Zero 7 feat. José González: Futures 

(2006) 

shows crushed things, completely abstracted… Innuendos, artifacts and the rough synchronization add subtle emotions to the uncertain process that build the morbid tableaux of all possible futures.

In Futures by Robert Seidel you will see crushed things, completely abstracted… finding together and building up to something we all have seen before… Like our true wishes and desires they shape over time and get clearer… followed by the next longing… Innuendos, artifacts and the rough synchronisation add subtle emotions to the uncertain process that build the morbid tableaux of all possible futures…

The low-budget promo for a planned DVD of Zero 7’s The Garden was deemed as too un-commercial and another video was commissioned for the song by Duckeye… Nevertheless it is very successfully shown at film festivals, design magazines and internet sites.

SHIFT Japan | DOTMOV Festival 2006 selected and commented by Motion Theory: "Futures is hypnotic, textured, and beautiful. Robert Seidel reveals a hidden world in everyday objects. Deconstructed organic elements reverse in time, becoming what they once were. It suggests that in death there is a hidden beauty."

 

Source: Robert Seidel's Website

 

 

"Futures is my first music video. It was commissioned after _grau for the british band Zero 7 featuring the beautiful voice of José González. I wanted to create a special mood for this song about our future shaping over time. So it starts with sequences of crushed, everyday objects that get clearer, like our wishes and desires. As life is full of accidents, also the video is and you see compression artifacts and a rough synchronization. These errors help to build the morbid tableaux of all possible futures. I had a very small budget and full creative freedom, but the record company didn’t use the video in the end. So it was only shown at festivals and they even had another video done for the same track…"

 

Source: Shift

 

 

Zero 7 feat. José González: Futures, food, pop, Video Clip

Reading

Rewind, Play, Fast Forward (2010) – The Past, Present and Future of the Music Video by Henry Keazor, Thorsten Wübbena (eds.) brings together different disciplines as well as journalists, museum curators and gallery owners in order to take a discussion of the past and present of the music video as an opportunity to reflect upon suited methodological approaches to this genre and to allow a glimpse into its future. (transcript Verlag)

Digital Harmony (1980): On the Complementarity of Music and Visual Art – John Whitney, Sr. wanted to create a dialog between "the voices of light and tone." All of his early experiments in film and the development of sound techniques lead toward this end. He felt that music was an integral part of the visual experience; the combination had a long history in man's primitive development and was part of the essence of life. His theories On the complementarity of Music and Visual Art were explained in his book, Digital Harmony, published by McGraw-Hill in 1980. (Paradise 2012)

 

SEE ALSO

Leviathan is a Chicago-based, design-focused production studio specializing in the creation of large-scale visual experiences across all media. The emerging studio's leaders are champions of breakthrough design and branding who draw from experiences earned within the world's leading digital agencies, production companies, VFX and motion studios. (Leviathan)

Amon Tobin: ISAM (2011) live visuals by visual design company Leviathan in Chicago, Los Angeles-based V Squared Labs and SF-based fine art-techies Blasthaus is a massive, 2.5-ton structure composed of dozens of white cubes and rectangles made of wood and steel. Two sides of each box face the audiences at 45 degrees so the images hit both sides for a richer 3-D effect. In the center of the structure is Amon Tobin's cockpit – a semi-transparent control room where he plays his laptop and tweaks a few visual components to lend a sense of spontaneity. (Fast Company)

VJ: Audio-Visual Art + VJ Culture (2006) edited by D-Fuse. A major change has taken place at dance clubs worldwide: the advent of the VJ. Once the term denoted the presenter who introduced music videos on MTV, but now it defines an artist who creates and mixes video, live and in sync to music, whether at dance clubs and raves or art galleries and festivals. This book is an in-depth look at the artists at the forefront of this dynamic audio-visual experience. (Laurence King Publishing)

George Michael: 25 Live stadium tour (2006) - Universal Everything created a 30 metre LED ski-slope projection for the last song of the night of George Michael's sellout 25 Live world tour. (Universal Everything)

dont.need.no.body (2003) by Scott Pagano (Neither Field) is inspired by early Steve Reich tape pieces, Naut Humon and Tim Digulla's Granular Synthesis video remix, and People magazine. File sharing, reconstruction, and micro edits, enabling the transformation of a coming of age piece into a staccato reworking of sweaty seduction. (Scott Pagano)