Show and Tell: Hot Chip

Alexis’s head, obscured by the centrepiece for our One Life Stand video. Next door they were filming the video for Joe McElderry’s X Factor hit “The Climb”, with a huge artificial lake and clouds of dry ice Photograph: Hot Chip Photograph: guardian.co.uk Our recent foray into the charts was thwarted by the soundtrack to Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. The day we found this out I spotted this couple in a flea market in New York Photograph: Hot Chip Photograph: guardian.co.uk We used some of these objects, collected in a quiet French town, in the cover art for our EP release with Robert Wyatt and in the Bugged Out compilation Photograph: Hot Chip Photograph: guardian.co.uk Al lies splayed out on the floor during the long, icy weeks of rehearsal that began our year. That also explains his footwear. Photograph: Hot Chip This frightening collection of Henry Darger-like grotesques was spotted on a wall in Paris during a recent stay Photograph: Hot Chip Photograph: guardian.co.uk This picture was taken during a filming trip to a small town in rural Slovakia Photograph: Hot Chip Photograph: guardian.co.uk Every culture has its own quirks, obvious only to outsiders. So it is with advertising, which has a slightly different set of guidelines in each country. In Austria, for example, it’s perfectly natural to pile noodles on to a lady’s head to sell Chinese food Photograph: Hot Chip Photograph: guardian.co.uk Al stands in Galway, looking out towards the Aran Islands. Nearby is a restaurant called Nimmo’s which somehow brings the atmosphere of Williamsburg, New York to a sleepy Irish city Photograph: Hot Chip Photograph: guardian.co.uk