North Korean Mourning, Dance and Song (a Western Fascination)

"The smartest, most crevest, most physicarry fit, but nobody seems to rerarise it" dictator just died.

Commodifying "The Riots" Into Bad Fashion Spreads

On August 15th 2011 the New York Times' T published an interactive feature about the fashion of rioters (quote): "What do you wear when protest and mayhem rock your world? Reports from three epicenters of street style: London, Cairo and Tokyo." (already by this point you sense something deep).

The feature was, I'm guessing, an attempt at merging the glossiness of style with the heaviness of a political critic - an equation, that, although with high potential is difficult to pull; often ending by being neither one nor the other. 

In this case the glossy part failed because visually there is no common pattern, recurring theme, resembling aesthetic or conducting feeling: it simply brings together Paris Match-type imagery, celebrity spotting paparazzi pics and street photography with nail art, flag outfits, awkward pedestrians and Japanese women dressed like 17th century Louis the 14th court duchesses. 

And as for the political take, granted these three cities had a rough spring/summer 2011 season with unhappy people and civil unrest - Tokyo with its nuclear, Cairo with its ruler and London with its pissed off youth - but otherwise nothing really links them together. And if there was, it wouldn't be style.

Yet the T tied these violent, unreassuring and tumultuous events together, bundling them with random shots taken (we're guessing) during the 'riots' and by so doing draining all meaning from the motivations that caused them: they commodified the 'riots' into a really bad fashion spread. 

Recently, on the other hand, I discovered Lucifer Youth Film's music video for their song 'Dirt' that does a much better job at using, and in a sense, commodifying images of pissed off people rioting. I'm not sure  where the WU LYF stand with the Egyptians or the British rioters but in their music video at least it doesn't boil down to scarves and weddings celebrations, unlike in the T. 

Vitalic's Dogs in Slow-Motion + The 'Cats & Dogs 2's Narrative = A House Music Blockbuster

Vitalic is a pretty awesome electro musician. His song Poney Part 1's video with jumping dogs in slow motion gained a bit of fame back in the day - I think it would qualify as an indie success - and has had 2,131,300 views on youtube since its upload in January 2006. Swedish House Mafia's recent Save the World has gotten 29,755,208 views since May 20th, and qualifies - I think - as a Summer hit and house music phenomenon. Both videos abuse the incredibleness of dogs in slow motion although the latter has a little too much cheese in its visual (and musical?) mix for me.

DJ Medhi, Layton, Winehouse: A Dead Famous Person or The Collective Ritual

The death of famous people does something funny to the common people left behind. It's not quite like loosing a friend with whom you've actually talked to, established a reciprocal relationship with, it's more like loosing a collective notion, idea or product embodied by a human. 

Obviously everyone agrees that death is a sad event - it's difficult for humans to conceive of their own mortal nothingness - but when it comes to celebrity deaths it generally turns out to be this really great opportunity to connect with all the living people left behind. Over and over again similar things occur: facebookers change their facebook statuses quoting their last words (Jack Layton), tweeters tweet #allmythoughtstothefamily (DJ Mehdi), bars play their music again (Amy Winehouse), the highest-grossing documentaries of all time are produced (Michael Jackson), prices skyrocket (Lucian Freud) and solo shows sell out (Alexander McQueen); and all this with the best indications that they were simply geniuses, that success and death are anecdotal.... 

Overall a virtuous circle gets established through general mobilization: everyone wants to partake in this collective mourning or performative event where the famous person's death and life get washed-down, simplified and commodified into a tasty digestible narration. Unlike those that are still alive, famous dead people can't disappoint. Unlike those that are still alive, famous dead people get closer to home and in a sense become more alive than when they were actually alive.

Consuming a famous dead person is both an attempt to belong to and by those left behind and an honest mechanism of panic in front of oblivion.

Hence, because DJ Mehdi died earlier this week, as a way to confront death and in the hope to be part of a collective CBC played this - I never knew he produced it, but Tonton Du Bled was a huge hit when I was 15 keeping it real in Sèvres:

Buck's Back and 60 Fictional Designed Movie Titles by Travis Hopkins

BUCK 65 "Superstars Don't Love" from Travis Hopkins on Vimeo.

Canada Day, Canada Act 1982, Disco 82

Eh, tomorrow's Canada Day!

