The Future, Eric Dalbin, Chorister of the music Made in 21st century

• The Future, Magazine published by Alexandra Senes

  

  © DR

• The Future, Eric Dalbin, Chorister of the music Made in 21st century

  Article published in The Future, magazine edited by Alexandra Senes, January 2010

  Legitimate child of the 90’s techno movement in France, Eric Dalbin is now the pioneer of a creative approach to finding the perfect chemistry between musicians and visual artists. Co-founder of the music labels “Logistic” in 1996 and “Telegraph” in 2000, Eric turned to visual art in 2001, and has become the French representative of the German Publications “Gestalten” for which he created artistic bridges between Berlin and Paris. From this experience, nurtured by music, art and words, he gained the resources to create the label “Dalbin” in 2003, an artistic multidisciplinary laboratory and a rich source of innovative creations. Today, Eric Dalbin is a contempo- rary intermediary, a maker of unlikely artistic encounters convinced that the salvation of the music industry comes from its ability to innovate in terms of staging, artistic production and broadcast facility.

  Yesterday, Today

  I think I found the essence of this label in encounters with musicians we had wanted to release. The first encounters with the "contemporary artists" - namely, musicians, visual artists, designers, painters, photographers, architects and chefs – were with Logistic in the mid-90s. Then I met visual artists who made me want to work with them through the publishing of art books with Gestalten. These resources have been crystallizing since 2002 and the founding of a label with my name, which is the symbol of an intention to develop these projects and co-creations in art and music on the long-run.

  Tomorrow

  Contemporary artists and designers influence humanity. So I aim to continually search for new models of creation and dissemination in the hope that eventually the business models particular to the music business evolve. Our logic in Dalbin is primarily to serve the artists and creators. It is an approach that should certainly make money, but with quality and meaning, and with particular emphasis on the ecological options in terms of production and dissemination of works. In this context we have imagined an application for iphone to sell customized works of visual art in limited numbers through digital technology which does not essentially affect the environment.

  1. What are the co-creation and visual music?

  In the nature of the music industry is that the band goes into the studio to record its album. To sell the music the label calls upon the services of a graphic designer to make a pouch and a director who shoots a clip. These processes can be very creative but lack complementarity. Co-creation aims for collaboration during the creation based on the sharing and writing of visual music. It is actually a stream of art that began in the early twentieth century with Kandinsky who painted following jazz music and then evolved notably with cinema. In the early 2000s, artists and musicians used the same instrument, a computer, for both composing and interpreting their creation and then shared it by jamming. Yet they never worked together permanently. I founded the label to make them come to the studio and join their approaches.

  2. Is it enough having recourse to technology to innovate artistically?

  Technology was put on a pedestal and everyone was amazed what we could do with it. Now it is necessary that artists have a real intention beyond the use of the technology itself. It allows, of course, an approach that was unthinkable before, like sharing videos by streaming on the high-speed internet, but it will never have the role of supporting artists as they break into new territories. Yesterday you had to have a studio and musicians to make music, but now everything can be pre-worked upstream. So technology is of service when it facilitates the work of creation and dissemination.

  3. Exploring the innovative process of creation and dissemination, is it really a new approach in the music industry?

  The relationship between the sound and visual dimensions is older than 40000 years. Storytellers in the Lascaux caves, who recited the stories of the paintings on the walls, are the typical illustration of this. However, the music industry is still at the teenage stage, as recording has only been practiced for 50 years. Yet, as young as it is, this industry did not anticipate the new ways of distribution and see itself today in a position with Apple, Spotify or Deezer, who impose their views while the majors could afford to invest to implement these new distribution platforms. By injecting a lot of money to protect itself and secure its products instead of investing in research and development to offer new models of consumption, the music industry made a mistake and has forgotten that its job was primarily to create, not just sell a final product.

  Loïc Hecht