The Spark: Aporva Baxi on Music, Movies and Making Things Without Overthinking

0:02Aporva Baxi:We are back with another stint with Aporva Baxi from Dixon Baxi. And if you listen to our episode on Monday, then you'll know we chatted a lot about AI and the future and it was super positive and I came away buzzing. So thanks for that, Aporva. Yeah, thanks so much. Good to be back. That was a fantastic conversation. Really enjoyed it. Very wide ranging. And I love the tap ins on video games and sci fi as well. Absolutely. I pronounced your name incorrectly then, didn't I? It's a Poova, not a Poova. It's a Poova. See, this is the thing, you know, you get so carried away and excited and then you're absolutely knackered.

0:43Aporva Baxi:I know the feeling. It is an energy expenditure to do these things. It's quite intense, isn't it? Because you want to try and get the most out of it. Exactly. You're kind of on stage a little bit. I always find, you know, when I'm doing a talk or any of those things, or even a presentation, I feel a little bit sleepy just before. And I think that's energy conservation. Yeah. Before, you know, you kind of exude a lot of energy. Do you enjoy doing talks? I do enjoy them. But to be honest, actually, I enjoy sometimes the smaller ones or the ones where there is kind of a conversation with the audience.

1:17Aporva Baxi:Yeah. I find that bit really interesting. You know, even if we're doing one like this, a video one, when we switch to the conversation, it feels so much richer. so I do prefer those but yeah talks are fun and we've been lucky enough to do a whole bunch yeah and they are uh they give a lot of energy it's really nice to do that great great I'm sure I know a lot of people enjoy coming to see you and Simon talk you've been all over the world which is fab but now we've got you on the podcast we're going to ask something we're going to ask some really serious questions okay let's go for it I'm ready and anybody who knows the spark by now knows that these questions are not necessarily very serious.

1:58Aporva Baxi:But, you know, it's good fun. It's nice to get to know you a little bit more personally. And, you know, I have to let the listeners know that you chose from a list of questions. So I'm not just being cruel and mean and springing these on you. No, I had a little sneak peek, but not for long. What is the smallest thing that instantly improved your work day? That's a really interesting one. I had to give that a thought. But actually, it turns out that it's just seeing the small things that most people may not notice. And then I end up taking a photo of them. So it could be I'm eating my porridge in the morning and there's just this most amazing beam of light that cuts across the floor.

2:39Or, you know, I'm walking to work or cycling to work. I'll get off my bike and there'll be a can, a red can against green foliage. I take a photo of that. So I actually delight in quite mundane things. So I have a folder of shadows, bits of light, a leaf, those types of things. And they, I think they just make me more observant. I have a camera with me all the time. So I oftentimes see the world in little frames. And those things are so inconsequential, but there's a beauty in them. And I'm always, to my wife, I'm like, look, a shadow. Or look how the light is dappling on that wall. those things are giving me a lot of joy what does she say she into it too or she just she does she kind of goes she goes yeah I know you love that stuff she uh has a creative mind I think she's my creative director at home telling me no that's no good but she uh she understands my obsession with those types of things yeah I'm always running off to take a photo of the edge of a crusty bit of sign or a lamp or something like that and uh you know those things there's kind of joy in the mundane yeah I like taking photographs of things you know

3:53Aporva Baxi:how everybody will go and take a picture of the the palace on the lake right I like taking a picture of the bins and the signs in front of the palace on the lake or the lake in the background I like doing stuff like that yeah yeah and I kind of you know with the camera I have kind of little missions where I just do signs or I just do shadows or something like that and And that's fun. It's just really good to build, I guess, new cultural influences. You know, we talked about influence and, you know, where you draw inspiration from. I think by doing that, you fill your reservoir, your mind, your library that's in your head.

4:31And that's more interesting than surfing the web sometimes.

