In the UK, in order to clamp down on raves there was actually a law that made it illegal for more than two people to dance to electronic music. France had its own version which meant that every event we organized was a struggle. The police would stop me, ask what I was doing, and assume I was a drug dealer.
I used to say that raves were the last truly free spaces on earth — places without politics. Web3 carries a similar sense of freedom and authenticity. That’s why I love it.
At one point, Musk said that an AI talking to a human will soon be like a human talking to a tree. But I think we have much more to learn from a tree than any AI.
One day, he called me and said: “You need to see this!” We witnessed the birth of [the hemp] and made a beautiful seven-minute film that showed the microscopic growth of cells. From that, we extracted a few stills, which became At the roots of plants (2022).
I understand how long it takes to publish a work of scientific research. But when scientists work with artistic freedom, they’re not thinking about where it will be published or whether it follows traditional process. It’s real scientific work but, first and foremost, it’s art — made with the heart.
All my work is about bridging the living world with the digital. People forget that DNA is a code; there’s no reason to see these worlds as separate.
We came up with the idea of destructuring a QR code that the sculpture would project onto the floor via its shadow. Whether it appeared or not depended on how it aligned with the light in the room. I loved those first few days when people didn’t realise the sculpture was casting a code.
What if a living organism, like yeast, took control of the painting?
Then, only five days before the summit, President Macron called me and said “I want your sculpture on stage with me.” And we made it happen.
For me, music should be rare. It isn’t a question of nostalgia, but when you had to buy an album on vinyl you might have had to wait for six months. Now you can have it in seconds. That changes everything — your love for a song, the way you connect to it — the feeling is completely different.
Agoria (Sébastien Devaud) is a French multidisciplinary artist whose work connects technology and nature. Uniting art, music, and science, Agoria’s focus on generative algorithms, AI, and biological systems has resulted in a unique practice that ranges between depictions of brain cells as mysterious and nebular, explorations of plant communication, and repetitions of human gestures. His masterpiece, {Sigma Lumina} (2024), created for the Musée d’Orsay, reimagines classical works, offering a contemporary dialog with the art of the past.
Phoebe Forster is a London-based curator and writer who specializes in artistic applications of emerging technology. She worked previously with ARTXCODE, an artist agency and advisory specializing in algorithmic art, and is currently pursuing a master’s degree at The Courtauld.