A contribution from the series “The Best From 30 Years of Rolling Stone” – from October 15, 2019
Something is happening in the life of Michael Stipe: recently the former rem singer with “Your Capricious Soul” published his solo debut single, whose revenues of the “Extinction Rebellion” movement benefit. In Berlin, where he has a residence, he currently advertises the 25th anniversary of the Rem album “Monster” with his colleague Mike Mills, which was reissued as a Reissue.
The 59-year-old presented his new photo book “Michael Stipe with Douglas Coupland: Our Interference Times: A Visual Record” in the gallery and photo book shop “Bildband Berlin”. In cooperation with the writer Coupland, he gathers recordings that are supposed to map the transition from analogue to digital photography and thus a chaotic world. Rolling Stone met Michael Stipe for a conversation about the roofs of the Holzmarkt 25 in Berlin, a “creative village” with studios, galleries, clubs and restaurants.
Your illustrated book is opened with the printing of your lyrics for the 1998 REM song “Hope”, shows handwritten changes and notes. What do you want to express?
The theme of this song and that of my book go hand in hand. That’s why I printed “Hope” in it: it’s about chaos in songwriting. The piece is about a person who is terribly ill – and who has decided to trust a new medical technology to save his life. It scares him, especially because this method is experimental. This connects the song with the illustrated book: We have been in a crazy period for about 30 years. Photography may be finally changing from analog to digital. It is not scary, but strange how easy photography has become.
Why?
It is the technique that I sometimes find strange, but also the motifs I see. Around 2005 I realized that digital cameras experienced their upswing. I also started to see and record things differently. In 2007 I started an experiment: I opened an online calendar, “Future Epicentre”, and in it I published a photo every day, taken with my digital camera-so I wanted to show how digital technology changes the way I am with Make pictures.
“Photography changes the way we perceive politicians”
Can you give us an example?
The close -up of a light bulb is shown in my book. I could never have photographed the glow thread with a normal camera, not with my conventional lenses. Or take insects, the interior of the eye. It would never have worked with film, that would be a waste of material. Therefore, digital photography simply changes the way we perceive objects or living things. But it also changes the way we debate, how we talk about politics, how we perceive politicians. Our view of the world changes radically. This is where the difference between the generations comes into play.
In what respect?
A 14-year-old perceives the world as well as a person aged 25. Since childhood, both have been looking at pictures that are depicted on a small screen, i.e. their cell phone or tablet. I still remember a childhood in which this technology would not exist for a long time. This documents a tremendous technological development: it influences the world as we see it wants to see what we believe in what we do not want to believe in. Everything takes place here (points to the mobile phone). This does not mean that the analogue will disappear. The analogue is installed in the digital, you can see it solely on the retro filters in the apps. But what she and I think has not much to do with what a 14-year-old feels the world, if he thinks in pictures.
Photos as a means of creating communication between the generations – how is that supposed to work?
No, I do not take pictures to create mutual influence. Of course I am interested in young people, I want to know what to do in them, what I can learn from them. I am naturally curious, I want to know how to deal with defeats, but also how they experience triumph. But the “generation GAP” has always been an issue. And if we don’t work, it becomes a very, very serious problem.
It sounds like taking pictures for you a political statement.
We are in the age of the picture chaos. We see pictures and no longer know whether they map the truth. This is also the potential of seduction. Instagram is able to change the circumstances of a snapshot. And now compare this with the long process of dwelling in the darkened photo laboratory. Even Photoshop, for a long time the program of choice, does not last.
“I am against everything that is evil, of course in art.”
The technology of the Deepfakes is currently admired in art, but feared in politics: fake videos and photos show perfect assembly of people in situations that have never been. In this way, falsehoods can spread. Can art work with Deepfakes?
That simply cannot be answered. Basically, I represent the attitude: I am against everything that is evil, of course also in art. The most obvious example of a person who caused evil with his art was Leni Riefenstahl. Anyone who would try to solve Riefenstahl’s films from politics could say that their work had been extremely great. Or the fascist architecture of Italy. Fascinating buildings, but, like Riefenstahl’s films, created for the wrong reasons.
Many of her pictures show monitor image waves that are only visible in photography or in the video. What excites you?