4:35Aporva Baxi:Oh, totally. I love carrying a camera around. I haven't done it for ages, actually. I've got a very old, I would say it's quite old. It's one of those Canon entry-level ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just got that a little while ago. What is your favourite camera? Is it the Leica? You know what? It's funny, actually. I've always wanted a Leica. So I got a Leica Q3, which is amazing. Did I say Leica? I don't know if you did. That's a different conversation for another day. That is completely different, yeah. I like spandex. I thought these questions were going to be offbeat, but I didn't expect that one.

5:11Yeah, I do enjoy that and lucky enough to have it. And the images from it are so pin sharp. But to be honest, the one that I carry with me that's very kind of wieldy is the Rangefinder, which is the X100V. So I carry that everywhere with me. And I just love the fact that it's very discreet. It's also an amazing conversation piece. So, you know, we were talking about folks in New York. it tends to be a kickstarter for conversations with other people interested in photography or they're just interested in the aesthetic of it. So I think it's a bit of everything, really. It's the aesthetic value, the fact that it's so portable, but the images have character.

5:56And I think they've mastered that in that camera.

5:59Aporva Baxi:Yeah, you had your camera out when I was on the studio tour. That's right. Got some nice pics. Yeah, they were great. okay so if your creative style had a theme tune what would it be yeah this was interesting actually because it sort of it kind of blends with the music I tend to listen to so it's kind of two strands one is the things like square pusher and a fix twin very very high tempo pretty intense and I think there's a yeah and I love that I kind of it helps me create a flow state you know and I think that translates to the work where I tend to do a lot of thinking a lot of things happens here and then I kind of almost um vomit the work it's very intense in its creation I work very quickly and I think there's um there's an intensity to making stuff and I love that feeling however on the other spectrum if you take someone like Aphex Twin he's done ambient works as well they're more cinematic and have scale and i think that also is either the way i think or i try and imbue in the work either through with the team or for myself personally is a sense of cinema and scale um and an iconic quality if i can even reach that i think it's uh it's probably apex twin i'd land there because there's such a stretch from jazzy kind of offbeat stuff to the hardcore electronica to the more ambient cinematic.

7:29So that range seems to fit me quite well.

7:32Aporva Baxi:Do you remember being a teenager and walking around with your Walkman on and pretending you're in a movie? Oh, totally. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, I do. I often do that, actually. I kind of play soundtracks to films and it changes reality. You know, I used to, with my mates, this is at uni, So a long time ago, we used to just drive around the country. And whether we were up in the Lake District or down in Cheddar Gorge or something like that, we'd play a soundtrack to Jurassic Park or like this epic sci-fi thing. And it would change the landscape and the scene. I love that. I mean, music has that ability to change how you feel.

8:15But yeah, I definitely had a Walkman. But it was that 80s period where it was kind of, there was a bit of wham, you know, that type of thing. But then I graduated to a lot of Depeche Mode. That was a big favorite sort of late 80s, early 90s. And then I found drum and bass and jungle. And then I kind of, you know, I think I was waiting for that all my life.

8:44Aporva Baxi:We have a lot in common, a lot in common. yeah and then you know you just used to drive around the city just with that blaring out and then prodigy and aphx and born to canada and a whole bunch of stuff yes perfect perfect i went to kendall calling last summer and they had high contrast on in one of the tents yeah and obviously i was just much much better from from the back injury and i thought can i dance can i dance can And I hot stepped like I used to. I did for two hours. And I found like a little crew. Loads of blokes a little bit older than me. And we were all just hot stepping together.

9:20Aporva Baxi:And we had all these young people coming up to us going, you're amazing. You've not stopped dancing. That's amazing. Can you teach me how to dance to this? I was like, right, so what do you do? It's so sweet. It's dead cute. So there's actually a video of me doing that. I'll forward it to Dixon Baxi's Instagram account and some poor person at Dixon-Baxon were like, who's this person? What's going on? Yeah, I tend to kind of sneak on there. So I'll definitely be seeing that. I think it's probably payback for having, what is it, Sai doing his little jig when you were here. Oh, did you see that on YouTube when you hover over the thumbnail?

