Taken from Moco Loco:




Interview: Mike Labelle
Interview: Aug 18, 2006

Mike Labelle is an artist that uses Lego as a medium, among others, to create futuristic cities. It's a body of work known as Utopolis (full disclosure: he’s also my brother-in-law). In true artist fashion Mike holds nothing back, he tells it like it is, or at least he answered our questions that way...

Marina City.

When did you decide to become a designer?
This morning. When I thought : "have I ever even been a designer?" But seriously, never. To me the word designer will always carry that decorator aura: the color picker, the furniture matcher, the made-up explanation that justifies a spontaneous artistic stroke. For someone who thinks more in terms of Architecture and mathematics: the form, the structure, the material, designer is an incomplete or too large of a word. Sorry for this elitist precision. In the eyes of most people I am a designer, I just never use that word. To really answer the question : From the beginning, even before I was making decisions.

Where do you do most of your design work?
In my head mostly.

We meant more like where in space or time to you do most of your work?
At my place. Any time.

Where, or from what, do you get inspiration for your work?
I find my inspiration in the city; its architecture, infrastructures and networks. In anatomy also; the way a body is shaped and is held together.

Maps of Utopolis - City at Night.

Any examples of how anatomy might have influenced the creation of the buildings in Utopolis?
A building compares to all the living creatures I know (except the snail because of its nautilus shaped shell) in the sense that they must have a façade, a back and two identical sides mirrored. All aligned along an avenue. Like people along the lines of society.

What is your favorite part of the design process and why?
The finishing touch when all is just like (or almost) the way I imagined it.

How would you label/categorize your work?
I would label it Pure Waste and categorize it as hobby.

LOL

Do you have a signature style? If yes, what are the hallmarks of yourstyle?
A signature style is something that others recognize in one's work. It is beyond words. You know when you see it. I wouldn't know that just yet.

Utopolis 2005.

Who are your favorite designers and/or architects?
My first love in archicture was the work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The simplicity and elegance of Modernism. Also Frank Lloyd Wright for the way he superimposed architecture and nature. Also Buckminster Fuller for the pure mathematics of a structure.

All architects, any artists?
None in particuIar I can think of. I can appreciate anyone who does anything with a knowledgeable technique. Art products are technical. And good art is good, controlled technique. The reason I make a fuss over words like artist and designer is that they have become used for anything. Maybe because art IS anything and everything. But really too many doodlers and bric-a-brac sculptors have jumped in that pool. What I thought was an exclusive talent or gene has become a market label, a sticker you can simply slap on. I am old-fashion and elitist in that respect.

What item (PC, pen, etc) can you not do without when you are designing?
Pen and paper seems to be pretty much the straightest and most efficient way to transfer a thought through a medium. Anyone can imagine a design; giving it a shape is the talent. A PC? Anyone who says he would be helpless without a computer shows that it is the computer who is designing. There are many fine applications that render beautiful images and nothing can touch the efficiency of it when it comes to production. Here the real talent is behind the programming that produces these stricking images. Users, users...

What's next?
My vital stats...

No new projects?
The moving city. Robots moving buildings about the city grids.