:00:00. > :00:07.This programme contains some strong language.
:00:08. > :00:11.Hello and welcome, to a somewhat nonstandard edition of the Culture
:00:12. > :00:14.Show. In which we meet someone we thought we already knew as one of
:00:15. > :00:23.several different people, and discover that she, Lady Gaga, is
:00:24. > :00:37.someone else entirely. There was really a voyage of
:00:38. > :01:06.-- void. And as the blood rushed out of my body, how do I explain it?
:01:07. > :01:13.Friday, October the 25th. A little more than two weeks before the
:01:14. > :01:17.release of Lady Gaga's third album, ARTPOP. Gaga's been out of the
:01:18. > :01:21.public eye for getting on for two years. Forced to cancel the last
:01:22. > :01:25.part of her previous tour because she quite simply danced too much and
:01:26. > :01:31.injured her hip. She is about to arrive in London, and when she's in
:01:32. > :01:34.London, she always stays here. At the Langham Hotel, no more than a
:01:35. > :01:40.hop, skip and newly revitalised jump from BBC Broadcasting House. Her
:01:41. > :01:45.fans are waiting. I really am thankful that I am a fan
:01:46. > :01:50.now and I can experience everything she is doing in real time because I
:01:51. > :01:53.know that in years to come, people will look back and realise how
:01:54. > :01:55.significant she was. The Little Monsters, they are
:01:56. > :01:57.called, and Gaga is Mother Monster. It's a selfie with Mother Monster
:01:58. > :02:10.that they are really waiting for. I have so many friends here now.
:02:11. > :02:14.All because of her. I skipped university because of her, I skip
:02:15. > :02:18.life for Gaga! To the fans, she is not just a star,
:02:19. > :02:20.she is a fellow sufferer. They don't simply admire her, they identify
:02:21. > :02:29.with her. She was bullied at school, and so
:02:30. > :02:35.were they. Gaga has almost taken every single
:02:36. > :02:40.underdog who was insecure, used to walk away from the kids at school,
:02:41. > :02:45.and she has put them in the limelight and made them be proud of
:02:46. > :02:49.themselves. She has made the weird people at the party look cool.
:02:50. > :02:52.She has become a defender of the bullied and oppressed. None of that
:02:53. > :02:55.has changed. And the music hasn't really either. The first track from
:02:56. > :03:17.the new album is Applause. A trademark Gaga, pop club anthem.
:03:18. > :03:31.Same small woman, same massive voice. I like it. It's a great song.
:03:32. > :03:39.She will be here very soon. Within the next hour, hopefully. If not
:03:40. > :03:42.sooner. Gaga finally arrives at the Langham
:03:43. > :03:44.after 9pm that night. And she arrives the way she always does.
:03:45. > :04:03.Strangely. You are amazing, Gaga! We love you
:04:04. > :04:08.so much! The paparazzi, of course, go into
:04:09. > :04:13.snap-happy frenzy. Their flashes wreak havoc on our cameras.
:04:14. > :04:28.She is tiny. White face, black contacts. Bare feet. The dress is
:04:29. > :04:32.translucent and there is nothing underneath. She doesn't seem to
:04:33. > :04:48.speak. And when she does speak, it's bizarre.
:04:49. > :04:53.To the goddess penis. -- Venus. Put your arms up!
:04:54. > :05:04.And she keeps it up all the way into the hotel lobby.
:05:05. > :05:11.Are they going inside? She is a human being, let her have
:05:12. > :05:24.her space! The paparazzi went in first and we
:05:25. > :05:30.went in with them. She did that thing, straight to the left. That is
:05:31. > :05:35.what I love about her, she keeps the performance and she does not stop
:05:36. > :05:40.even if she looks ridiculous, it is amazing, it is my favourite thing
:05:41. > :05:43.about her. She is so theatrical. So there she is. In the hotel. We've
:05:44. > :05:47.been promised an interview. The only question is, when?