9:58Aporva Baxi:It's just me and him going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was in a funny mood that day, but I love it. I think it's great. He is a little bit mischievous, isn't he, R. Simon? He can be. Yeah, yeah, you can dial that in. There was a few moments when we were having a serious chat. And actually, my friend after, when they looked at that blog, they were like, you're a little bit subdued, Katie. You weren't your usual, like, bouncy self. I said, well, I've just come back from India. And also, I really wanted to make sure I got it right. So I was probably on my best behavior. Yeah, yeah, it was very pro. Very, very pro.

10:30Aporva Baxi:Well, yeah. Makes a change. Very well behaved. And yeah, I think, you know, you're graduating to, you know, you'll be on Netflix soon. we'll have uh yeah we'll have a drive to survive equivalent of the design industry no but you know when we were doing that chat i can say this now because it's good fun you know when we were sort of doing the interview in your um meeting room every now and again i'd go off into a little daydream and just look at simon when you were talking and then and then just bring myself back down to earth and simon would now and again look at me and i'd go i was telling jack this afterwards i was like oh my god i mean literally next time i come back from a big trip just don't book anything in that week because i just need to sleep and catch up oh that's sweet i mean well he has that effect on people he's so funny so cheeky yeah he's like looking at me and just say what are you looking at me for i'm like i don't know just try my best to make sure we get a good interview yeah it was it was a good one actually it was it was great it was great you never this is a funny thing you know it's a very human thing and i'm i'm not the great thing about going through an experience that i've been through these last couple of years is that i just don't care anymore you're like about what a couple of couple of years ahead of me you're just like yeah whatever yeah absolutely i think you know if you go through you know what you have and you have it shapes your world view and it liberates you that that's fantastic and you can see that in all the things that you're doing.

12:01And yeah, sometimes you have to go through some hardships to come out the other side and go, well, actually, you know, we've got one shop. Let's make it count. And let's have fun while doing it.

12:11Aporva Baxi:Exactly. Just be my weird, wacky self. Absolutely. And there's space for everyone. Of course there is. Yeah, absolutely. We don't have to sort of conform to the sort of standard. God knows where that comes from. I mean, from my point of view, confucius once said we have two lives and the second one begins when we realize we only have one and that is so what i went through a profound and one of many that he said but that's true i'm not often profound it's this well that was that took it on another level i'm like racking my brain for some kind of marcus aurelius stoic statement but i haven't got one down honestly a bit of stoicism we'll see through it really will it will do speaking of weird yeah this leads us nicely into the next question what's your weirdest creative habit or ritual that you swear by yeah this was an interesting one actually i think what i've ended up what's ended up happening over time with my phone is i um can be found sat in my study or in a part of the room or by my computer just kind of whispering to the phone and i'm dictating ideas oh i see it's not because you've got a relationship with your phone you know you're not whispering because it feels glued to my hand all the time you know as it is to most but I think it is a little bit weird when you know it comes into a room and I'm kind of whispering to the phone or we're out and I'm in the corner kind of like uh you know talking in uh before you know chat GPT and so on you dictate So you'd have to put in all the full stops and commas.

13:53So I'd go, hello, full stop, da-da-da, full stop, this, that, and the other. But I do swear by it because I've done it so much that it becomes more natural to articulate ideas with the spoken word. And I find that typing can be frustrating because I can't type fast enough. so I think it's I don't know if it's a ritual but the idea of you know getting stuff out of your head into something that you can do something with is also empowering and it clears the mind you know because you've got so many things flying around I find that very liberating so I don't know if that's weird the only weird bit is finding me like standing in a supermarket aisle just kind of dictating an idea because it just popped into the head So I find that is a good ritual.

14:44I guess, you know, the daily mind cleanse as well, because you can kind of articulate what you're thinking. So even if I don't publish it or use it, I do have reams of notes or ideas or, you know, perspectives that are just for me or just to be out in the world.

