I don’t play MMOs; the majority of my gaming time is consumed by single player titles. Though many such games involve you taking the role of a character, and sometimes you can even design them, without the social aspect it never really feels like the character you control is an avatar, a direct representation of you. Single player character-driven games, especially the more narrative focused ones, are nothing more than puppeteering. You can do what you want with the strings you’re given, but nothing more.
Avatars are about ownership and one does not own John Marston in Red Dead Redemption. You control him in between story segments, but he is exclusively his own person within the narrative. The set-ups, the order of events, the motivations of the characters exist strictly within Rockstar Games’ realm, but the how is what’s up to the player. If between moments of severe tension in the Mexican Revolution you decide to go back to the United States to go look for some treasure and pick some flowers, that experience remains yours. If you capture a bounty alive and during the trip back to the local jail you get randomly attacked by a cougar because you decided to take a short cut through a field and you curse at it for killing your horse and your bounty, you have a unique tale to tell.
John Marston’s story, however, belongs to Rockstar. Everyone that plays it, save those that quit part way through, will have the same narrative and the same outcome. Top down story-telling tends to separate a game’s character from the player. You control Marston at times, but you are not him. It’s a small but important difference because when it comes to solitary game experiences, an avatar, as a representation of the user, is solely the result of a player’s actions. You could switch out John Marston for any other character and it wouldn’t make a difference. It’s what you did to get there that counts.
I love this video of a live “performance” by Blondie of the song “Denis” on a Dutch TV program from, I would think, 1978. I don’t know what the story is here, but there’s something appealing about seeing Debbie Harry just stand dead still while multiple televisions around her show proper (from the same show?) live performances of the song. The video inter-cuts between those which is a shame because just watching her stare at the camera with an air of displeasure would have made it all the more absurd. Somehow it seems more genuine then the mostly lip-synced performances of the era, perhaps owing a little bit to Blondie’s oft-overlooked punk origins.
In trying to remember what videos I enjoyed this decade that weren’t on the list I turned to two places: my YouTube favourites, and my delicious bookmarks. The YouTube favourites were mostly a bust as they were almost entirely made up of old 80s and early 90s videos that were suffixed with the all-too-common Video is no longer available mark. delicious proved more fruitful as the video + music tag intersection gave me a pretty good zeitgeist for most of the decade. I say that having just realized that as of next month I’ve been a delicious user for six years, so it’s a pretty good indicator for most of my tastes through the decade.
What follows is a list of all the music videos that I bookmarked there over those years that aren’t already on antville’s top 100. Some were chosen for the video itself, some for the music, and others for weird cultural reasons (ie. mostly videogame and/or internet meme-ry).
Going through some backlog material I noticed that the above video hadn’t been posted, here or elsewhere. It really should be because of its videogame theme (I do like those) and, more so, because it’s so weird and borderline creepy. A paper-made animated tribute to an imaginary deity that watches over the high-score tables of classic arcade games, Matt Reynold’s student film “The God of High Score Legacies“.
The following post was originally meant for Offworld, but, well, you know. It’s sad to see it end as a its own entity — it’s subsumed into the cluttered new Boing Boing design — and I’m not saying that as someone who occasionally contributed. I was a fan long before my first post there. That said, do follow Brandon’s weblog for any possible new, post-Offworld developments.
Cubie
sadmb’s Cubie (embedded above) is a java powered music creation application that, by the author’s own admission, takes a great deal of influence from puzzle games. The above video, a demo of a recent touch-screen implementation, certainly shows this: blocks fall from above as if from Lumines; pieces, and the entire stage, are rotated off to the side as in a Rubik’s cube.
The aesthetic is also very game-like, so much so that I wish that it was an actual game that I could play and not an open-ended digital musical instrument. Designed with live performance in mind, it is, as the site claims, also of interest to those who like unidentifiable but curious thing. I certainly do.
Cubie [sadmb.com, freely downloadable version available]
I love a good glitch. There’s something special in the aesthetics of a corrupted image, broken renderer, data to audio conversion, or messed up video codec. It’s only annoying when it occurs when you least want it. A video I made yesterday, uploaded to YouTube with odd results (what was converted into Flash is different from what I see when I play it locally,) is one such case. It was my first attempt at recording the weekly Grand Theft Auto IV multiplayer sessions. It didn’t go so well.