:05:48. > :05:55.On Friday, we thought we might get an interview. On Saturday, it was a
:05:56. > :05:58.maybe. Sunday, no. It was going to happen on Monday, and then we were
:05:59. > :06:02.definitely happening today. But that got cancelled yesterday, and then it
:06:03. > :06:06.was on again. And now it has been cancelled again. So what are we
:06:07. > :06:16.doing? We are waiting for Gaga. But it's not just me. Because we thought
:06:17. > :06:20.of her as the world's most alternative mainstream artist, we
:06:21. > :06:23.thought we would dress the set. It would look amazing! It wouldn't just
:06:24. > :06:27.be me interviewing Gaga, it would be a comment on the way that she talks
:06:28. > :06:31.to the fans. So we brought some other people along. Do you want to
:06:32. > :06:33.meet them? Here they are. They are waiting for Gaga too.
:06:34. > :06:39.The new album is called ARTPOP. Not pop art, like Andy Warhol and his
:06:40. > :06:44.Campbell's soup cans. It is the other way around. ARTPOP. As the
:06:45. > :06:47.release date approaches, Gaga uses her Twitter account to keep more
:06:48. > :06:53.than 40 million followers, including me, in the loop. Snippets of music.
:06:54. > :06:57.And updates on the art ingredients she has been throwing into the pot.
:06:58. > :07:03.The artists she has been working with. There is Marina Aramovic. A
:07:04. > :07:08.New York-based performance artist. Creator of 'The Abramovic Method,' a
:07:09. > :07:15.blend of performance and meditation. You can watch this on YouTube. Gaga
:07:16. > :07:17.practising said method. Then there's Robert Wilson, High Priest, maybe
:07:18. > :07:23.even the Pope, of American experimental theatre. Brows can't
:07:24. > :07:26.really get any loftier. And there's Jeff Koons. The most commercially
:07:27. > :07:30.successful artist in America. Not highbrow. Possibly best known for
:07:31. > :07:34.his sculpture of Michael Jackson and his chimp, Bubbles. Koons has made a
:07:35. > :07:38.sculpture of Gaga. It's the centerpiece for the album cover. And
:07:39. > :07:40.if you listen carefully to Applause, Jeff gets in a bit of product
:07:41. > :07:53.placement. It is odd. I know more about the
:07:54. > :07:56.artists she has been working with than I do about the album. And
:07:57. > :08:01.whilst I'm waiting, the only thing I can really do is practise. So now I
:08:02. > :08:05.am going to ask you about the difficult third album. You've done
:08:06. > :08:09.two albums so far, you've done The Fame and Born This Way, now we have
:08:10. > :08:13.ARTPOP. It's a different direction for you. You are trying to bring art
:08:14. > :08:17.into the album in the way that Warhol brought pop into art, you
:08:18. > :08:22.want to bring art into pop. How successful do you think you have
:08:23. > :08:25.been with that? Is the art just the sprinkling on the top, the hundreds
:08:26. > :08:30.and thousands on top of the cake, or is it actually within the cake, like
:08:31. > :08:44.the egg within the cake? Would you like to unpick that? Or not? So it
:08:45. > :08:47.took until Friday first November for us to finally secure our interview.
:08:48. > :08:52.We were offered this attractive function room at The Langham to do
:08:53. > :08:55.it in. So we could disguise it completely, we draped it, we draped
:08:56. > :09:00.the mannequins. I thought about draping myself. Set-up began at 7am
:09:01. > :09:04.and Gaga arrived at around 11. She hadn't had any sleep because she had
:09:05. > :09:07.been working with Robert Wilson on a series of installations, recreations
:09:08. > :09:13.of masterpieces in which Gaga replaces the central figure. Like
:09:14. > :09:16.the Death Of Marat, or The Head Of John The Baptist.
:09:17. > :09:19.The finished works will be shown at the Louvre next year. Can you
:09:20. > :09:27.imagine any other mainstream pop artist doing something like that?
:09:28. > :09:36.Answers on a Tweet, please. Gaga? Yes. Thank you for having me.
:09:37. > :09:42.You had an enforced absence because of illness, how were you as a
:09:43. > :09:47.patient and how is it to be back? I guess I was a good patient because
:09:48. > :09:53.I was so excited to rejuvenate my body. It was an exciting experience,
:09:54. > :09:58.you feel like an infants, but in another way, I felt dead all the
:09:59. > :10:06.time because I could not be onstage. So I just really took to enjoying
:10:07. > :10:13.and appreciating the parts of what I do that I -- that our life as art to
:10:14. > :10:18.make it through that sort of torture I was feeling. I think it was good
:10:19. > :10:23.for me because the stage is a place and I started to rely on it, the
:10:24. > :10:30.fans and that interconnection, and it went away so I had to find a more
:10:31. > :10:35.spiritual connection with music and art. I am on that journey now.