Because Kate and Will are gracing Ottawa with his balding head and her over-tanned face, I thought it would be nice, just for fun, to go over the year 1982. Not because that's the year Kate and Will's Highnessesses came to life, but rather because that's the year things supposedly changed for Canada:

"The Canada Act 1982 (1982 c. 11) is an Act of Parliament passed by the British Parliament that ended all remaining dependence of Canada on the United Kingdom, by a process known as "patriation."

Remember that? Apparently not... the Canadians and their government's lust for these young feudal capitalists is so as infuriating as it is pathetic that playing Bollywood 'Disco 82' while reading the same wikipedia page makes for a much less frustrating experience. I encourage you to do the same.

A Simple Concept

(Because if you aren't from North America it doesn't really matter) I watched the Grammys for the first time in my life yesterday. It was great particularly the screening of Katy Perry's wedding video, Justin Bieber's now more or less official affair with Usher and Rihanna's subtle play with fire imagery. As a reminder that simple things can be also really powerful here's a 'simple' music video with a 'simple' concept:

The Exclusive Look of Indie Music - Tribal Beats and Possessed Singers

The launch of The Dø's latest video Slippery Slope happened yesterday at noon (very exciting says the web). And I thought the greatness of the web was it's so-called un-exclusivity. If the song itself sounds like M.I.A. meets Beach House, the 'exclusive' video reminded me of the other dozens of videos illustrating the recent material coming out of 'indie rock' (heavy beats, fragile voices and vintage tones): the ethnic 'tribal' looking thing, the geometrical prints, the monochromatic backgrounds for the choreographed scenes, the victimized yet praised singer, the coloured tinted screens, that regal animal set free and the intricate costuming of the main character pouncing around like a wild sorceress. Needless to say the video's creative sensibilities leave me speechless:

Two examples of the same successful recipe: Florence and the Machine's The Dog Days are Over and Yeasayer's Ambling Alp.

OK GO's (music) videos as video performance (art)

Since their treadmill choreographed music video and youtube sensation (53,000,000 views) Here It Goes Again in 2006, OK GO has achieved the tricky operation of staying cool by continuing to impress us - at least me - with their music videos' creativity and wit. So good actually, it's hard to know if the music is catchy because of the band's musical talent or because of the band's visual performances. 

Earlier this year OK GO came out with This Too Shall Pass, a 4 minute music video based on the Rube Goldberg's chain of events machine. Like Here It Goes Again the real-time unedited quality of the short, and the way everyday objects play off each other to obtain unexpected lifelike qualities gives it an undeniable awe factor. And in many ways the same exact awe factor the Swiss artist duo Fischli/Weiss went for when they created their famous The Way Things Go with teacups, tires, explosions and buckets of water in the studio/loft in 1987.

A parallel that yet again brings up the rather banal question of what gives art it's aura (see Gaga vs. Jana).

OK GO's This Too Shall Pass (2010)

The Way Things Go by Fischli/Weiss (1987)

More recently OK GO's latest music video End Love brings up the same question: a mix of time lapse and stop motion, teletubbies, tamed geese and endurance, it's worth some great thought-out video art performances - minus the boredom. In particular:
- Tuner prize recipient Martin Creed's 2008 piece Work 850, a sprint athlete running every 30 seconds between 10am and 6pm the 86-meter dash from one end of the British Tate to the other, for four months; 

- Chu Yun's This is xx (2006) shown at the New Museum's Younger Than Jesus Triennial, of a female participant sleeping in the museum/gallery space after having taken sleeping pills; 

- of course John Baldessari's iconic 1971 I am Making Art; 

- and wonderful Guido van der Werve's The day I didn't turn with the world (2007) a beautiful 9 minute stop motion film of the artist in the North Pole turning in the opposite way of the sun for 24 hours.

OK GO's End Love (2010)

Guido van der Werve The day I didn't turn with the world (2007) (extract)

One Goal, Two Girls: One Sound, Two Videos

One Goal, Two Girls Born the Same Day:

Aggravated beyond belief with the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympics (between the plastic and simplistic versions of culture and history and the hypocritical nationalistic pride mixed in with the utopian beliefs of humanity as one although those Ralph Lauren suits sure made the Americans look a lot better than the rest of them) I promised never to watch any world event ceremony ever again.

