Avant-garde in Pop Music Videos PDF

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Film 256 Term Paper: 30/11/2018 200412593

Avant-garde effect in Pop Music Videos In the beginning, the music videos were created as a way to promote the songs to obtain better sales of the albums and to publicize the artists. It was not until the 80s that this theme of music videos exploded, and all thanks to the appearance of a new television channel that presented a format that nobody had seen before. Music Television or better known as MTV, was the first television channel that focused its content solely on music videos. Thanks to this channel, music videos began to have an impact that they had not had before, resulting in a lucrative success for the record companies. According to social communicator Jon E. Illescas, a video clip is "a short film based on the development of a previous musical composition that establishes a set of images, which, together with music, give rise to a new aesthetic discourse" (32). That is, a music video other than being a basic mixture of sound and image, is also a piece that is full of symbolic constructions subject to the interpretation that is made of a specific work. The aesthetic discourse of which Illescas speaks is the representation of the lyric transformed into actions, forms, colors, shots, visual effects, etc. And all this is linked, of course, to the musical genre you want to stage. Each genre has its own audiovisual aesthetic, its own clichés, scenography and its own audience. In this essay I focus on the POP genre, and I analyze the repercussion of videos on

modernity and the influences of Avant-garde in the videoclips of this musical category. From the moment that video clips became popular, the way we perceive and consume music changed forever. In Pop, a genre whose name derives from "popular", videoclips are formulated to reach the masses, so they constantly present a series of values, ideologies, social stereotypes and cultural references that are familiar to us, facilitating the existence of a relationship between the product (the music and the artist) and the consumer. We are dealing with a merchandise manufactured not only by the music industry and for the exclusive benefit of it, but also against a larger industry that in socio-economic terms is called "cultural industry". According to the economist Patrice Flichy "There is a cultural industry when the representation of a work is transmitted or reproduced by industrial techniques" (37). Pop music videos are mass produced, so most of them, aesthetically, have things in common. These videos are tailored to a series of very dynamic visual elements that aim to draw the attention of the viewer, incorporating elements of experimental video, video art and animation into a commercially practical format. It is the audiovisual genre in which there is more creativity and experimentation. Illescas raises "with the popularization of the Internet, the mainstream videoclip has become the cultural commodity most consumed by global youth, over books, movies, TV shows or video games.” Therefore, when making a video clip, companies consider that they are addressing a specific social group, for which it is very important to be in a trend as they constantly seek social

approval. This makes them become a vulnerable target for the industries since they will be willing to consume whatever their favorite artists use and wear.

Avant-garde influence. Video clips are usually made with a multitude of visual and electronic effects and are plagued by a variety of styles and aesthetics depending on what is trending at the moment. The Avant-garde movement has greatly influenced the video clip industry, and in pop culture most videos are made experimentally. These music videos are created to entertain the eyes and the ears, submerging us in the depth of the subjective and the own interpretations. The Avant-garde movement served as inspiration for artists seeking to illustrate the aesthetics of a melody. In the abstract video clips, the songs acquire a scenographic character. They rely on the poetic form, especially in the metaphor. They do not tell a story in a linear way but focus on creating a surrealistic atmosphere that accompanies the lyrics of the song without defining it. This environment is created through a sequence of images with a common concept; they can be colors or shapes that, united by the melody, form a semiotic picture that expresses the feeling of the music and what the artist wants to transmit to his viewers. A clear example of this are the music videos of the Australian Psychedelic Pop band Tame Impala. The video of the song "Feels like we only go backwards" was made with the stop motion technique and is full of symbolism within a multicolored visual cosmos.

The visual composition that the director uses for this video, without a doubt, can be related to the Avant-garde movement.

