I usually watch a lot of videos, specially music videos. First on TV, when I was a kid, and in the last decades on internet, mainly in Vimeo. I believe that a good creator has to feed him/herself with as much inputs as possible, from the very same discipline and from others. It’s not just a question of entertain or distract yourself, but also of being aware of what’s out there, gather inspiration, learning, seeing other possibilities… That’s the best school you gonna get.
So I personally invest between 10 and 30 minutes everyday doing this, searching in Vimeo what’s out there. Before I was selecting videos for my beloved Belio Magazine, with a wide criteria of selection. Now for godisaglitch.com I gonna be much more selective and only show things I really appreciate and feel connected with somehow.
Once a beautiful person asked me how I could watch so much stuff from others and still be able to do my own thing, not letting it to influence me. My answer was that I believe all that I watched and appreciated was somehow part of me, if I liked it, must be because I found there something I wanted to do, to be, to live. So all the following selected videos deserve my respect and admiration one way or another, and I hope they will influence me in a good way. These are the best videos I have seen in the last weeks:
1. JIL – All Your Words from Anton Tammi
Anton Tammi is already an artist I know and follow since a couple of years, and he is getting better and bigger step by step. He combines great skills in photography / cinematography with a fine taste for visual effects, usually combining both: real and unreal, with results like this trippy and sensual “All your Words”.
2. Node 5:5 from Ryoichi Kurosawa
If you are interested in live visuals, data visualization and live performance probably you already know or have seen live the work of Ryoichi Kurosawa. This new installation “Node 5:5” is nothing else than a continuation of his work, minimal visuals perfectly synched with designed audio, but in this occasion including a laser projection. I see this piece as a show of force. Just: Woooow!
3. Played from Fliim
I’m deeply interested in the concept of visual music or music visualization, the closer representation, the better. And also the most minimal sometimes is the most interesting. I just have seen this exercise from Fliim with music from Plaid and I love it. Sometimes I could stare at this kind of videos for hours.
4. The Hubschrauber – Kepler from Guap
There is a lot of things I value from this video from a personal perspective: the highly psychedelic aspect, the balance between abstract and figurative and the basic but suggestive narrative. For some people this video could seem a bit too over-filtered, having these invasive filters that distort the whole view, but I see it as a great solution for resolving other technical problems. At the end the focus is and should be in the action, the message and not in the actor or the quality in the shooting.
5. Any Road – Trailer from Boris Labbé
This is just a trailer and it looks promising (from my point of view), but let’s see the result in the near future. In this case I certainly know what I feel identify with: the kind of effects used and the result is already present in my work, but still I like to see what other people achieve with the same tools and aesthetic. Interesting…
6. Talos – Odyssey from Feel Good Lost
Here is another example of music video with great photography. So far you might foretell that my taste goes for dark and mysterious aesthetic but colorful at the same time. This work from Feel Good Lost incarnate this somehow and make me wish to work with smoke and real footage at some point due to its great results. Maybe the music is not exactly my taste, but still OK.
7. ReflectionVoid from Page Films
In all the years watching videos I have seen way too many time lapses, amazing landscapes and starry skies. So that is something it doesn’t impress me anymore, but if you use it in a clever way, playing with mirrors and different perspectives, and last but not least add music from Lorn, then I most certainly gonna love it.
8. Fabian Luttenberger x Alexanderson – Electrolyte from Georg Fasswald
Again, the music might not be my cup of tea, but I truly appreciate the work done visually, the dark but slightly colorful touch, specially the iridescent 3D surfaces. I’m not a big fan of 3D myself, I mean so far is not my thing but I do enjoy watching what people achieve with 3D tools, and of course is also great for VR projects.
9. Boîte Noire from Martin Messier
Usually I don’t like to share works that are older than some months or a year, but I do exceptions, specially when it’s interesting works in the audiovisual field, installations, or if I have never seen something before from that artist. This is the case, “Boîte Noire” is an experiment from more than 2 years ago but it is still fresh and interesting. A path that still needs more explorers and experiments.
10. Pouffapillar from Pouff
Last but not least this 3D animation magically synched with the music is a bit cheesy and funny but lovely. Pouff proves he is great doing 3D animations, I specially enjoyed the lightning effects and textures, and the lovely aquatic creatures. Maybe my only “but” is that musically seems a bit outdated (for me!!), I was long ago interested in psychedelic trance music, but… yeah, you know…
