Peaches "Take You On" vs. "Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc."

Two new videos revisit the aesthetics of an object-oriented moving image paradigm, this time in addressing the age-old dilemma of how to get more characters than usually physically possible into the same virtual space. For more background on my thoughts about object-oriented images, see this post from January where I discuss it with some other nifty examples.



Continuing a tradition of blue screen music videos reminiscent of the works of Zbig Rybczynski, the latest Peaches music video produced by Angie Reed is a sarcastic and entertaining solution to the puzzle created when a musician has multiple visual identities and a treasure trove of wacky costumes. The simulated 3D of the video allows us to access Peaches in all the glory of her various selves in the same Tron-inspired virtual space.

On a more hi-fi tip, utilizing Soho's best and brightest to do some super cool compositing and motion capture, Partizan and Chris Cairns present us the highly entertaining and vaguely Cunningham-ish "Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc.". This videomusical composition also solves a similar 'how to get enough characters in the same space' dilemma, this time by removing their bodies and just leaving their heads!



Be sure to check out the Neurosonics Microsite for some behind-the-scenes photos.

Cosmopolitan Cyborg Explained

Given the goal of creating an entertaining and cutting edge new station identity campaign for the Italian music network All Music, two words stood out as key concepts:

Cyborg

A human who has certain physiological processes aided
or controlled by mechanical or electronic devices.

Cosmopolitan

1. Pertinent or common to the whole world.
2. Having constituent elements from all over the world or from many different parts of the world.

Young people today are more connected to new technologies than ever before. Computers, mobile phones, and mp3 players are just some of the array of gadgets that define the aesthetics of the contemporary youth culture. Today’s young person can be viewed as a cyborg, as many processes which were formerly time consuming real world events are now done virtually with the click of a button.

Globalization has accelerated the mixing and mashing of cultures, producing hybrid forms of art and music. Today’s young person is connected through the internet to large networks of creative influence from all over the world, with an identity that is as digital as it is cosmopolitan.

To express these aspects of the contemporary digital landscape, I proposed to create a personality emblematic of these qualities his/herself: the Cosmopolitan Cyborg. He/she is a hypercubist composite personality made up of the faces and voices of the All Music network’s own VJs. Using only original sounds recorded with the human voice, elaborate yet recognizable genres of contemporary music are synthesized. The result is a concrete answer to the tired world of lip-sync found in music videos. I call it videomusic.

The payoff, which translates to: “All Music, a republic founded on music”, as spoken from the mouth of the Cosmopolitan Cyborg, reads as an intriguing commentary on contemporary Italian music culture, simultaneously conscious of the past and yet boldly jumping into the future of digital aesthetics.

In the future I hope to be able to work with musicians, bands and composers in this manner to create a new definition for music videos befitting our contemporary era of hypercubist aesthetics.

Take that, Goliath!

The new Weezer video "Pork & Beans" is proof of the slowly crumbling mass media. Corporate media's Goliath is besieged by a swarm of YouTube celebrity Davids!

Hot Chip - Over and Over

Cornelius - Wataridori (music video); Gum (live)

I saw Cornelius play in Washington DC several years ago and it remains to be one of the best live shows I have seen in which audio and video were presented in tight relation to one another. Their sense of visual music is spot-on.

Video For Ray

This music video was made by many people contributing stills and video clips according to a pre-determined structure which, during the video's production, took the form of a wiki at zefrank.com. Unfortunately it seems as if the wiki with all the instructions on how to participate in the shot list is now gone, replaced by collaborator credits.

By soliciting and assembling individual cinematic elements over the internet this work is a pretty interesting collaboration. And while its probably not the first video to be made in this manner, it may well be the most popular ever made.

Ultimately the content of the video is cryptic and low-quality. It is probably more meaningful to the participants than to non-participants. At least the music is somewhat entertaining. Yet the concept begs for a better author to step forward and lead such a project.