The Tunnel Is Still There

Last week, to coincide with the release of Praveen & Benoît‘s Songs Spun Simla Remix album on Moodgadget, a video I had put together last month for one of the tracks was posted on ISO50.  While it’s still in draft format, most of what I visualize whenever I hear Shigeto‘s remix is in place.  I clearly saw escalators the very first time I heard the song kick in, and so much of what I saw throughout the rest of the song resembled footage from the Qatsi trilogy.  I almost had my work cut out for me, and since the video is technically and officially just a fan video, I was free to do what I wanted to before consulting the original artists.

The footage seen in the video is derived from the films Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi, two films from the visionary Qatsi trilogy, directed and produced by Godfrey Reggio and scored by Philip Glass.  I first saw Koyaanisqatsi a few years ago in a History of Photography course, and the virtue of the imagery was explained and framed such that I instantly understood the film’s unspoken message.  The video I mixed out of this footage is intended to go along in unison with the music, the two working synergistically off of one another.  Whether or not it accomplishes this under the constraints of streaming internet video in some spots may be determined by your internet connection, but it should play fine if you let the whole thing load first and make sure you close any unnecessary tabs.

The photograph posted above is one I picked from my , taken over a year ago in Times Square, which reminds me of how I might try to approach my own updated sort of Qatsi film, capturing human life in motion, in conflict with itself and its consequences.  I wanted to incorporate my own imagery into this video, but never got around to it, perhaps a final version, should one ever materialize, will do just that.  Enjoy this in the meantime!

DRAFT – Praveen & Benoît – The Tunnel is Still There (Shigeto’s Deep Tunnel Diving Remix)
on .

Posted in Music and Music Videos and Photography Posted by on Apr 14 2009 12:00 pm

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