Globalisation can look like this as well: the video begins with a zoom in on a stamp, upon which is written »Communications for Peace«. In what follows, this American four-cent stamp becomes a satellite orbiting the globe. The latter, in turn, is completely made up of stamps from different countries, making it a late response to Aligieri e Boetti’s world atlas composed of national flags: a picture of the world in the digitally animated world of images that the director, Sebastian Kaltmeyer, has built here from his impressive stamp collection, accompanied by the piece »To Be Poor Is a Crime« by Digital Jockey. After various stop-and-go zooms on different »crisis regions« – Iraq, Rwanda, Argentina, etc. -, the electronic world trip continues on towards the north. In Canada, the philatelic representation again tells of »Peace on Earth«, until the track finally reaches its peaceable conclusion in Jamaica with the stamp inscription »Studies in Dub«. Being poor is a crime in the globalised world, and not knowing the larger context is an even less forgivable deficit in the case of the politics of representation.

Kaltmeyer’s video, which would never make it on to any of the conventional music video broadcasters, can be found on a DVD compilation of the sort that is now increasingly being produced in the field of self-organised multimedia production. »For Promotional Use Only« - the self-ironical title of this collection of mostly independently produced German music clips made over the past three years – resorts to self-distribution, partly to put itself one step ahead of the corporate strategy of fast market saturation, but also to set up a sort of archive through the quality of the selection. This is something that companies have simply neglected in this field, or when they have done it, then twenty years late as retro-fashion. For this reason, the lesser known clips, like that by Yvette Klein (for the project »POP UP«) or the group Datenstrudel (for Peter Licht’s »Heiterkeit«) can already be considered as finds for a future media archaeology. One day, they will show the relationship of pop to its time, which is barely perceived betimes, although the better-known examples appearing on this DVD, such as Husain/Klöfkorn (for Jan Delay) or Smoczek Policek (for the Goldene Zitronen), which can boast several festival screenings, to a large extent avoid this fate.

Two other recently issued DVDs show how great a need there now is for an ordered consideration of around twenty years of largely undocumented music video history. The sampler »introduced 100« does not focus so much on the actual fringe area, but is rather a sort of mainstream-compatible alternative canon. It was brought out for the hundredth issue of the Cologne music mag »Intro«. According to the subtitle, the 42 (!) clips it includes are intended to distil an »essence« of the past twelve years. The range is correspondingly broad – from hip-hop (Arrested Development, The Pharcyde) to contemporary German dance-pop (Justus Köhncke, International Pony). It is obvious that the ambitions of any such »Best of« compilations must come to grief because of inevitable omissions or unspoken preferences for certain genres. But some fringe classics, like Nick Gordon’s video for Roni Size’s »Brown Paper Bag« (1997), or the clip for Basement Jaxx’s »Where’s Your Head At« (2000), show that, even in this complex terrain, niches are always opening up that tend towards non-canonised forms: in a laboratory-like recording studio, the test monkeys cut loose and cause sheer horror on the part of corporate representatives.

The DVD »visual niches – extraordinary music videos«, which came out at the end of 2002, is also devoted to the discovery of such »niches«. The fringe areas of commercial production explored here are limited to 15 clips from the past five years, from discreet electronics (Sensorama) to ethereal hypno-pop (Sigur Rós). The visually most ambitious works on the sampler display either a refreshing use of editing and zoom techniques – for example, Thomas Hilland’s video for Röykskopp’s »Eple« – or simply create abstruse short films about the big electromagnetic conspiracy – as with Geoff Johnston’s clip for Super_collider's »Messagesacomin«. »visual niches« also contains a real bonus: it gives you another chance to see and hear »Rockit« (1983; music: Herbie Hancock; direction: Godley & Creme), which has almost disappeared from the shelves these days – a superb study in rhythm and motion with robotlike mannequins.

The compilation DVD brought out by the two Viennese multimedia groups vidok and re-p last autumn moves nearer to the abstract, minimalist tendencies of the present day. It gives an overview of the lively activities of the past few years in several sections with names like »Experimental« or »Shorts«: from the first, still captivating synchronisation studies, to more recent electronic music (»santora«, »traxdata«), to concept videos that are now accepted even on the commercial front, such as Timo Novotny’s latest work for the Sofa Surfers, »Can I Get a Witness?« (2002), which captures 24 hours in Adolf Loos’ American Bar in dynamised single frames. Norbert Pfaffenbichler has dared to take a step ‘back« into the old medium of 35-mm film. His »Notes on Film 01 Else« (2002) show screen tests or head studies in the style of early cinema in five frames placed next to one another. Else, the main character, carries out simple (head) movements and claps her hands at the end of every scene like a sort of clapperboard. Synchrony and perspective are spatially fanned out here, and the film time is literally »dismantled« into a visible strip of single frames – film analysis using the new media.

With their compilation, vidok/re-p have also established their own homemade archive, like the other DVD projects that have been mentioned: a move that future music video archaeologists will look back on with gratitude.

 

Translated by Tim Jones

 

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