15:02Aporva Baxi:You know, it's kind of that thing where you just kind of write. What is that thing? You just free writing. I love the thought of seeing you next to the frozen peas talking quietly into your iPhone and like all these older ladies veering giving you a wide berth yeah yeah yeah my wife hates taking me to the supermarket because I I don't know it's I don't know if uh I get overwhelmed by the choice and I'm like oh I could I could buy this I could buy that so I do end up buying a lot random things but she will finally within an aisle and she'll be like okay let's go this way or that way so i don't know if it's the the amount of choice or that um i don't know they get overwhelmed in there so i'm not i'm not a big fan i'm the same i'm the same weirdly yeah my husband's very kind of like this is what we're doing this is what we're getting yeah if i go to a bar with a mission yeah yeah if you go up to a bar are you able to order your own drink because i do this weird thing where I'll turn really slowly to Tom and wide-eyed and go I'm okay with that sort of stuff I'm okay I've got I've got the drink of choice I'll have a Guinness or something like that and that that's fairly easy there's something about supermarkets and you know my wife's always surprised by the random array of things that I've picked up like what now I'm curious well I don't know it's sort of whether it's um you know it would be like we're getting some for dinner so i'd end up getting some marmite there's like a really nice uh uh pesto you know maybe i'd buy some salmon oh we should probably have some bananas and you know it's sort of you can muddle something through yeah but it's um it's oftentimes a random collection of things that then result in some kind of interesting meze type meal.

16:58Aporva Baxi:Marmite though, are you mad? I love Marmite. Marmite, oh. Yeah, no, I do love Marmite. Marmite and peanut butter is a good one. Oh, dear Lord. Okay, so who is your creative hero, past or present? And what have they taught you without even knowing it? It's interesting. Film's always been a thing for me, you know, and it could be many, but I will say probably Stanley Kubrick. So we're going big here, you know, like an iconic director who had this most amazing ability to craft these worlds that are very distinct, you know, from 2001 to, you know, Doctor Strange Love to, you know, that whole kind of range of films.

17:44They're kind of, I'm blanking on them now, but what is amazing about his work is they're shining, you know it's the there's a level of craft and scale imagination a beauty and a persistence to get something right you know I think all those things are fascinating and I particularly love 2001 Space Odyssey partly because it's sort of this existential it's sci-fi it's bigger than humanity it tries to tell our whole story and beyond it's psychedelic and surreal it's beautiful to look at and when you understand what it took to make it you know in 67 68 69 you know the patience to film something put that can of film away and then a year later film a little bit of you know for the vfx to a little bit extra on that print you know to keep the print um the original source all of those things say i mean it's a crazy obsession and I wouldn't say that that's the thing I learned I just I guess I learned that there is an ability to make things that you can imagine things that scale that have a cinema to them that have a beauty that persistence takes time uh you know all of those things are beautiful and and you know what I'm very very lucky there's so I don't know if you know but at the LCC College of Communication, I think it's College of Communication, but LCC in Elephant and Castle.

19:17The Kubrick family donated their archives to that college. So in the basement there is access to the original scripts. So me and Simon know one of the tutors that we had a long relationship with that college university. And we were able to go and then handle, we could just kind of go on a computer and call up the original script with notations from 2001 from napoleon props and all of this it's kind of it's it's not i don't think it's available to the public but it's a little known like gem so that also means a lot to me so i think i think yeah it taught me

19:59Aporva Baxi:that anything's possible i guess yeah it's certainly um good uh option to be a good choice to be inspired by gosh and full metal jacket as well wasn't he full metal jacket yes of course and clockwork orange it's all coming back now uh clockwork orange you know i mean just think about the difference there you know eyes wide shut you know yes they're so distinct and different but they have a pointed you know angular sort of point of view on the world and uh it just doesn't conform you know and then the black comedy or there's existential or there's you know a look at what it is to be human you know all of those things are very very interesting there's never any danger of stanley being beaten by ai no exactly yeah although he was meant to i think direct the film ai he had a version of it and then spielberg took that and did his version right yeah so i'm sure he had a point of view on it yeah i'm pretty sure he did i mean yeah gosh i think that's quite a fascinating thing to go back and look at how people envisaged the future with ai and see how it compares about 2001 um you've got hal right yes you know hal is an artificial intelligence that you know is instructed to do things and is running the the spaceship discovery, and has a conflicting kind of command.

21:28And that conflicting command kind of creates this dissonance. And I think this is the thing that goes back to, you know, AI and artificial general intelligence and so on, is that there are either biases or conflicting commands or, you know, kind of prompts that then cause a dissonance that creates a negative effect or a positive one. And that's, you know, the crux of some of what happens in 2001.

21:54Aporva Baxi:We just need to make sure that the AI of today knows to open the lock door. Absolutely. Let them back in. Let me in. I've chatted with you like an old friend, pal. We shared tips on Apex twin favourite items. I know, exactly. Yeah, remember me? Yeah, always be nice. oh i'm always nice oh come on i read sci-fi i'm always nice to the ai good grief yeah i'll be like you know a dystopian future years from now and they're climbing across the landscape and i'm in the mud going don't shoot me and the ai that used to be mates with me like no no lads don't shoot her she will look to me she will lovely that's how i imagine it has eternal memory very Terminator 2 there well absolutely yes gosh grew up that scarred us as children didn't it blimey did you fancy Edward Furlong as well I mean he was lovely wasn't he he was yeah yeah in that movie yeah very compelling although you know Linda Hamilton is very strong in that film oh she's amazing like you know I summon her when I'm in my gym doing my sort of you know trying to do pull-ups and failing miserably she was She's an incredible actress.

23:12Aporva Baxi:Love Sarah Hamilton. Because you've got to understand, when I was a kid, there weren't many kind of female protagonists to look up to. Right. So she was definitely one of them. But you've obviously got Sigourney Weaver, I guess, you know, Alien, you know, she's the epitomizer, all of that. I was allowed to watch that very, very young, you know, really young. Yeah, it's pretty intense. It's like, I would put it in the horror category. Oh, 100%. Like, my Tom keeps saying, we should watch that again. I'm like, hell no. Hell to the no. I'm, you know, leaving that back in the 80s or 90s where it belongs.

23:45Aporva Baxi:It's a brilliant film, but no, I want to be able to sleep at night. Actually, there was a really interesting story about that. The director didn't tell, was it that Aliens or Alien, didn't tell the crew, the cast, what was going to happen. That's right. I think it was John Hurt that had the, you know, the face hugger burst out. And yeah, didn't tell anyone. And, you know, you got that first reaction, which is amazing, which I think, again, you know, directors have that ability to create the environment within which something amazing happens. And that's a great example, which, to be honest, directly relates to what we're able to do, you know, as creatives.

24:25You create that space. And actually, the last couple of days, I've been watching a lot of the Hollywood Reporter roundtables and so on. And I don't know if you've seen Hamnet by Chloe Zhao, you know. No, not yet. No. It's beautiful and intense and there's kind of a lot of grief and loss in it. But there's a catharsis at the end. And she talks about, you know, her ability or the way she thinks is to create a meditative space for people that feels more spiritual. And it's very interesting that, you know, how you create an environment where something wonderful happens. And I think that's the theme of, you know, what we're doing in creativity, but in the world.

25:07And then when you get into sci-fi, you are creating, you know, worlds for things to exist and take shape.

25:14Aporva Baxi:Yeah. And the imagination can just run wild, can't it, in that respect? Absolutely. That would be the thing that would draw me to the film industry and fiction and writing a book. You could just go beyond the client briefs and go crazy. Yeah, you make your own thing. And I've certainly done and created a whole bunch of short stories where I take an idea or a theme or almost like a background character from either a film or just a thought and then expand that into, you know, a short narrative about what happens in their life, what happened and how they saw the world. I find that quite interesting.

25:53So I have, again, you know, notes full of stories and ideas. I don't know if they'll germinate into a film. Although we did go down the film route for a while. I think you knew or know that we made a feature film back in 2017.

