{"id":505572,"date":"2021-05-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/numero.com\/non-classifiee-2\/interview-with-richie-hawtin-plastikman-the-living-legend-of-electro-2\/"},"modified":"2021-05-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","slug":"interview-with-richie-hawtin-plastikman-the-living-legend-of-electro-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/numero.com\/en\/non-classifiee\/interview-with-richie-hawtin-plastikman-the-living-legend-of-electro-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Richie Hawtin (Plastikman), the living legend of electro"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Richie Hawtin alias Plastikman<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n \n

NUM\u00c9RO: How would you describe the two tracks, Spektre and Narcosis, that you created specially for Prada\u2019s autumn\/winter-2021 runway show?<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n

RICHIE HAWTIN:<\/strong> Spektre is mysterious, floating like a presence hidden in the shadows and ready to come into the light. It catches you. It matches the spirit that Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons sought to infuse into this particular collection: an apparition, in the realm of magic, that materializes through the clothing and through the scenography designed in collaboration with Rem Koolhaas. A potentiality comes into being. The experience has something mystic about it. As for Narcosis, it corresponds to the feelings that we\u2019re all having right now. Waiting. A form of wandering. It\u2019s like our minds were drugged. How can you imagine the future clearly with everything we\u2019re going through right now? And yet, hope and magic remain.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada have described the show as a celebration of the individual, the body and the need for freedom, as well as of the necessity for every being to reconnect with others. Their description could also serve very well as a definition of your music.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Fashion, like music, is all about that \u2013 self-expression and freedom. The show was a temple dedicated to their manifestation, a place where the models could dance if they so desired. I wanted to bring to the audience watching the video of the show uncertain musical landscapes that they could travel through freely. I refuse to define everything and prefer to propose sound particles that each individuality can explore as they wish. That\u2019s probably why my music is so spare and minimal. You need space to let the sound breathe. That respiration is a liberty.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Rem Koolhaas has defined the architecture designed for the show as a \u201cnon-space,\u201d which might be understood as a place that exists in real life but which remains undefined, without a precise function, and is therefore a space of freedom.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Sound, like architecture, creates spaces. But Miuccia and Raf\u2019s clothes, Rem\u2019s architecture and my music share a desire to create a place in which there\u2019s still space for you to be yourself. Nothing is underlined or overexplained. That\u2019s the whole beauty of working artistically in such a reductive way. All you\u2019re doing is installing a structure where people can blossom and develop.<\/p>\r\n\n

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Richie Hawtin alias Plastikman<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n \n

It\u2019s only after listening to your tracks several times that they reveal all their complexity and hypnotic and psychoactive power…<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n

The idea of exploration is central. When I create music, I dream of spaces and frequencies that will transport you. I don\u2019t necessarily want them to be difficult to access, but rather pleasing and welcoming, and above all they should allow everyone to experience time and space and to discover, each time they listen, new things. In my music, everything happens in little interactions, silences, details. That\u2019s the whole beauty of the art and music that I make and that I love. For example, when I walk round an artwork by a figure like Anish Kapoor, Richard Serra or Dan Flavin, everything changes depending on the time of day and the viewing angle.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Why did you sign the Prada show music with the alias Plastikman? It\u2019s not a pseudonym you use very often…<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Plastikman has always represented my studio persona, which is more cerebral, and goes deep into my heart. Over the years, Richie Hawtin has acquired a very strong identity in the world of clubbing. He\u2019s more linkedtomywork as a DJ \u2013 he\u2019san extravert where Plastikman is an introvert. When working under the Plastikman pseudonym, I feel I have more creative freedom and am less bound to audience expectation than when I make music as Richie Hawtin.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Raf Simons has said that he listens to your music the way others listen to classical music. What is your relationship to the classical canon?<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n

I can\u2019t say I\u2019m particularly well- versed in classical music, although I do love listening to the Berliner Philharmoniker. The space around the instruments is what fascinates me most \u2013 the dynamic, the frequencies, the flows. Moreover, I find a form of beauty in composers like Erik Satie. It\u2019s still very much classical music, of course, but it\u2019s nonethe- less extremely minimalist. And that ties in with my own production. Perhaps I come closest to classical music when I\u2019m working on an album rather than just a single track \u2013 which to be honest is something I don\u2019t do very often. What\u2019s different about an album is that each track has to share common values and participate in creating a more global movement, a story and a narration.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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