The idea that musicians have about how to represent their songs is important to generate a good final product, but evidently, the director is responsible for bringing that vision of the idea something material. So, we are not only seeing the concept of the artist but the concept of the director and all the people behind the production of a video clip. The creative role of video clips has a lot to do with the success they will have. Reiss and Feineman cite singer Janet Jackson, when in an interview she talks about the importance of the work of famed video clip director Mark Romanek: "The job of the music video director is not only to interpret songs but to create imagery that adds another layer to what the artist originally intended, often with images that leave a permanent impression on the viewer. This director possesses that gift - to present music in a way that is unique, beautiful, haunting and unforgettable. His videos lure you into a believable otherworld, where natural, supernatural, provocative, and surreal images exist and evoke a wide range of reactions, the same way dreams often leave you with feelings words just cannot describe" (213). Nowadays there is not just one video clip format, but there are proposals in different formats. It is not strictly necessary that the duration of the videos be equal

to the duration of the song. There are, for example, short films in which the artist interprets several songs that tell a story. As in the case of Lana Del Rey, singer of the genre Indie Pop, who made an experimental short film with a duration of 27:08 minutes called Tropico, which is based on the biblical story of sin and redemption and which contains songs from his most recent album. This video clip is divided into three acts and each one is a song that is staged in a conceptual way (idea art). Lana Del Rey presents her poetic vision about the decadence that is in the nature of the human being and society. There is another less extensive video clip format where introductions are made before the song; these videos are based on metaphor and create a surreal environment that serves as a prelude to what we are about to see. Narratively they are usually abstract, and the fans end up drawing their own conclusions and creating their own theories. An example of this is the video clip of the song "The Less I Know The Better" also by the band Tame Impala, which starts by showing us the protagonists that are involved. She belongs to a team of cheerleaders and he belongs to a basketball team. Then they show us a scene that makes us understand that he is practicing oral sex, but she has a basketball in her hands. This introduction makes us infer that the video will be about a relationship or a loving disappointment.

Postmodern art is an aesthetic. As technology advances, audiovisual production evolves. Most music videos of the 21st century, leaving aside the economic part and the fact that they are a profitable business, are performances or artistic statements. Directors and producers have transformed contemporary audiovisual aesthetics, and today there is an infinite variety of visual compositions and styles. "Videos are perhaps the most accessible form of that larger tendency known as postmodern art. That aesthetic-in-formation, signalled variously in the work of such artists as Andy Warhol, Nam June Paik, Thomas Pynchon, Philip Glass, and Keith Haring, is marked by several distinctive features. Among them are the merging of commercial and artistic image production

and an abolition of traditional boundaries between an image and its real-life referent, between past and present, between character and performance, between mannered art and stylized life "(Aufderheide, 57). Postmodern art is about making a reinterpretation of the meaning of beauty. Art devoted much of its history to seeking to represent beauty, but beauty turned out to be an intangible quality that cannot be conceptualized in a perfect way because it will always be subjective. Literary critic Fredric Jameson has suggested that "the emerging postmodern aesthetic evokes an intense euphoria, a kind of “high” that partakes in an experience rather than responding to an artist's statement. It is a provocative and troubling observation applied to music videos as they infiltrate the various domains of consumer culture, both on screens and on streets.” (72). What the creators of the music videos look for when using this aesthetic is to dispense with all the figurative elements, in order to concentrate the expressive force in forms and colours that go together with the rhythm and melody of the music, and thus create a unique effect that enriches the viewer's experience. Visual music is a fascinating combination of disciplines that complement each other, that combination of shapes, colors and music creates unlimited possibilities for artistic expression. In conclusion, for many, the Avant-garde movement died in the twentieth century, but if we look at the music videos of today we realize that their influence is still relevant to this day. The main characteristic of Avant-garde is freedom of expression and innovation, and what better than the freedom to break creative parameters and deal with issues that are considered taboo. The influence of the

Avant-garde allows filmmakers to make audiovisual art pieces without the need for an implicit or explicit explanation and allows the viewer to take part in the creative work because the subjective allows him to draw his own conclusions.

Worksided Illescas, Jon E. "La dictadura del videoclip”. [The dictatorship of the video clip ]. El Viejo topo. (2015) FILCHY, Patrice. "Las multinacionales del audiovisual ”. Por un análisis económico de los medios." [The audiovisual multinationals. For an economic analysis of the media] (1982). Feineman, Neil, and Steve Reiss. "Thirty frames per second: the visionary art of the music video." (2000).

Aufderheide, Pat.

"Music videos: The look of the sound."

Communication 36.1 (1986).

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