I like the Moiré effect, overlapping grid, the patterns that can be created and can become visual deception. I could have removed it with the computer – that would have been possible in front of the computer. I left this interference of the lines in it because they stand for the state of today’s world: the overlaps of analog and digital.
A photo from your childhood shows the light bulb you mentioned earlier that you tried to put yourself in your mouth in order to be useful as a light amplifier.
As an adult, my project of back then shocked me almost. I put the light bulb in my mouth because I wanted to be the glow thread myself. I didn’t just want to be me, the boy who captures the light bulb. The boundaries between the small piece of wire and my body should blur completely. I wanted to be this thing. And how far we move away when growing up such discoveries and ideas of childhood! The miracle, the beauty of every moment we feel as a child. When we are small, every impression is wrapped in a wrapping paper of beauty. As if you were permanently in the insertion state by psychoactive mushrooms. Everything is wonderful.
Do you still experience this so -called “magic of the moment” as an adult?
Naturally. This assets are still in each of us. Before the interview, we both looked at the most beautiful sunset that I was ever able to experience in Berlin.
Did you ever feel that some of your songs would have worked better as a photo – and vice versa?
For me, music is always extremely cinematic. I perceive good music as a photo recording. Listen to the sounds that climb the terrace here (close your eyes)?
Techno music?
(Opens the eyes slowly). This is not a good film, but it’s okay. Can you see the film?
I associate club music with clichéd time-lapse recordings of Berliner Verkehr, which changes from day to night and day again. I hear that every day in Berlin.
Me too. You have just made a film yourself.
What influence had the fact that the view of the photo was possible with digital photography – and that a recording could simply be repeated. Did you become a perfectionist?
On the contrary. I moved away from becoming a perfectionist. Rather for mistakes. I hoped something is going wrong in the pictures. For me, mistakes only reflect the grandeur, the excellence of art. In music as well. When I sing melodies and find that I had done something wrong, I take it down all the more closely. Develop the error one or two steps further – ingenuity can be expressed in this. Because the brain turns off, nothing is dead. One reacts exclusively.
Have you left photos unpublished because they are too good?
Haha, no, in this illustrated book alone are photos that are anything but good. In any case, in my opinion when you create strict criteria. But at least as pictures that should capture very specific moments, I find many of them spectacular.
You chose the pictures together with the writer Douglas Coupland. What exactly was his job?
We went through the material together, umpteen photos, and then he said “no”, “no”, “no”, “no” …
And did you use him?
Of course, he sometimes had to explain his suggestions. For example, if I wanted to have a music photo more in it – but often he stayed with the “No”. Doug is an excellent editor and an exciting artist. He thinks in categories – I like that. Just like my partner, who is also a photographer like me. One day I sat with him at dinner, when he simply opened me: “Your photos have no hierarchical order.” I realized: “Jesus! You’re right there. ” It is always good to have someone at his side who objectifies their own work. “Write Drunk, Edit Sober”, the motto is not for nothing, it should apply to all artists.
Coupland also said: “I Miss my pre-internet brain”. Do you sometimes want to go back to the time before the Internet?
No. Absolutely not. The network is a blessing and curse at the same time. Direct access to information. The “Extinction Rebellion” movement is one of the good movements that the Internet has made possible by its possibility of organization.
They currently also occupy the streets in Berlin.
And they won’t disappear either. Stop, I have to say: We will not disappear either. I count myself.
Did you take part in the demonstrations of the movement that politicians want to push for stronger climate protection with a civil disobedience, such as seat blocks, for example?
I am regularly there, yes. Yesterday, when I arrived here in Berlin. In the past five days I have been on site in Paris, Rome, Stockholm and London. If the rebellion and I are in the same city, I would like to be there. In London I also took a few photos of the demo.
Is there anything you wouldn’t take pictures?
I categorize everything I see as potentially wonderful, like a child. Ok, moment. I don’t think everything is nice, of course. Dead birds, for example, I don’t take pictures either.
They said that being an environmentalist is their most important profession. One of the most beautiful photos in your book shows the snapshot of the water fountain of a whale. Do you believe that pictures can improve the world?
Yes.
“Michael Stipe with Douglas Coupland: Our Interference Times: A Visual Record” (Damiani)
Book premiere was on October 12, 2019, in the photo book shop and gallery illustrated book Berlin, Immanuelkirchstr. 33, 10405 Berlin
