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Interview: Talking with Sonarpilot about “Gorgon” and ‘The Mirage Project’

Sonarpilot recently released his new single/music video, “Gorgon,” a mesmerizing journey into the increasingly psychedelic structure of a massive bio-mechanical machine.

Sonarpilot explains: “‘Gorgon’ is a meditation about the explosive pervasion of our society with AI, about the fascination and fear, about the uncontrollable complexity of these systems and the sparks of synthetic life that we will soon see in these machines.”

Sonarpilot is the alter ego of producer and digital designer Michael Moppert, whose genre-bending electronic soundscapes merge with the imaginative visual voyages by fractal artist Roger Mader, transporting audiences into The Mirage Project, a world of audio-visual contemplations on big contemporary issues like Artificial Intelligence, cosmology, the multiverse, alien life, and more.

“Gorgon” opens on DNA-like strands of metal scaffolding emerging from a fog, eventually revealing a seemingly infinite unraveling of some bio-mechanical network or organism. As the structure folds into increasingly complex iterations of itself, sun-like orbs appear, distorting our view of the mechanical madness with seductive hues.

Pop Off spoke with Sonarpilot to discover more about The Mirage Project, how he got started in music, and his inspirations.

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What three things can’t you live without?

I’ll make it three duos: Love & friendship — because that’s what life is all about. Nature & spirituality — because those are the source of everything. Art & music — because they help us tolerate, maybe even understand, the human condition.

What inspired your new single/music video, “Gorgon?”

“Gorgon” is about the moment when a machine becomes self-aware. It is a reflection of the incredible speed with which Artificial Intelligence is currently creeping into all parts of our lives. It feels like this is the next tech-goldrush and all the large players are pouring billions into this technology. The consequences of this mad race are almost impossible to predict, but they will be far-reaching and have the potential to create massive disruptions in every part of our society, some even say they are a danger for us humans as a species.

Gorgon is part of a series of audiovisual releases, called ‘The Mirage Project.’ These ‘Mirages’ explore a strange parallel universe, located somewhere between the forefront of contemporary technology and ancient myths.

The video for “Gorgon” is both surreal and portentous. How did you come to connect with fractal artist Roger Mader?

Roger and I go way back… We started to work together in the early 1990’s. Roger was always interested in computer animation and we did some multimedia projects together before we started an internet company in 1993. In those years the tech industry was the new frontier, the wild west, and we had a pretty interesting, crazy time together. After about ten years Roger left the company and began producing movies. We stayed in touch and when I was looking for someone who could help me with ‘The Mirage Project,’ Roger was my obvious choice. Roger is a brilliant professional and a good friend, it’s a great pleasure to do this project with him.

How did you get started in music?

Music was my first big love. Even before I was a teen, I listened to the radio and to music my parents played at home, an eclectic mix of Bach, Miles Davis and the Beatles. As a teenager I spent all my free time (and the little money I had) listening to music, buying one album per month. Then, I started to work in a record store and got fully immersed in everything that was coming out. This was a great time, with punk and new wave, followed by the first wave of synth bands.

I never thought I would make any music myself. But then I picked up a guitar and — bang — fell head over heels in love with making music. Soon, I had a small home studio with a 4-track cassette recorder and a drum machine. However, I wanted to work in a more professional environment. First this was just a dream. But then I decided to open a professional recording studio.

Back in the 1980s, it was an expensive adventure. I had a friend, he played bass on some of my tracks and somehow, I convinced him to join me. I still can’t believe that we pulled this off. With the little money we had between the two of us and the support of friends and family we made it — we opened our own studio. It was a pretty mad adventure, a ton of work and a lot of fun. We worked like crazy, day and night, produced bands and our own stuff, it was exciting and exhausting.

Then, in the early nineties, I started a software company with some friends. This was right at the beginning of the internet and after a slow start the company took off with amazing speed. For a while I continued to do both: the tech gig and the studio. But then it became too much, and I took a decision: focus on the software business, make it a success and then, come back and make music full-time. It’s a compromise that a lot of people make — and they never return. But I actually followed my plan. In 2010 I published my first album as Sonarpilot, after a break of over ten years, and I have been making music, and now, increasingly, videos, ever since.

What inspires your writing?

There are two main sources: art and nature.

I listen to a lot of music, ranging from early renaissance vocal music to edgy electronica. I love visual art; I visit museums and exhibitions and I follow the development of digital art.

And then there’s the natural world around me: the immense vastness of the universe, the crazy realm of the subatomic world beneath the surface of everyday reality. The beauty, ingenuity and magic of nature never ceases to amaze me. It is this sense of wonder that we all feel under a starry sky that I try to reflect in my work.

