by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Let’s see—Web sites, t-shirts, vinyl toys, album covers, video clips, comic books, party flyers, advertisements, in-store installations and magazine illustrations galore. There isn’t much to which Parisian designer Geneviève Gauckler, who got her start at Laurent Garnier’s noted electronic-music label F Communications, hasn’t applied her distinctive and delightful touch. Bold and often complex and opaque, her digital designs nonetheless pop and percolate with a warm, inviting whimsy, which she’ll showcase during her free presentation at Elektra.

Mirror: Your work is almost literally alive with little characters and creatures. Even your abstract logos and so forth often end up suggesting a creature of some sort.

Geneviève Gauckler: That’s true—I can’t help creating characters, even if it’s just for a corporate logo, for example. It’s more funny for me, and also, it creates a stronger emotion for the viewer, because it’s like creating a little story. For this reason, creating compositions without any creatures is quite challenging. It might be too abstract, too conceptual. Right now, I’m working on some new images for an exhibition, and I’m not using any little guys, only photos, but I always try to come up with little details that can be funny or weird.

M: Your work is, for the most part, digitally based. However, it is clearly informed by the organic and the physically tangible. Do you ever work, even at the conceptual stage, with physical materials?

GG: Yes, it happens! Sometimes I make some sketches or paintings, but once they’re made, I scan them and turn them into a digital file! The computer remains my favourite tool. I feel so close to my computers! They are my best friends. No, that’s not actually true—I have some real friends.

M: Can you tell me a bit about the idea behind your Mandala Project, these beautiful, psychedelic god-monsters assembled out of everyday objects and materials?

GG: First, I like Buddhist mandalas, which are geometrical representations of a cosmic order. They gave me the idea to create my own microcosmic order by recycling daily-life objects—toys, domestic products, cars, cables, food, remote controls, shoes. Anything that surrounds me at home, in my neighbourhood, on my desk, the kitchen, the street, the supermarket. These objects are laid out symmetrically, forming semi-abstract characters in which one can more or less recognize a face, arms and legs. The more heterogeneous the objects are, the better the image is. Banal objects are given new life. It is my way of rehabilitating the beauty of daily life.

At Café de l’Usine C on Friday, May 12, 6 p.m., free