particularly beautiful commercial Pleix subsequently made for Audi, in which a car quietly explodes into floating fragments, which then reform after a hypnotic journey through a city. This cross pollination is part of the Pleix modus operandi. The art leads to (artistic) commercial work which then pays for further art, and so on. Hey, if Warhol was cool with it …
‘Yes, and that is probably the most comfortable way to make commercials for us. That’s why we didn’t have any problems reapplying this idea (our personal project Sometimes) to a commercial. We are directors, we actually direct commercials. We must eat and pay our rent each month so making a big budget commercial based on our artistic work was more than okay. And if we did refuse that script, the agency would find somebody else to make it, so we were happy to control the whole thing and Bleip did the music for the Audi commercial, which is very cool for us (as) we like this music.’
And it’s a testament to the strength of its vision that Pleix make commercials as enjoyable as its films for music television or galleries.
‘We work in different fields (art gallery, museum, festival, commercial etc.). We are not “working with cutting-edge media and electronic music” only. It means that compared to other artists we’ve got the chance to have money from ads to be able to do “cutting-edge” projects, and also more personal projects with low budgets or no budget at all! We just try to find the right balance between commercial and artistic projects.’
Not that it was always an easy balance …
‘Commercials help a lot! Anyway, now it’s okay for the seven of us, but during the first years of Pleix we did our films without earning any money. But we believed in what we did.’
And it seems that Sony believes in Pleix too, as they’re currently finishing the mega-brand’s next campaign. As always this is pulling Pleix back to more personal work.
‘We are preparing an exhibition for October. We also would like to do a couple of personal projects but we need more time! The current ambition is to work again on our personal projects. As “digital artists” we need to be freely creative on a long project (like our own video or a short movie) than being involved in production politics and agency meetings like we are 75 per cent of our time. We currently have three personal projects on the way.’
Perhaps it’s this balance between satisfying experimentation and more draining commercial work that has kept the same seven members together – not as easy perhaps as it sounds, given that many directing duos eventually split. Or maybe it’s because the members don’t share a studio (they don’t even have one)? ‘We work a lot through the Internet and call each other a lot.’
Plus, they’re flexible in who does what, depending on the job. ‘We work by “Bi-nome”. We are seven but lots of the projects are done by two people (and sometimes three or four or five, etc.). That’s what we call “bi-nome” – two people. But those two people change on different projects, and we sign all of the projects under the name of the team: PLEIX.’
Pleix’s seven-member has other advantages too. ‘It makes our inspiration sources very large, coming from many different fields like cinema, art, TV, comic books and many cartoons (Chris Cunningham, Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Michelangelo Antonioni’s films, Hoffman and Hans Bellmer, Shinya Tsukamoto, ‘Six Feet Under’, Star Wars, Akira Otomo, ‘The Simpsons’, etc.’
It also means that Pleix has avoided the trap of becoming stale – its output constantly evolving. ‘Our first pieces (for example Simone, or Sometimes) were very abstract and more minimal in a sense. Now, maybe our films are more complex, more photorealistic and maybe more ambitious. Before Pleix, some of did photorealistic CGI in post-production companies where we did lots of 3D/real integration for other directors on ads or feature films. Pleix was a freedom bubble for us. It was the place where we could forget about high-end CG images and heavy post-production. So we started naturally with these abstract pieces. Now we have come back to more sophisticated images, heavier in terms of post-production. It’s a kind of cycle; simple then more complex, then simple again ... Like the clothes you wear or the food you have day after day. We try to avoid having only one ‘Pleix style’ coming from our technique or the subjects we work on. Because we are seven people, with seven different ways of thinking things ... it’s easier. But we all come from the same place (Paris) and we all are influenced by the same kinds of things.’
Asked what unites them all, and more importantly their work, the answer is simple. ‘The common thread is to have fun with what we do, and maybe the clients can feel that. (Our advice is) to have fun, lot’s of fun! (And) for music video, the big thing for us is: freedom. The most important things are good music, good concepts, enough time and enough money to do it. Big or small, it depends on idea. Lack of money pushes creativity but lack of money can be painful for people who want to make a living from their passion. If there is no budget (or it’s very small) the project must be completely free and you should put anything in your concept! So usually what we like to do is make a self-produced project within the time we need with no pressure, then once it is done we ask for a track that we like.’
Not that everything is as effortless as Pleix’s films appear.
‘When we finish a film, most of the time we are not happy with it. That’s why we really want to do another one afterwards and hope it will be better!’
And Pleix do have an Achilles heel that could yet slow them down, ‘The seven of us really love eating. Our weakness is good food.’
To see samples of the work of Pleix watch these videos:
Netlag, Directed by Pleix, Music by Bliss(2004)
E-Baby, Directed by Pleix, Music by Bleip (2003)
Sometimes, Directed by Pleix, Music by Kid606 (2003)
Beauty Kit, Directed by Pleix, Music by Bleip (2001)
Itsu, Directed by PLeix, Music by Plaid (2002)
Clicks, Directed by Pleix, Music by Bleip(2003)
Birds, Directed by Pleix, Music by Vitalic(2006)
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