But I did. I don't remember much of the Soccer World Cup opening, except for how annoyingly catchy Shakira and the Black Eyed Peas songs were compared to how much more talented and beautiful the South African Guitarist was (that I obviously, as well as symbolically for how the world works, don't remember the name of) but I do remember watching a video on female literacy that made me cry.

Obviously it was one of those change the world type of videos that immediately inflicts a deep feeling of guilt on any sane person by amalgamating 'african' children, poverty, dirt and destiny. But somehow in this video - by organization One Goal - that contrivedness is surpassed. It's a particularly precious, meaningful and poignant little video.  

Finally, I just put Florence and The Machine into the equation.

Florence and The Machine, Dog Days Are Over:

Arcade Fire's Nostalgia: The Past Packaged as New Age Fun with a Vintage Feel

Last month Chris Milk launched an 'interactive' video for the Arcade Fire's song "We Used To Wait."

While it has all the qualities to be the coolest thing on the planet - an interactive personalized trip into your childhood via multi-popup narratives (cool), google street view (super cool) and 2,335 likes on facebook (super cool and cutting-edge) - it's pretty much the visual version of the clunky nostalgia of the band's lyrics. 

If the polarized versions of the past and easy grabbing feelings of loss in their lyrics ("i don't want to work in a building downtown," "but in your dreams we're still screamin' and runnin' through the yard" or "all of the houses they build in the seventies finally fall") are tolerable because of the beautiful harmonies, in Milk's video it feels like a packaged rebellion (against what? time? change? suburbia?).

The plot is simple: in the pop ups trees growing through the (bad) cities our parents have built, and a runner (you) desperately tries to find his/her childhood by running away from his/her present (adulthood).

But the generic adolescent fear of change doesn't end there, the observer/main character can even send a digital message (a digital drawing/postcard from which root-like lines grow) to his/her past self (which is actually their tour).

Overall the whole thing is totally tacky. It's suppose to feel amazing;y cool and cutting edge, but it turns out ot be a bland version of what personal memories are suppose to be. Let memories run off on their own. Like Google trying to archive all knowledge, let at least memories alone (especially when google street view never gets an address perfectly enough for the thing to work).

To make your own arcade fire memories: http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

Art + Hip Hop + Video = M.I.A vs Kanye, Who is the Most Ironic of Them All?

M.I.A's xxxo 

For an intricate dialogic discussion about what this is actually about, check the Official Youtube Comments Page

Kanye West's Power

For an intricate press review about what this is actually about, click here.

p.s. could this be intertwined in the equation? Napoleon leading the Army over the Alps (2005) by Kehinde Wiley (a work presently in the Brooklyn Museum).

Another way of seeing 'controversial' videos by Romain Gavras

Romain Gavras recently made a few headlines with his video of MIA's Born Free song - a 'controversial' take on race that involved red heads, evil institutionalized force and compulsory runs over mine-filled deserts. The video's temporary ban from YouTube and MIA's New York Times post-article scandal gave the French filmmaker's work more North-American exposure than his three precedent videos for Ed Banger musicians - DJ Medhi, Justice and Simian Mobile Disco.

Highly publicized, these videos' subject matter, caliber of production and trendy realism enabled him to be coined a provocative filmmaker. Provocation helps success. At 29, Gavras has done well for himself and his first feature film Notre Jour Viendra is coming out in September.

If, to his credit unlike most music video directors Gavras' works presents some of humanity's most unglamorous aspects, the filmmaker's simple concept of taking a marginalized group of people (aka those who will not consume the final product), collecting their objects, habits, faces and homes, and then enrobe the whole with self-professed underground coolness (Ed Bangar music), doesn't seem to do much more than re-appropriating uncool (read poor) people and making them look very cool to his own advantage.

Like thirsty hipsters re-appropriating red-neck icons like the plaid shirt and Paps Blue Ribbon beer a few years back, Gavras has made re-appropriating caïlleras (rascals) beating the shit out of Japanese tourists on Montmartre and the tackiness of old mining towns the main feature of his success. He wouldn't be caught dead jump dancing around a car in northern Europe but hell yes is he ready to film it. 

So his images might be beautifully cold, his characters filled with a certain charming realism and the ambivalence of the details he fills his frames with captivaing, yet there's something much more disturbing in Gavras' approach than there is provocative and controversial in his final renditions.

DJ Medhi's Signatune:


Justice's Stress:


Simian Mobile Disco's I Believe: