Wednesday, February 15, 2012

I Can See 20,000+ Eyes





A little less than two years ago I became exposed to the most intoxicating Italo Disco song I’d ever heard, and I’ve been under its spell ever since. “Eyes” has a great beat and a heavenly synth buzz, but nothing is more arresting than Clio’s exotic vocals. As I listen to this song, I feel like a siren is drawing me to another planet -- I’ve just never heard anything like it. Last year, I made a psychedelic video for it and it has now passed the 10,000 Youtube hit mark.

Even if you can excuse my starry-eyed description of the song, you may still find it silly to celebrate such a non-achievement, considering how some of the most moronic things imaginable can get millions of hits on Youtube. That goes without saying, but the boundless size of the internet makes it almost impossible for some things to get noticed. In a nutshell, that’s why the play counts on my songs and videos are so low -- how my gems stay hidden, if you will. Even though “Eyes” is quite a rarity, people all over the world love it, and that’s how my video got so many views (and also I checked on it a lot.) Italo Disco is a total cult genre -- many of the fans are obsessive record collectors like myself, while others were actually out on the dancefloor during the height of the craze. These people have great taste, and the fact that so many of them have left such flattering comments is a big feather in my cap. My intention was to visually interpret a song that I loved, to try to recreate the picture that it painted in my head. It’s been a delightful surprise to find that I’ve struck a chord -- that people, like I am, are infatuated with Clio but also seem to particularly relate to the abstract imagery I’ve attached to the song. Perhaps the video is reminiscent of what they had imagined in their own minds, as if I captured the transcendence of the song through synesthesia, speaking subconsciously to the viewer. Then perhaps Clio is really an intergalactic empress, speaking in a secret language to hypnotize us into worshipping her. Well maybe that’s going a step too far. But the point is that the most optimistic view of the internet is to see it as a vessel for people to people from all across the world to communicate and share the best of what life has to offer. Despite my general cynicism, I can actually appreciate how gratifying the ‘ideal internet’ is. But seriously, give the ‘intergalactic empress’ theory some real thought.

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