Sonarpilot — “Gorgon”

What motivated The Mirage Project?

Today’s music industry is extremely competitive. You need to find a niche and create something unique. That’s what we are doing with ‘The Mirage Project.’ We are creating a whole cosmos that my alter ego Sonarpilot is exploring. It gives my work a narrative framework.

Back in the 1970s there were these beautiful concept albums, carefully crafted, sometimes with two records. There were the lyrics, the liner notes, the whole artwork that created a unique experience. ‘The Mirage Project’ is a bit like that — a large, contemporary concept album.

We started with the first Mirages back in 2020. Soon, we realized that this has the potential to grow into a whole parallel universe for our audience to explore and come back to with every new release we do.

It is exciting to continuously expand this space, it is very inspiring and great fun to build this cosmos. At the end of this season, we will have about two hours’ worth of music and videos that our audience can dive into. The audience of ‘The Mirage Project’ keeps growing and the videos have now won several awards and worldwide film festival selections. What began as a single trip has now become an epic journey!

Do you believe AI will be a benefit or a problem for humankind?

If we use it wisely, it might be a blessing. But right now, it feels more like a mad goldrush, with all the major tech companies pouring money in, hoping to dominate the field. And let’s not even think about the things the defense industry or agencies such as the NSA and their friends around the globe are working on with AI… It is easy to imagine some really awful scenarios, with the typical comment of a group of scientists standing by, telling us that this outcome was never their intention.

I think the major problem is that no one really knows what we are dealing with. We can train these systems to a certain degree, but in this race the challenge will be enormous to use AI to build the next generation of AI. Once these systems get full robotic support the train will leave the station, so to speak. There will be faster and faster iterations of systems with skills that we can’t fully comprehend, or really control.

But these systems aren’t evil like ‘Skynet’ from the ‘Terminator’ movies. They will be just very complex and their “thinking” will be fundamentally different from the way our brains work. There’s the famous example how even a totally mundane job description like ‘optimize the output of a factory for paper clips’ could lead to catastrophic consequences though. Without proper guidelines, the machine might come to the conclusion that this rather mundane task demands that it transforms first all of earth and then increasing portions of space into paperclip manufacturing facilities, wiping out humanity as a side effect.

Which artists in your opinion are killing it right now?

Honestly, the older I get the more I return to music that is almost eternal to me: Bach, a lot of baroque music, Jazz from Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, early Brian Eno plus a changing mix of contemporary electronic artists. I really like Nils Frahm’s latest album ‘Music for Animals’ with its very long, meditative tracks. Bonobo’s 2022 album ‘Fragments’ was lovely too. ‘Yeoville’ by my friend Bredon Moeller in New York, a very meditative album, was another recent highlight.

Another amazing artist is the young classical pianist Vikingur Eliasson. He is from Iceland, has an absolute stunning technique and a lovely, fresh personality. And he does really interesting things, integrating electronics into the music he plays.

And then there is a whole group of emerging artists who use electronic multimedia tools to create whole audiovisual environments. I am very impressed by the work of Refik Anadol. Refik creates these absolutely stunning environments that are based on data-driven machine learning algorithms. Currently, he has an amazing installation at the MOMA in New York. His work is beautiful, very contemporary and I think he is on his way to becoming a superstar.

How do you define success?

For me, success is the place where my creative work, my personal life, and my spiritual well-being are in a good balance.

What can your fans look forward to over the next six months? Music videos? Live gigs?

This year we will focus on Season 2 of ‘The Mirage Project’ So far, we have released three episodes, another five will follow throughout the year. In between these releases there is a lot of extra material that we publish via social media channels, getting behind the scenes of the art.

Right at the start of season 2 we have released the album with all the soundtracks of all eight new ‘Mirages,’ I am working with my friend and producer Jonny Miller, who is part of the ‘Mirage’ team, on the idea to do a series of remix releases. In the past we have done remix projects with artists from around the globe and we always enjoyed this experience tremendously. The soundtracks are sonically pretty rich, we could have a lot of fun with that material.

And then, there’s the whole emerging space of digital art. NFTs are going through a rough phase right now. But blockchain technology is here to stay and will be extremely important for digital art. I have been active in this space in the past and plan to explore it further as I think that this is one of the important new frontiers for digital creators, bringing together artists and a global audience in the metaverse.

And last but not least, we are of course discussing how we can continue to push the visual and sonic boundaries in Season 3 of ‘The Mirage Project.’

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