One fine day in the autumn of 2022, I’m in my cab on my way back from the airport after a wonderful trip to Asia.

Mired in the infernal Parisian traffic, I take it in my stride, it’s been 20 hours since I left my hotel in Bangkok and I still have a 2-hour drive home. The radio crackles and pours out its bad news without respite. The world is just coming out of a difficult period linked to an exceptional pandemic, and the war in Ukraine has taken over. No petrol, no electricity, no energy, no Doliprane, no cars, no access to bank loans, hospitals saturated once again, the radio also promises us galloping inflation, shortages to come, a deregulated climate, a winter without electricity and disasters to come.

On this day of November 30, the blue comes to us from Qatar, a sort of positive mini-parenthesis in the context. With a stopover in Doha, the plane was packed with French fans returning home happy after our national team’s qualification for the World Cup Round of 8, despite their 1-0 defeat by Tunisia on the day.

22h later, I finally walk through the door of my house. After a quick shower and a cup of coffee, I start my long day’s work, as I do every time I come back from a long trip of this kind, which I’ve been doing for 10 years now to get away once or twice a year.

I had no idea in 2010, when I first discovered Asia and in particular this beautiful country of Thailand, that this family trip would change my way of thinking, of seeing things, of reasoning.

I had no idea how much local encounters would help me evolve and better understand the meaning of life, family, others and myself.

Since then, I’ve been back some twenty times. Bangkok’s architecture is extraordinary, and the city itself is captivating, a sort of melting pot of cultures, colors and religions, steeped in a history marked by an exceptional king and wonderful people, welcoming, smiling, fundamentally kind and helpful. At the end of 2016, I discovered the construction of a rather special tower that the locals were calling the pixel tower. I admired this edifice every time I returned to my hotel, which was located almost at the foot of this strange tower…

In 2018, when the attraction opened its doors to the public, I booked tickets making sure beforehand of the sunset time to admire this magical view of an incredible sunset over the city. The experience was insane, that moment when you’re suspended in the void above cars and building roofs on a glass platform perched at the top of the 314 m building.

The experience was indeed incredible, with a DJ alternating between electro and saxophone sounds, the sun gradually descending and orange light invading the atmosphere. It was also in the lobby of this tower that I discovered for the first time the famous QR code used as a means of payment in a drinks dispenser. The visuals were so avant-garde and different from what we were used to in Europe that I became interested in Masahiro Hara’s background, who had conceived this extraordinary “invention” – which would later revolutionize our daily lives. By combining squares and dots arranged as in the game of go, Hara had developed this disruptive model for storing and transmitting information with our smartphones. So inspiring.

Shortly before this last trip, we had gone to dinner at a friend’s house. When I arrived, I immediately recognized a resin “Invader” in their living room that my friend had just bought. Space Invaders: THE GAME, my 1st video game in the late 70s. Then came a whole host of games: Pac-Man, Mario-Bros, Tetris, Sim-City, Boulder Dash, not forgetting more traditional games like Lego and Rubik’s cube. What all these games have in common is their generous display of pixels…

I can’t say exactly what this trip triggered, but the reunion with my “invader” was an instant inspiration.

Pixel tower, lego, Invader, Tetris, Rubik’s cube, QR code, Masahiro Hara, an irresistible urge to create, qargo – the connection of all these elements – was born. Pixels are more than just a source of inspiration; they’ve been with me since I was very young.