The YouTube video page of crystalsculpture and crystalsculpture2 (I don’t know why there are two, also both pages feature an epileptic inducing background. You have been warned.) are full of sheer radicality. Both pages are packed with all sorts of retro 70s and early 80s (and even 60s) computer animations, motion graphics, and odd ephemera (old horror trailers, documentary excerpts, commercials, and even a home video.)
It would be really nice to to use a female voice in the game [...] it hasn’t been done before.In the future, women with soundchips in their earrings will listen to Beethoven’s symphonies.
I walked the Avenue des Champs-Elysees a couple of times, up towards the Arc de Triomphe and back down to Place de Concorde and Tuileries, covering both sides of the perpetually busy road. The Avenue was what I expected it to be: lined end to end with designer shops, restaurants, tourists and image-obsessed locals. A couple of Starbucks rounds out the picture. In all my time there I stopped in two shops, the FNAC (French Best Buy, basically) and the Virgin Megastore. This says a lot about me.
The shelves in the DS and PSP “jeux video” sections were filled with most of the same crap that I’d be avoiding in Canada. I did find a copy of “Dr. Reiner Knizia’s Brainbenders” for the DS, a Europe only release I was eager to purchase, but the box was entirely in French which made me question whether the game was too. It would be safe to imagine that it would have multiple language options, but I didn’t want to take the chance; I’ll buy it in London. On other racks I noticed various “English Training” games for the DS which I thought quaint. I considered buying one for the novelty of it.
Is there anything new on the portable systems worth playing? Or is it a complete mess of licensed games and rehashes? Disappointing.
Thankfully, the music sections in these shops were quite good and I spent most of my time there. They’re not much different than the flagship Zavvi or HMV shops you can find in the UK or Canada, but it’s interesting to note the few minor regional differences. There was a section devoted to French bands and singers, of course, but it goes beyond that. In Canada, if you were looking for an Aphex Twin album you’d look in the “Electronic” section; in the UK it’s under “Dance”; here in Paris, it’s in “Techno.” To my untrained ears it seemed like an awfully specific label for a section that contained everything from Squarepusher and Justice to Air and Crystal Castles, bands that I’d hardly call “techno.”
Right next to “techno” was another rack labelled “trip-hop” and a wall of nothing but “House.” I wondered for a moment where I would find Portishead’s third album — their first two are universally classified as “trip-hop” but “Third” is its own thing altogether — and I think it saw it in yet another distinct section. “Electronic” might be vague but when I go looking for an album in the HMV on Yonge Street in Toronto, I know where to look. Here, I’d have to browse through three or four different sections.
There was also an entire wall dedicated to “lounge compilations.” This too seemed correct for France.
The final thing I noticed was that both of these retailers had considerably larger “contemporary composer” sections than can be found in similar stores in Canada. However, this could be a case of confirmation bias on my part. My interest in this music has grown recently so I might be noticing it more than I ever did. Ten years ago I was completely unaware of the “electronic” section in my local HMVs (or Sam The Record Man) and now it’s the first place I go. I’ll have to check the shops in Toronto when I get back to see if contemporary composers are as represented there as they are here, but man, I was tempted to get a few CDs for the fear that they might not be.
Unfortunately, the couple of items that I was specifically searching for I could not find. I hoped to find Kap Bambino’s album “Zero Life, Night Vision” seeing as they’re French but when their label says that the album is “sold out” they aren’t kidding. It’s a shame. I understand why artists like that get such a limited print run, but they deserve more exposure in these post-Crystal Castles days, especially since they’re better and, as is typical, they predate them. Alas, it’s not how good you are, it’s who you know.
Kap Bambino “Save” (Promo Video)
I didn’t want to leave empty handed so I bought Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians,” went home, hit YouTube and posted this incredible video to my Tumblr.
