...confusion ensues...

>

..."New"/new ways of thinking/hearing/seeing the music-video...

So here it is…the music video. I have never been a fan of the post modern, the expressions and all its implications that is, particularly in regards to any “thing” that correlates to the audiovisual moving image. When I read for instance Peter Wollen [1], I finish feeling like he’s an old fart looking back at his youth, grumbling. Maybe he isn’t…haven’t met the guy…anyways, watching late, late night music television on Saturday the 20 May 2006 (Rage, music television on Australian ABC), I suddenly realise the man is (was?) right after all…(Or was he: snigger?!?). The videos did what Kaplan [2] said they would, get you hooked so that you keep on watching, and listening as Vivian Sobchack [3] and Michael Goodwin [4] points out. There were good videos and bad videos, visually striking ones and band performance ones, good ideas and dull ones…so far, so good, all-quiet-at-the so forth and so on. When I then started analysing the flow of images, seeing the levels of metaphor, subtext and lines to future past, it struck me. “Man have I seen these images before”. Kubrick, Carroll, Beatles on Ed Sullivan show, Sixties, fairlycheap-and-easytouse-dv-equipment, Nazi uniforms, Triumph of the Will, and on and on. Take your pick from the cauldron of culture and it was probably there. Thus, he was right old Pete. It is a collage, a cinematically and televisually arresting one though, but nonetheless a collection of already expressed and perceived images/signs/signifiers/etc., creating a thick mish-mesh. I have never really had a problem with that part of Wollen's argument, but when he says this is a problemtic point and I think to myself: “Wollis, you are soo old” But tonight I realised he was right in that regard too. Watching one of these bands from that first subculture-that-is-a pop-culture/that-is-a-sub-culture youth-cultures (Press Corpse - ANTI-FLAG SBME and Write Sins Not Tragedies - PANIC! AT THE DISCO Warner) the new goth-punks the emos, scream cores whatever you call it, I asked myself: "Do these kids know what these images can mean. Have they seen Riefenstahl? Do they know socio-cultural and historic signifiers her imagery carries with them?" YES you say? Well, if so stop reading……………………
if not, as I did (thinking and writing that is), it makes you think right? If they don’t…what does that mean? Are we in trouble then, will this create chaos and further violence…Because the connections are quite obvious. But then comes the kicker, is that because I’m looking at it with post-modern glasses? Thus, confusion ensues.

But then I realize that it has all been a bad-day dream, because, after all, and so forth, my field of interest is of course not this: but rather, the aesthetics, the affectiveness , the phenomenon, of the video, in short: the cinesthetic montage of the music video…more to follow…

[1] Wollen, P. (1986). Ways of thinking about music video (and post-modernism). Critical Quarterly, 28(1/2), 167-170.

[2] Kaplan, E. A. (1987). Rocking Around the Clock: Television, Post-Modernism and Consumer Culture. New York: Methuen.

[3] Sobchack, V. (1992). The Address of the Eye: A phenomenology of film experience. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

[4] Goodwin, M. (1992). Dancing in the Distraction Factory: Music television and popular culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

...Love&Marriage...

this is me and my beautiful wife Ghazal, performing the I do's

...in the pipeline...

this was one of the first covers I did, think it was for some sort of techno-outfit...definitely something on the electronic side of the spectrum...

...tooting the horn...

I made this while listening to the Doves...alot...som make your own conclusions...

...double treat pt. 2...

i imagined this to be an ep series, and that they probably played really long electronica/prog songs...and yes, they are titled as an hommage to a certain norwegian prog trio that recently became a duo but are apparently a trio again...

...double treat pt. 1...

i dont' really know what these guys play, though it might include several guitars...

...dadadum...

at the time I was thinking punk, but maybe it would work with one of these new wave punk-poppers...?

...broken words...

definetely something industrial...

...psychonauts...

some sort of experimental jazz/techno/ambient thing I think...

...first one out...

I envisioned these guys to be real hairy and play dirty country rock...

...scraping the barrel...

I used to work in a music store, an expereince which made hornby's 'high fidelity' feel like a fictional deja-vu. Trying to keep on top of new cd releases, as well as gaining sufficient background knowledge, became a full time job. Too bad I also had to waste so much time to attending to customers whose idea of jazz was kenny g...Anyways, once I month I had to do what I called an 'update' session...well, it really was just me listening to new music...but how do you pick new cds that you haven't heard of ? You don't know what you're after so how do you know what you're looking for...What I did was pick stuff on the cover. I'd go through all the cds in whatever was my favorite genre at that time and pick out 10-15 cds with what I thought was striking covers. about 75% of the time the music was equally striking...I therefore adapted quite an affinity for the cover artform. Naturally, when I was learning myself photoshop, a process which I found worked better through doing than reading, I made covers for imaginary bands. I came up with a name and a genre, and made a cover...these covers I will now show to you...enjoy!

ps. if you do have a real band and want a cover, let me know...

...another walk, a different day...