Very first videos by Soic Miterne, Paris, 1998-1999. Watch more video archives.

The backstory

I love this video because everything looks so imperfect, kitsch, even tacky, but it’s full of charming energy, typical of the joy you have when you discover an amazing new tool. On the advice of a school friend, I purchased my first personal computer in the Paris’s Montgallet district, near Surcouf. Equipped with a powerful Pentium processor dedicated to visual creation, along with the softwares LightWave 3D, Adobe Premiere and Photoshop. One of my other earliest experiment on these new tools is Lights of Africa. Few month later, I will purchase the Fujifilm MX-1700 camera, one of the first compact digital cameras available on the mass market.

The power of disconnection

I created this first series in my teenage bedroom, that was long before smartphones and YouTube, my computer wasn’t even connected to the internet. In many ways, it was a digital prehistory, a foundational period that shaped the creative person I am today. I experienced life without constant connectivity and digital noise, where moments of boredom and frustration often sparked creativity. Jonah Hill captures this feeling pretty well in his film Mid90s. Back then, we watched my short videos on VHS or DIVIX in our living room, and later, thanks to supportive teachers at the Uni, I also presented my work in galleries and parties, notably at La Java and Nouveau Casino.