Unique performance of Steve Reich – 1 musician on 2 pianos
what is actually going on here will sound somewhat familiar to those who understand how to modulate sinusoidal waveforms binaurally or have at least learned “beat-matching”. this instance, however, involves the pianist attempting to play one piano at a very precise tempo, while simultaneously (and very minutely) increasing the tempo (based upon a sinusoidal timeline) played on the other piano. thusly bringing the two pianos into, and then out of, phase — thereby never achieving actual synchronicity until the 1st note on each piano being played is matched up again, then the performance drops to 8 notes and the cycle starts all over, then again to 4 notes.
it is also worthy to note that this composition is twenty minutes long in its entirity and is meant to be played by two pianists. the fact that one person can mentally and physically process this is truly astounding.
Well, I made it. After an ordeal getting through the Chunnel I arrived in Paris on Monday evening. I’ve been here three whole days and it’s been completely gorgeous. In those three days I’ve had more sunshine than in any given three week period in London. It certainly makes for a more colourful first impression.
My studio is very small but it has a good location (two doors from the Metro, and a block away from another Metro line) and it’s perfectly accessorized. I have internet access again! And a TV (which I haven’t even bothered with) and stereo and free long-distance calling to North America. Awesome. However, with this weather it’d be a waste to make use of any of it so I’ve been out exploring, wandering, taking photos and being a flaneur.
That said, I do have access to the wonders of the internet so I do get see a lot of nerdy stuff again. Thus, I present three French musicians given an increasingly geekier treatment:
Etienne de Crecy’s massive cube visualizer thing set-up. Not nerdy per say, but just awesome. More info here.
Ableton Live looped cover of Something About Us by Daft Punk, performed on Nintendo DS Ubisoft Jam Sessions, Midi controlled software electric bass, drums, synth, vocoded vocals, and solo theremin, recorded in a single pass, with a single camera.
Basically, it condenses all 8275 minutes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, from all seven seasons and all the movies, into a ten minute long clip of out-of-context sexual euphemisms. All of which is presented in a linear, story-like fashion. It is quite… preposterous. I can not imagine how much work it took to compile this but I can guess at how devoid that time was of the activity it mentions.
French electro-hipsters Justice recently released a new video for their track “Stress”. [hi-res video link] It lives up to the title. The video follows a gang of banlieue thugs as they go on a rampage across the city. It’s violent and uncompromising, likely to never be seen on TV on this side of the Atlantic, and, to no one’s surprise, already quite controversial. In some ways, it’s a very condensed version of La Haine [trailer].
On a superficial level, the violence is gratuitous. These thugs go around beating up bystanders, tourists, old ladies and security guards without any retribution. That’s likely why so many people have a problem with this video: they get away with it. After being subjected to this stressful ordeal the viewer is never given the karmic release they likely expected. Not only do they lack that catharsis, but by the end of it the viewer itself becomes as a victim to the thugs’ rampage.
The video works because there’s a constant tension between the actions of the characters on screen and the viewer, represented as the film crew. This is established early on when you see a hand come out a wipe the camera. From this point on you know that this isn’t some imaginary third person view, this is seen from the first person perspective of the cameraman. The characters are aware of it, though in an uneasy sort of way.
As it goes along they become more conscious of the camera. They goad it along, as though their carnage is for show.
Soon enough, the authorities come and try to take them and the camera down. You see a guard come, palm raised, at the camera. The screen goes black. A moment later, we are saved as the thugs turn on that guard and beat the shit out of him. Everyone runs. It is at this point when we become more aware of the camera crew as we see the sound guy, holding his microphone, running away alongside the thugs.
The camera crew — the viewer — has changed from a detached observer into someone complicit in the violence. They are no longer detached observers. It is no surprise that they, too, become victims to it. It’s hard to feel sympathy for them. They — we — brought it upon ourselves. In this sense it is far more reminiscent of Man Bites Dog than La Haine.
So is the violence in this video gratuitous? Yes. But that shouldn’t be seen as a celebration or glorification of it. The only people that would see it as such are those that look at it at a superficial level, seeing a bunch of hooligans beating up innocent people and nothing more. There’s more to it than just that.
It is, then, very appropriate that the video was let loose during the same week that saw the release of Grand Theft Auto IV.
About
This is the weblog of Mike Nowak, a freelance web nerd and digital nomad. I write mostly about games, music, film and tv, the web, and anything else I find of interest. This weblog has existed in some form or another since 1999.
Robbie Cooper “Alter Ego”
