the coolest thing ever?

[Hank Fletcher]

This has got my vote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk76c3dtYdk

Just wanted to share.

Maybe I should qualify why or how I think this is the coolest thing ever, but I don't want to ruin it for anyone else to discover. It's an animation with music that, for whatever reason, seems to strike me as having a good balance between artistic integrity, imagination, and understanding. It used to be you could go to a rock concert to get that, but I'm not sure anymore.

 

[Souper man]

Its ok.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBVmfIUR1DA
lol.

 

[Hank Fletcher]

I have to admit, at first I was taken aback by the bluntness of your post. There's nothing cool, in itself, about a spoiled brat willfully destroying his (or someone else's) property. Now that I think of it, though, the two videos have a lot in common, especially given the commentary that the Bob Sabiston video allows. I'd even go so far as to suggest the Sabiston video might be an appropriate theme song/video for this forum, if it ever needed one.

The "Black Grease" video visually expresses extreme polarity, at once contradictory and harmonious. If you take a lead from the lyrics, one side is life, structure, and humanity, and the other is death, chaos, and infinity. The action in the video represents the finite nature of anything mortal, and the permanence, the inevitability, of everything else. The play between the poles demonstrates the frustration - although I hesitate to say futility - inherent in any construction.

It's this frustration that's the most obvious connection to the video Souper man has posted. The destruction, the behaviour of the boy, while despicable is so only insofar as it appeals to human constructs of what's acceptable. The acceptance we rightfully expect is that the boy should exhibit some self-control. What we see instead is what we all, as a basic instinct, fear: death, chaos, and infinity.

 

[ericgibbs]

hi Hank,
Must admit I'm not over impressed, sounds/looks like something I used see in the sixties [ nineteen sixties, that is]

Sorry to sound negative, but least I did give a postive response.

Eric

PS: what did pee me off was the Flash Player download changed my search bar settings to Google,without asking permission, had to change back to Yahoo!

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Reminds me when I was the only non high person at "laser floyd"

 

[Hank Fletcher]

Hey, I saw laser floyd when I was a kid (i.e., not high), and I still thought it was pretty cool. I guess I might be on the road where nerd street crosses stoner avenue.

I find the comment about the technique in context of what was done in the sixties interesting. I think one of the things that impressed me about this video was the attention to detail in its creation, on the craft end of things. Also, I thought it was a good combination with the music, which was okay by itself, but much cooler when paired with the video (which is something you can rarely say about music and videos). But should I be impressed by the craft? Could the artist have accomplished the same effect using a different technique that required less effort, less meticulousness? Would knowing that ease in technique change my impression of the work?

Like I said originally, I didn't want to talk about it too much out of respect for someone else to discover it uninfluenced, as I did, I was just looking for examples of rotoscoping and happened upon that, but I guess as soon as you label something as potentially being the coolest thing ever, you've set your mark for impressing people quite high. If I'd said, "Hey, check this out. I think it's kind of lame, but I was wondering if anyone else thought it was any good," it might have elicited a different reaction.

I still think it's cool. The tune got me hooked to watch the first thirty seconds, and after that, I just had to know how it ended. I've watched it about twenty times since last night, and everytime I think of something new as inspired by either the lyrics or the images.

 

[Robot builder 101]

The black grease video is interesting, but souper man's video is pointless. Why would a kid destroy his stuff over a game? Why post that? It's not cool, it's not funny, it's stupid.

 

[BeeBop]

I can see how the first video would delight; the person understood visual language, which makes it stand out from the myriad images on the net. It was a well designed balance of bio-morphic and geometric shapes with a delightful even keel on the relation of variety and unity. The maker used harmonious colors playing wide range color analogies off their other (contrasting hue value or intensity,) however it lacked the sophistication which a close value hue interaction would have brought.
I would have to listen to the music a few times before I got to the words... oh well, just how I am, and with this one, I'm not going there.

The second one, at least in its original, while quite nihilistic, is a pretty good gauge of a culture deep in decay. The emphasis has long ago shifted from the culture to the individual, and has now shifted to the individual as god. This is exemplified by the lust of the individual to erase other individuals. Isn't that why we play video games, the first person shooters? There can be, only one! Destruction, is the first step in creation.
Don't think this will get a second viewing either.

 

[HiTech]

Why waste money on drugs when you can put on a set of headphones, don a pair of binoculars, stare at your CRT watching fractals and the like move in sync to the music!

