I Hate Models, the alias of French techno producer Guillaume Labadie, does not refer to the world of fashion, but rather to his rejection of formulas and genres that confine creativity. That philosophy shaped the show Refract: I Hate Models All Night Long, held at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles with visual design by Auratecture.
Guillaume Labadie explains that he chose this stage name to express his rejection of “models” understood as rigid formulas or categories that limit creativity. This attitude of breaking barriers and avoiding labels was strongly present in the show, conceived as a visual and sonic journey that lasted throughout the night.
The artist’s passion for transcending easy categorizations and expanding creativity in every direction was present in every moment of Refract: I Hate Models All Night Long. Held in January at Hall 1 of Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, the event occupied a 12,000-square-meter space and offered an audiovisual journey that began at 10:00 pm and continued into the early hours of the morning.
The show was enhanced by a visual production created by Nick Jevons and Ross Chapple of Auratecture, flowing with every note of the music. Immersing the venue in dynamic lighting displays, the production design seemed to bend space and time, transporting the audience to new levels of reality—precisely what the music intended.
Describing the show, with its 360º stage and asymmetrical design, Jevons defined it as a combination of “brutalist asymmetry and Mayan-inspired scenography”.
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For us, brutalist asymmetry combines raw mass with deliberate imbalance. It’s the look of a structure that is too heavy, stubborn, or functional to worry about aligning perfectly. We wanted to prioritize function over visual comfort. We were also inspired by the architecture of the Mayan civilization and their use of monumental structures to convey power. The entrances to their temples often represented caves, seen as portals to the underworld, all integrated into a scenography with an almost cinematic feel, he explained.
A collection of 60 CHAUVET Professional STRIKE Array 4C blinders, positioned in the “inner sanctum” of the massive central DJ booth, was essential in bringing this vision to life. Visible to the audience only from the booth’s tiered platforms, these powerful fixtures generated bright reflective light on the metal set, accentuating the brutalist atmosphere surrounding the stage.
Our idea was to create a chaotic, industrial energy beneath the booth’s walkways. The Strike 4C was the perfect choice because it gave us the wide, bright throw of a blinder combined with the ability to create chase and strobe effects at high speed. The intensity of the fixtures, along with their color rendering (RGB + Amber), allowed us to apply the show’s color palette around the booth through dense fog and haze. This intensified the transformative atmosphere of the room, explained Jevons.
Jevons, Chapple and their team (Jean-Denis Rolland, technical director and project manager), together with rigger S Group Live Event, distributed strobe lighting throughout the venue to accentuate the intense atmosphere. Their shared vision was to create a desert-like scene, “similar to what you see in the ‘Dune’ films, with scorched sunsets, deep reds, sandy CTO tones and bold open whites”, explained Jevons.
Expanding on this idea, Jevons said that his ultimate goal was not simply to design a lighting configuration, but to create a shared vision that reinforced the artistic concept of the show—an approach well suited to an artist like I Hate Models, known for his commitment to breaking creative boundaries.
