PANEL DEBATE SPEAKER
11th November 2004
Norsk Kritikerlag Autumn Seminar
Westerdals School of Communication, Oslo
I was invited to take part in Norsk Kritikerlag's autumn seminar which dealt mainly with promotional music videos as a subject of study that combines aesthetic and commercial concerns. As panelists we were asked to answer two questions:
1. What are the influences of commercial culture (in the context of music
videos and advertisements) on contemporary aesthetics?
2. Does commercial culture get the critical attention it deserves?
Here is a transcript of my contribution.
THEIVES LIKE US, OR ... WHEN EISENSTEIN INVENTED MONTAGE, HE PROBABLY WASN’T SEARCHING FOR A WAY TO SELL SOFT DRINKS. (1)
When Marit sent me an email inviting me to this panel, the first thing I
did was to call her and ask, "why me". I am not an expert on music
videos, neither have I ever produced anything of any significant commercial
value. She asked me to talk through artist glasses. The second thing I did
was to do a quick search for the roots of the music video in Wikipedia, the
“copyleft” Encyclopedia of the WWW. Here is a quick historical
rundown of things that grabbed my attention
1) 1911: At a time of rapid development in the arts and science, Alexander
Scriabin, a self-acclaimed synaesthestes, writes Prometheus - Poem of
Fire, for orchestra and light organ, an instrument that simultaneously
produces music and light at the touch of a key. The synchronicity of sound
and vision could justify the light organ as an early forerunner of the music
video.
2) 1920's: The abstract animated films of Oskar Fischinger are described as
"visual music" and synchronised to musical scores, but he is critisised
by the high-arters for using light classical music. For Fischinger music is
a "means" for creating dynamic, kinetic audiovisual works, and not
the “end”. He also makes commercials to earn money.
3) 1938: The film Alexander Nevsky, directed by Sergei Eisenstein
is released. The dramatic methods of mixing audio and visual and the extended
battle scenes choreographed through numerous shots to a score by Sergei Prokoviev
provide a prime connection to the music video of more modern times. However,
the film was definitely not made to sell music or promote a band, but to warn
the Soviet people of German aggression. By a trick of the tail Alexander Nevsky
was released just before Stalin agreed to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact creating
a Soviet-Nazi alliance, and was consequently suppressed until 1941. After
the German attack on Russia, the "message" is desirable once again,
and Stalin orders the film to be shown in every Soviet cinema. Whatever the
content or intention may be, contextual framing affects perception and interpretation.
But what most endures about his work is his editing techniques, which he identifies
as metric, rhythmic, tonal and overtonal, described as "Methods of Montage".
Through his experiments in montage and its relationship to biomechanics, he
finds that film cut metrically to the beat of a typical heart has a profound
impact on us precisely because it mirrors our biorhythms.
4) 1940: The Panorama Soundie Jukebox hits the clubs and bars in USA - a new
social context for the audio-visual spectacle. Put your money in the slot
and you get music accompanied by one-song film clips. The visual imagery is
mainly of the performing artists themselves, with the occasional flame-thrower
or two thrown in to spice things up a bit.
5) 1962-5: The short but sweet golden age of the Scopitone. A cross between
a jukebox and a 26-inch color TV, the Scopitone was the result of French technology
developed for use during WWII, turned (by CAMECA) to civilian use, projecting
3-minute song films with a high hunk-chick ratio that is apparently spectacular
enough to compensate for extremely bad lip syncing. Bikini babes lounge around
pools, bunny girls hop around fake lawns and lingerie-clad beauties are voyeuristically
glimpsed through keyholes.
6) 1975: The music video Bohemian Rhapsody, mediates the presence of Queen
who are unable to perform on the British TV chart show, Top of the Pops. Though
not Queen's first promotional video, it is the first to be shot entirely on
videotape and contains much of the visual language of latter day promotional
music videos.
7) 1977: Warner Amex Cable launches the first two-way interactive cable TV
system, QUBE, in Columbus, Ohio, offering many specialized channels, including
Sight On Sound, a music channel that features concert footage and music oriented
TV programs. With the interactive QUBE service, viewers could vote for their
favorite songs and artists. Audience participation is a good way of conducting
market research.
8) 1981: Sight on Sound switches name to MTV. First launched in New York,
the channel is modeled on the Top 40 radio show and referred to as "visual
radio", replacing sound with the music video format, and unseen radio
show hosts with visually appealing boy/girl-next-door hosts. The term VJ (which
today generally refers to the live processing and manipulation of audio-visual
signals) is coined.