:10:36. > :10:38.So, press pause. The interview has been going for a couple of minutes
:10:39. > :10:41.now, and I notice something. It's kind of impossible not to.
:10:42. > :10:48.Sometimes, before questions, Gaga just shuts her eyes. I wonder if she
:10:49. > :10:51.is falling asleep. I wonder if I am boring her.
:10:52. > :11:01.Before you speak to be, you drop your eyes and you centre yourself,
:11:02. > :11:07.did you learn that Marina Abramovic? I did learn a lot of that from her
:11:08. > :11:16.and from Bob Wilson. I have been working with her for longer than 48
:11:17. > :11:17.hours. What were you doing? We were doing a series of portraits
:11:18. > :11:27.together. His work. So I was really just...
:11:28. > :11:36.His clay, to Mold into these pieces that he was recreating, into these
:11:37. > :11:40.beautiful moving pieces. So I like to make sure I give you my full
:11:41. > :11:45.attention and there is a lot of noise around me. I have learned,
:11:46. > :11:52.working with Marina Abramovic show... Can you hear the door? It is
:11:53. > :11:59.like a ghost. It is good to be aware of the sounds. So I like when I am
:12:00. > :12:02.working that I am aware of things around me because otherwise, I
:12:03. > :12:09.cannot react to real life. But I like to make sure I am breathing
:12:10. > :12:15.properly and I am centring myself to get through these... I did that
:12:16. > :12:20.wrong. To get through these long works. I do not necessarily consider
:12:21. > :12:29.myself to be a performance artist just yet. Just yet? Just yet! She
:12:30. > :12:36.did Graham Norton the other week and he got this normal pop star.
:12:37. > :12:40.Look out for the hat! Be careful! You are going to see his eye slide
:12:41. > :12:43.away! What are you doing?
:12:44. > :12:51.Oh, well, let's just try talking about pop and sex.
:12:52. > :12:56.If you think about how you present yourself onstage and you think about
:12:57. > :12:59.a lot of pop artists, particularly female, they are presented in a
:13:00. > :13:04.sexual way very often. They have to be good-looking and presented as
:13:05. > :13:10.though the first thing you will react to is, do you fancy them? And
:13:11. > :13:16.you do not do that. Sometimes you do, and sometimes you do not. How do
:13:17. > :13:23.you regard your body? Within that context. I would say that in pop
:13:24. > :13:30.music, in that particular sphere, there is a 1-dimensional polity to
:13:31. > :13:37.sexuality. -1-dimensional quality. The difference between what I do is
:13:38. > :13:41.that there is an intention always behind the sexuality, if the
:13:42. > :13:47.sexuality is present. But most of the time, I do not particularly find
:13:48. > :13:53.myself to be very sexy. And in the beginning of my career, I think some
:13:54. > :13:59.of this exploration of covering myself up and transforming into
:14:00. > :14:06.other icons and other states of life force was a sense of sexual freedom
:14:07. > :14:11.for me. I wanted to escape things. You'd use sex on this album in an
:14:12. > :14:18.interesting way. There are different aspects. Often, it is used as a way
:14:19. > :14:24.into love, it seems. The sex will lead to something that will touch
:14:25. > :14:31.you a little more, is that right? I would say that is right. But I do
:14:32. > :14:35.not create with the intention of the finale, if that makes sense? I do
:14:36. > :14:43.not always know what will come out of it so it is really beautiful to
:14:44. > :14:47.hear your reading of my experience with sex and love because my earlier
:14:48. > :14:58.experiences with sex were quite perverted. And quite scary,
:14:59. > :15:03.terrifying, fear. I do not know, it reminds me of these things. Sitting
:15:04. > :15:09.around. They are quite spooky. It was a bit terrifying for me. But now
:15:10. > :15:16.I have really great sex. Which is good! It is a natural change. I
:15:17. > :15:21.guess we are dealing with two different conversations. When I am
:15:22. > :15:28.working with Bob, I am his vehicle for an expression of him having a
:15:29. > :15:39.conversation. We did The Head Of John The Baptist for example.