26:08Aporva Baxi:Yeah. We've tried very many different disciplines and, you know, mad to think it all began with a little bit of dictation next to the organic carrots. Exactly. Yeah, it started there. Yeah, a lot of things start like that. You know, a very quick conversation, a little dictation on something, and then it germinates. You know, you put something in the world. We had some Young Guns winners from the ADC, you know, lucky enough to be on the board there. And one of the panelists said something great. It's like, make it exist first and then make it great. So I like that. I like the idea that you germinate something, people can gather around it, and then you can, you know, work on something so the the the impetus is to just cross that threshold and make something exist i thought that was a really nice way of putting things beautiful before like a almost begin before you're ready yeah yeah that's always been my little kind of you know guiding star now then i love this question because i think it reveals a lot about a person but if you could host a dinner party with two people dead or alive not including your besties who's coming and why?

27:24Wow, you know, I had so many. It would be a crowded dinner table, but I guess, you know, with the two, you know, it's really interesting. I think, you know, a sad loss, but I'd love to have Virgil Abloh around the table. You know, we lost him a few years ago. I'm kind of wearing one of his, you know, or his brand's tops today. But I think, and then the other one, actually, it was probably, I don't know, artists and so on. But I went with a science fiction writer called Isaac Asimov, you know, who wrote the Foundation series and iRobot and so on. But I think if I took each one individually, I think with Virgil Abla, it just, A, the prolific quality, the prolificness of making was amazing.

28:16And the idea that he would just make something exist and then play with that was fascinating. And then the fact that he came from architecture and moved into creating, you know, this kind of streetwear brand and then ended up at LVMH is a fascinating story. And I think he almost had, he spoke in proverbs and ideas and he would always have this thing of, you know, don't wait. You know, don't wait to make something. Don't wait five days. just do it in the next 30 minutes you know just just make something and i love that you know you've got 30 minutes just do it and and but then this ability to create things that have a beauty to them a point of view now i think he's you know also criticized for plagiarizing things you know for borrowing or stealing motifs and you could argue that of someone like quentin tarantino you know he's criticized for kind of remixing and creating a hot pot of stuff but i think the the way that it's done is quite artistic and and the level and the range of things that have been created is really interesting so you know i think he would be an interesting chap to talk to and then isaac asimov i guess just because of that far-reaching ability to imagine futures the ability to kind of take us to somewhere new to i like those conversations that start to expand the mind and start to make the brain hurt a little bit um and you know his stories have that ability to do that but they're also quite human as well you know they talk about a human struggle or human point of view and there's one that really there's there's many that that stand out but there's one called nightfall which is kind of this really simple premise it's a planet somewhere that has I think two suns and there's never a night right so so if there's never a night and they haven't taken to space and so on that's what you know is is a day and then I think you know the story goes that 10 ,000 years ago there was a cataclysm and it's going to happen again and so on it turns out that cataclysm can't spoil it now that cataclysm was an eclipse of the suns right and so the stars come out and they've never seen stars and then the you know like everyone goes you know crazy uh because well a what's happened here this night and there's kind of riots and so on but then they there's this realization that they're not the only ones you know and and that there's so much more out there i think that's just kind of a really nice metaphor for um seeing bigger and seeing more and being able to you know kind of expand how you see the world or beyond that would

31:04Aporva Baxi:be a fascinating dinner conversation for sure gosh yeah it would be interesting yes it would be very interesting and of course you know you're invited i'll just be on the outskirts sort of nodding looking at you all going oh yes yes yeah it's such an amazing thing that it's a great question and uh you know you could have a whole host of you know artists who'd be like i don't know everyone from bridget riley to you go back back in time and you know meet me i don't know monet or leonardo da vinci or something like that you know depending on my mood i kind of answer that question based on whether i want to have like you know my brain expanded or just want to have a lot of fun and the person i always say if i'm in the in a fun mood and i just want to have a laugh i always say let's have maybe um jennifer lawrence because i think she'd be brilliant fun like really She's funny.

31:57Although she's kind of, she's changed a little bit in the latest interviews. I don't know if you've noticed. Has she? Yeah, yeah. I really like, I think she's really fun and very unpredictable in the best possible way. She's grown up a bit. She has, yeah. She's now a mum and I don't know if that has changed her perspective but she's way more measured and more grown up but still cheeky.