 

[dknguyen]

Why waste money on drugs when you can put on a set of headphones, don a pair of binoculars, stare at your CRT watching fractals and the like move in sync to the music!

Portability?

 

[Hank Fletcher]

The emphasis has long ago shifted from the culture to the individual, and has now shifted to the individual as god. This is exemplified by the lust of the individual to erase other individuals. Isn't that why we play video games, the first person shooters?

I'm gonna have to call you on your interpretation of FPS games, at least if you can grant that the popularity of such games is tied closely to their multi-player capabilities.

This is a tricky analogy to make, but I'm going to give it a try anyway. Take one part overly militaristic society (such as the U.S., but it's not the only one, and this isn't a nationalism thing, so bear with me) and add it to one part institutionalized homophobia. What do you get? A system that at once promotes fraternity and competition (i.e. the army) while attempting to surpress any homosexuality (because it's contrary to the army's religious belief, or more importantly, is a threat to the nation's ability to produce more babies, hence more soldiers).

So where does the FPS tie in? Those games come about partly as a direct or indirect product created to indoctrinate new soldiers, but moreso as a result of the cultural inertia created by militaristic obsession, ergo limiting the populace's imagination in terms of what it perceives as entertainment. The means through which an audience derives entertainment are inextricable, and this plays a part in the inertia of the audience's imagination, so despite arguably diverse activities such as war games or p*rnography the population (largely due to a desire and necessity for convenience) will opt to use the same medium for both: the Internet. This choice of medium will inevitably blur the lines of distinction in the activities it translates, due to the lack of or loose reasoning for doing so. The result is that an FPS game becomes so abstracted from any military training purpose as to become unidentifiable as such: it loses all value insofar as training soldiers (just think of the excessive retributive fragging in FPS games), and instead becomes its own entity, with its own pupose. The bigger the gun in an FPS the better, and that's no stretch to identify the gun as a phallic symbol, and to identify targets such as headshots as orifices. Given FPS games are played largely by 100% male participants, it all sounds kinda gay to me (and incidentally, makes the NRA look like the YMCA). But then, perhaps Freud would've said, "Sometimes an FPS is just an FPS."

The suppression of perversion by the army is symbolized in the "Black Grease" video, although arguably the army is the perversion if you consider the alternative (i.e. infinity) as the inevitable - it really doesn't matter which is which, it's just opposite sides of the same coin, a polar narrative. So is the destructive kid's expression of frustration an exercise of his individuality, or is it perhaps just the symptom of something else? He wasn't good at his game, or for some reason wasn't able to play it, and as a result was excluded from the social interaction the game permitted, whether it was indoctrination into the army or an opportunity for him to publicly explore his homoerotic inclinations. Human defence and sexuality are essential to who we are both individually and collectively, but the same things can only be learned, shared, and experienced in social settings. Take away the opportunity or expectation for those two things from any one person and the result will be what we call madness.

 

[Marks256]

I don't have any videos that i think are really cool, but i am really fond of **broken link removed**, and Fantasy Art

Here are some works that i like (pics are big, so i didn't embed them);

http://www.neosurrealismart.com/3d-...orks/3d-fantasy-art/313d-Flying-DutchmanB.jpg
http://www.neosurrealismart.com/3d-...s/3d-fantasy-art/283d-sanctuary-stargateB.jpg
http://artist-3d.com/3d_images/3d-art-posters-digital.jpg
http://www.neosurrealismart.com/3d-...3d-fantasy-art/333d-Improbability-Drive-B.jpg


One of my favorite ones: http://fantasyartdesign.com/3dgallery/a-digital/3D-images/0612Kuts/3d-modeling-humor01.jpg



[edit]
I found another one that i really like. **broken link removed**
[/edit]

 

[Super_voip]

Sorry but I just like seeing things get blown up to music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15FJ03upun8

 

[Sceadwian]

The bookcase with the boombox was nice.

 

[Super_voip]

I have the DVD with Norman explaining the circumstances behind the videos, adds a great deal to the enjoyment That German Boy has far too much sugar in his diet.

 

[Hank Fletcher]

Liked the Fatboy Slim video - that stuffs always been cool, in a dorky kind of way. Just checked this out, which I thought was superbad:
https://www.youtube.com/user/curryt
I think I might be developing an obsession (or maybe respect?) for technique, but I still think beatboxing is killer cool for the freshness of the genre.

 

[Hank Fletcher]

I just watched the Black Grease video again. I think I'm along to a good three dozen viewings. One chord, five minutes, sweet lyrics, rockin' sound, awesome visual. Cool.