d'Eon "Kill a Man With a Joystick In Your Hand" from OLDE ENGLISH SPELLING BEE on Vimeo.
Repurposing found media hit its threshold this year, with just about every chillwave riding/witch house fucking bedroom act turning to Archive.org (or Mom & Dad's old home movies) to find source material for videos. It can be nice, and nostalgic, but, in reality, it is weak, with video artists choosing to focus on the dreamy qualities of degrading media in hopes of tapping into the collective baby book consciousness. It's a nice dream, but it's far from reality.
This clip for d'Eon's "Kill A Man With A Joystick In His Hands" is the proto-opposite of this 16mm/VHS dream nonsense. It's a stunning, and at times….wait for it…wait for it…shocking! exploration of where we are as a society at the end of 2010. Single person shooters reign supreme, with millions, perhaps even billions, of youths stuck in front of a flat screen monitor virtually killing friends and foes without thought-- blowing up sanctuaries and humvee's and screaming "fuck yeah!" into an XBox 360 headset, while Mathieu in Finland gets pissed, and in return, blows your fucking head off. The Halo/Call of Duty consciousness has all but embedded itself in our collective realm. It's not just the figment of right-wing Mom's in Kansas worried about their son playing Call of Duty for 19 straight hours without taking a piss break. And, as WikiLeaks pointed out, the brutal violence of video games isn't just from video games. It's a reality, one oft sugarcoated by local news rooms, who shock audiences with lurid tales of violence, before awing them into submission with stories of first graders singing Christmas Carols at old folks homes.
With that in mind, this ain't another Jamie Harley video. This is some real shit. If you think it's brutal, well, it is. If you think it's horrid, it is. If you think this isn't an accurate social-commentary on how our virtual lives effect our reality, well, I'd like to read your dissertation. This one's not for the faint of heart, but, rather, the strong of mind.
This video will make you think, which is a lot more than I can say for half the shit I've watched this year. Big ups to d'Eon and Todd Ledford for their hard work on this one. Hats off.
2 comments:
too much 4 pitchfork
it's up to you to decide whether the events you don't want to think about make life any less "dreamy".
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