:15:40. > :15:47.I find myself speaking to a million selling artist with an album coming
:15:48. > :15:48.out who would rather speak about her relationship with a theatre
:15:49. > :15:56.director. It is about, I hope John the Baptist
:15:57. > :16:04.will come to me and say, it is OK, you are allowed. We did the death of
:16:05. > :16:13.Marach as well. And this piece was the same, -- the death of Marach. I
:16:14. > :16:17.had to breathe through it, I had to have a tremendous honour and
:16:18. > :16:22.understanding of the artist that created the work. This is the
:16:23. > :16:26.duration of my own life, it is completely separate what I'm doing
:16:27. > :16:31.with Bob and Marina, but with ARTPOP, I wanted to put art in the
:16:32. > :16:36.front, to show that being a student is OK. I feel that the education of
:16:37. > :16:39.your teachers and the knowledge of what you have learned, every
:16:40. > :16:46.conceive have danced with, every paintbrush you have touched -- every
:16:47. > :16:50.dancer you have danced with, every music you have heard, if you channel
:16:51. > :16:53.that into what you are creating, there is an intention in the work
:16:54. > :16:58.that runs to the centre of the earth. That is quite interesting,
:16:59. > :17:03.because what people might say or worry about with your work is you
:17:04. > :17:06.have so many artistic references within it.
:17:07. > :17:12.OK, pause again. One of the good things about Applause is its video,
:17:13. > :17:18.which has a lot of cultural references. So many, websites have
:17:19. > :17:25.started counting them. This one shows 48. We see Fritz Lang,
:17:26. > :17:30.Botticelli, Casy method of the caso, Warhol and Jeff Koons. Anyway, carry
:17:31. > :17:34.on. -- Picasso. It is like you are walking through
:17:35. > :17:40.and saying, I will have you, have you, have you. Wearing it like a
:17:41. > :17:44.hat. Putting it on and taking it off. So to put it in an album and
:17:45. > :17:49.make sure it is embedded, it is hard to do, given that you have so many
:17:50. > :17:52.references in your work. You don't want to feel like Michael Jackson
:17:53. > :17:55.going through a home furnishings shop saying I will have one of these
:17:56. > :18:00.and these, you want to make sure it is in the work. You do and you
:18:01. > :18:05.don't, because then we are getting back into this idea of defining art
:18:06. > :18:06.and John Rose sticking it into particular places. I want a free
:18:07. > :18:19.myself of that -- and -- I want to free myself about. I
:18:20. > :18:23.don't even know if it is any good, it matters that it is and it is
:18:24. > :18:28.there to feel and for you to experience. It is a life force on
:18:29. > :18:33.its own, and I'm still very young. In the duration of my work. And if
:18:34. > :18:36.you look at the early work of many artists over a sphere of many
:18:37. > :18:41.mediums, you can see them channelling and imitating and
:18:42. > :18:46.bringing along the artist that they have admired and learned from, their
:18:47. > :18:51.teachers. And then later on in their careers, that is when the really
:18:52. > :18:55.amazing work starts to happen. So I don't know if anything I have done
:18:56. > :19:00.is very good but that is not really the point. I am not really the
:19:01. > :19:03.point, if that makes sense. You are saying you are a major only to
:19:04. > :19:08.discover the art you can make and you don't know if you have made it
:19:09. > :19:14.yet, it may be in the future -- you are on a journey. Sure. It is worth
:19:15. > :19:18.it to be a student. To not be a student would suggest I create in a
:19:19. > :19:23.vacuum, with no knowledge, just floating in space, with no gravity,
:19:24. > :19:32.no and no oxygen, no nothing. And perhaps that is something I will
:19:33. > :19:38.never do. It is quite hard. I don't know if anyone does. I am yet to
:19:39. > :19:43.meet any great artist, and I'm very lucky to work with Jeff Koons,
:19:44. > :19:47.Marina Abramovic, Bob Wilson, and I'm yet to have any moments with
:19:48. > :19:51.them when they are not looking at artwork or reading books or talking
:19:52. > :19:55.about things that are happening before. You just have to trust in
:19:56. > :20:01.your teachers that they will guide you. How did you pick those three
:20:02. > :20:06.teachers? The me, they seem very different. Jeff Koons is very
:20:07. > :20:10.different from Marina, and then from Robert Wilson. They come from
:20:11. > :20:16.different spheres and have a different approach. I think they are
:20:17. > :20:22.kind of like my holy Trinity. In a way. You have theatre, you have this
:20:23. > :20:30.discipline, this meditative performance discipline, and then you
:20:31. > :20:34.have commercial art that is viable as fine art. These are all the sorts
:20:35. > :20:39.of things I'm very interested in, so it is the combination of what they
:20:40. > :20:45.represent the me and how it has guided me and in my views of where
:20:46. > :20:52.we are now, in terms of pop art and how it has travelled into ARTPOP,
:20:53. > :20:56.like an inferno, so without disrespecting Warhol, I'm just
:20:57. > :21:00.trying to explain it to young kids, but the soup can art, putting the
:21:01. > :21:05.soup can in the Museum of the gallery, what we are doing is taking
:21:06. > :21:11.that soup can art and putting it back on the soup can. It has already
:21:12. > :21:17.happened, it is not my idea. When you drink Perrier water, it says
:21:18. > :21:21.Andy Warhol on the bottle. So the soup can art is already on the soup
:21:22. > :21:26.can. I'm saying I have done this from the beginning of my career and
:21:27. > :21:32.I have discovered its meaning now. So in the album, I found artists
:21:33. > :21:37.that I feel very connected to, their vibrations and their work. We speak
:21:38. > :21:43.a language that I understand, if that makes any sense. And how do
:21:44. > :21:53.such experiences feed into your pop performances? Pop is so quick, it is
:21:54. > :21:57.so grab it. It is, it is like a cum shot, it is quite masturbatory, but
:21:58. > :22:04.a lot of theatre is that way as well. It is entertaining. When you
:22:05. > :22:07.watch Bob's work as well, with the lighting. The lighting is
:22:08. > :22:13.overwhelming, how beautiful it is, you cannot take your eye of what you
:22:14. > :22:18.are seeing. So I guess what I am saying is I think a lot of people,
:22:19. > :22:22.like, for example you, you are seeing me this way for the first
:22:23. > :22:26.time, but there are a lot of people in my life that have known me in
:22:27. > :22:34.this way for sometime and see grow into this. -- and seen me grow into
:22:35. > :22:39.this. I have gone through stages of being centred, then being addicted
:22:40. > :22:44.to drugs and alcohol, having a difficulty handling the chaos in my
:22:45. > :22:49.mind, then returning back to the centre. But actually, when I go on
:22:50. > :22:54.stage, you can't imagine the energy of all of those fans. When you are
:22:55. > :22:59.talking about your reaction to your fans, we have been talking about a
:23:00. > :23:03.grisly to some of the fans who have been making video diaries and
:23:04. > :23:07.obviously they love you -- we have been talking to some of the fans. I
:23:08. > :23:11.am interested in your relationship with your fans. Every artist has a
:23:12. > :23:17.lot of fans and they have a certain relationship, yours seems to be
:23:18. > :23:20.particularly intense. It is. What you get from them, not just when you
:23:21. > :23:25.are performing, but when you see them outside the hotel and they talk
:23:26. > :23:31.to you? Well, I choose to receive their love. And because of that, it
:23:32. > :23:39.has become very intimate over the years. I think that, you know, maybe
:23:40. > :23:43.in your suggestion that my relationship with my fancies
:23:44. > :23:49.different than some other pop artists, I think some of it is
:23:50. > :23:56.because there is a separation between them and the work, for some
:23:57. > :24:01.people. That what I am doing here, and what is happening here are two
:24:02. > :24:10.different things. But because I have studied Stanislavski since I was 11
:24:11. > :24:15.years old, I have a sense of... I have a sense! So because that I am
:24:16. > :24:22.aware of their energy all the time, and receive it -- because of that.
:24:23. > :24:28.And I needed. I cannot survive as what I have become without them,
:24:29. > :24:34.because they have injected this love into me that carries through every
:24:35. > :24:38.single moment of my life and for me to separate and compartmentalised my
:24:39. > :24:43.work from them is dishonest, and that is what I am learning, working
:24:44. > :24:47.with Jeff Koons and Marina and Bob. Working with Jeff Koons is very
:24:48. > :24:52.intense, because you see his pure joy in creating, like a child. I
:24:53. > :24:58.mean, he loves it so much, and this is what I am so inspired by, because
:24:59. > :25:06.then you make it accessible for everyone to know that if you love
:25:07. > :25:10.something and then you apply the discipline, and then the eye for the
:25:11. > :25:18.theatricality of it, whatever it may be, and then the integrity of the
:25:19. > :25:23.message, for me, which is what Jeff Koons is all about, then it is
:25:24. > :25:30.something really magical that can occur, that is when the moment
:25:31. > :25:36.happens. That inexplicable moment. I didn't mean to interrupt, sorry. I
:25:37. > :25:41.didn't mean to talk for some long. These things happen, you have a lot
:25:42. > :25:51.to say. Do I? I might sound like total shipped. My belief -- total
:25:52. > :25:54.shit. Your ratings will go down. When you go out and see your fans,
:25:55. > :26:01.you present yourself in various ways and they are very different looks
:26:02. > :26:06.that you might get on ARTPOP when you perform on X Factor. It is like
:26:07. > :26:11.another world you are creating. I think it is important to be
:26:12. > :26:19.intelligence about -- intelligent about your artist and delete fans.
:26:20. > :26:23.Walking -- I think it is important to be intelligent about your fans.
:26:24. > :26:27.It is not the same as performing on the X Factor. When it is just me and
:26:28. > :26:34.my fans and the paparazzi, it is a different thing. And I always stay
:26:35. > :26:37.in this hotel now. It has become a stage for me to leave and they
:26:38. > :26:44.probably love it as well, because they are able to see me. There are a
:26:45. > :26:48.lot of things that you don't see. The corporate music world is
:26:49. > :26:55.terrifying and I hated. Why do you hate it? Because they try and tell
:26:56. > :27:03.me what to do the whole time. Even know? Yes, of course. I became a pop
:27:04. > :27:07.star because of my incessant drive and my love of creating and you are
:27:08. > :27:13.faced with the choice of am I going to go left or right and allowed
:27:14. > :27:17.these corporate injections to drive what I'm going to do? And it is
:27:18. > :27:22.torment for me, it is physically painful, so I had to just decide
:27:23. > :27:27.whether I was going to allow that and allow people to project things
:27:28. > :27:32.onto me, and do that, and I decided the only people I am going to
:27:33. > :27:35.project things onto me Marina Abramovic were Jeff Koons and Bob
:27:36. > :27:39.Wilson, because I would rather be their vehicle and be controlled by
:27:40. > :27:46.corporations and things that really don't know what the fuck they are
:27:47. > :27:53.doing, and it is poison, it is the death of... It is killing young
:27:54. > :27:56.people. It is just like fast food. It might taste good at first but
:27:57. > :28:02.after you eat it for many years, you might get fat, or sick, and die. So
:28:03. > :28:05.I just want to feed my fans are little food. I would like to say
:28:06. > :28:10.thank you very much, you're completely not what I would have
:28:11. > :28:17.expected at all. Can I shake your hand? I will give you a nice big
:28:18. > :28:24.Marina hug. So, some unanswered questions. The main one being art,
:28:25. > :28:29.is there any art in ARTPOP? Well, the music, at least six fantastic
:28:30. > :28:35.songs, is what we expect from Gaga, big, bulky pop design for the dance
:28:36. > :28:40.floor at 3am as much as it is for the charts. If you think of her as a
:28:41. > :28:45.multimedia mistress, though, you could say the art is in her videos.
:28:46. > :28:48.It is certainly in her encounters with her fans as she moves from car
:28:49. > :28:57.to lobby. It is interesting also that a few days after hate rapidly
:28:58. > :29:01.this interview, -- after this interview, the relationship with her
:29:02. > :29:04.original manager Troy Carter came to an end, so maybe she really is
:29:05. > :29:08.working her way from the corporate world to art, and maybe this will
:29:09. > :29:13.result in work that is rich and strange. As for Gaga herself, you
:29:14. > :29:18.know what? I liked her. She is all ready rich and strange and in fact,
:29:19. > :29:20.I was slightly blown away by her. I hope you were to.