MTV is available nationally by the mid 80’s, spreading quickly to Europe
and eventually a worldwide audience. Music videos are a vehicle to promote
hot, new acts and revive old rock stars. The first videos have small budgets,
and almost any band that has a video, or has live footage gets airtime for
"free". New wave, punk and heavy metal, ignored by many radio stations,
get airtime on MTV, satisfying the hunger of the 80's teens, who shun the
"Woodstock" and disco music of the 70's. Young visual artists and
filmmakers with a talent for short-attention-span storytelling language of
quick editing and flashy imagery are recruited. The power of the visual language
is so effective that one short promotional device affords instant access to
a near-global market. By 1983 every major record label maintains its own video
department, and top video directors - those skilled at manipulating viewer
emotion with rapid-fire imagery - are courted by Hollywood studios, who want
to lure the MTV generation to the theatres.
Criticised for being racist due to the predominant whiteness of the featured
artists, MTV embraces the threat and responds by selling it back to the public
by heavily featuring videos from black artists such as Michael Jackson (who
has ironically grown whiter and whiter over the years). He also clinches million-dollar
deals to promote Pepsi. So does Live Aid and so does Madonna, in her own special
way.
Through the lens of the video maker, artists can re-invent themselves - again,
and again and again. The heavy rotation of music videos on the "right
channels" has the power to transform unknown bands into million-selling
bands. Million selling artists can get millions for advertising million-selling
soft drinks.
This concludes my quick-and-dirty journey of link-chasing in Wikipedia.
The Wikipedia section on music videos fails to mention the influences of experimental
video artists of the 60’s who "misused" technology to create
something else by literally and figuratively cross wiring connections. For
example, by feeding back TV signals into the machine sound and image were
simultaneously generated. By using magnets to disturb signals, the audiovisual
output could be modulated creating dynamic waveforms. Such avant garde work
has greatly influenced the way video is treated through digital filters today
but has received relatively little recognition. Hopefully, this omission will
be rectified in the future. The past is editable in a current total of 85
languages in the Wiki world.
The evolution of the music video is connected to the development of technology
in terms of aesthetics, production and distribution, just as it is to the
ideas and techniques of innovative people with extraordinary talents –
both past and present. Everything is interconnected. While technology may
be considered as neutral, the context in which it is developed and used is
not. Anything that can be digitised is also infinitely digitally editable,
recyclable and distributable by anyone with access to the right tools.
By sampling and remixing media of the past and present, it is possible to
challenge and talk back to the image of the world fed through the mixed medias,
merged mediums and accumulative aesthetics that make up our environment today,
while running the risk of being reframed and fed back into the very system
which is being commented upon - as something else.
The current misbalance of power between the Davids and Goliaths of this world
can cause legal problems relating to intellectual property and copyright issues.
In the words of Grethe Melby*, today artists need to be lawyers too. Paraphrasing
artist Vikki Bennet of the Canadian duo People Like Us, and her approach to
the Avant garde – eventually, you either join the rest of the army,
or get shot.
Strategies for counteracting the misbalance of power in commodified culture
can be found in non-profit movements such as the Creative Commons. Their goal
is to update increasingly restrictive, default rules to cope with the implications
of digital and tele-communications technologies of today. They offer a flexible
copyright for creative works, allowing people to share and distribute their
work with the works of others, while giving credit where it is due.
If, in the question of this debate, "commercial culture" refers
to promotional music videos, I would say that they are worthy of serious critique,
but only when put in another context, such as curated programs in film festivals,
exhibitions and special collections, or as part of a trend study. There are
some exceptions, but looking at the myriads of formula-based, stereotyped
music videos today aimed mainly at teenyboppers with cash to spare, it is
debatable as to whether music videos will continue to have the sales potential
they had in the past. I think they will get the attention they deserve.
* Grethe Melby is a graduate student in the Department of Media Studies,
University of Bergen, Norway, writing her thesis on metaphors used to describe
new technology and their relation to political decisions.
REFERENCES AND LINKS
(1) Title inspired by a line in an article by Oliver Girling:
ONE MUSIC VIDEO WORTH THREE HOURS OF MOSES
Music videos part the TV seas better than Moses.(1995)
The line reads: When Eisenstein invented montage, he wasn't searching
for a way to sell detergent, though that's what happened to his innovation.
http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_04.20.95/ARTS/
ar0420.htm
Norsk Kritikerlag
http://www.kritikerlaget.no/
Wikipedia
http://www.wikipedia.org
People Like Us
http://www.peoplelikeus.org/
Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/