Can you explain us yours activities about the “French cultural center of Palerma” building?

We were in charge of all the aspects of creation, from the architecture to the design, graphic design, lights, and the virtual space, on the Internet. The idea was to create a real space, totally communicating with its numerical double. The structure of the space is common to the physical space as well as to its digital extension. People will interact with the real space as well as on the website. We developped the concept of the 25th time zone to let the visitors imagine that when they are in this space, they may virtually be in other spaces or times. The architectural part is done and will be opened on May 2002.

What are you currently doing?

We’re actually working on new projects, and we’re searching for partners to develop it with us. That’s generally the way we work to develop our concepts and themes, all our projects represent a personal investment. And that’s what we made in Palermo and we search now new places to develop those concepts. We also develop a project about hybrid identity, that could be used by museums, cities, or why not, games. We’re actually working on hybrid applications for the new generation of mobile phones.

What are your objectives?

Our activity doesn’t really exist until we develop it. This is why we work so much and have to find partners who would realize our propositions. Our first objective is to communicate about hybrid design, so that this new field is recognized and may be developed.

Our main objective is always the same, creating new kind of interactivities between real world and the networks, forget the computers and make them invisible to see what’s really important, which is not only the technological part, but the human exchanges and interactivities.

What inspires you?

It’s hard to say. As we have several activities, we have multiple references, but no direct inspiration for our main work. We like to be nomadic workers, to discover other places and ways to work. We have both multi-ethnic origins. What Internet finally permitts is what we’re developing with this concept of hybrid spaces, crossing geographical and political spaces.

What do you think about multimedia creation, today?

We’re today in an area of changes. The multimedia I have known five years ago no longer exists. It’s exciting because we don’t really know what tomorrow will be and we want to take part to it. The most important is not the technology itself but the usage we have of it. I’m glad the technologies are no longer new, so we can see through them the essential of the creation.

What do you think about Japan?

We never went to Japan so the image we have of it is certainly virtual. What is really attractive is this permanent relationship between art and technology, between experimental research and industrial developement. Those are the real conditions to design the future.