This month’s video essay suggestions have some genuinely wonderful filmmaking within the combine, from a “desktop horror” quick to a video that manages to make aggressive Tetris riveting. Works about “child cities” and post-punk music spherical out this version. Plus: Is making and/or consuming artwork efficient activism? The reply might shock you!
“The Historical past of Tetris World Information” by Summoning Salt
One of the best storytellers make the unlikeliest scenes compelling. Tetris is without doubt one of the most elegantly easy of video video games, however a group has cohered round it that’s remarkably advanced, strategizing even its most granular parts, just like the optimum technique to faucet the management pad. This video is likely to be Summoning Salt’s finest but, visualizing statistics and information in thrilling methods. In a single scene, a damaged document is represented by a pan throughout a bar graph of excessive scores, emphasizing how vital it’s and making the sense of triumph visceral.
“Artwork Received’t Save Us from Capitalism” by Lily Alexandre
The title says all of it. Alexandre analyzes the efficacy that inventive creation does — and extra typically doesn’t — have in real-world activism and affecting change. However that cynical-sounding abstract belies the hope that Alexandre is making an attempt to convey. What’s extra fascinating than this primary inquiry is the pure follow-up of what artwork is “good for,” as a result of it reveals the important flaw of that sort of considering. She posits that artwork is value pursuing and consuming for its personal pleasure.
“Child Cities” by Defunctland
Earlier than I watched this video, I used to be unfamiliar with the temporary growth in theme parks constructed round letting kids simulate the grownup world, however now I want I’d been capable of go to one after I was a child. A baby may carry out actions imitating jobs starting from surgical procedure to pizza supply, and get in-park foreign money that could possibly be spent on additional amusements. Apart from the historical past the video delves into, it explores the way in which that children went past the parameters of those amusement parks to unwittingly replicate grown-up life much more intently. In interviews and information clips, we see them bemoan the frustrations of tight budgets, invent police corruption, and even work out be a superb protection lawyer.
“Sticky” by Maria Hofmann and MUBI
Yearly, the streaming service MUBI companions with the FILMADRID Worldwide Movie Pageant to provide a collection of video essays. “Sticky” is the very best of this yr’s crop to date, described by creator Maria Hoffmann as a “horror desktop documentary.” By toggling completely different browser home windows, a few of which include information and movies concerning the Mediterranean migrant disaster, whereas others merely present work apps or social media websites, Hofmann evokes the way in which that atrocity can perversely grow to be a part of the mundane background of every day life — only one extra component of the fixed feed of internet-mediated society.
“Put up-Punk, Mark Fisher & Common Modernism” by CCK Philosophy
Jonas Čeika’s movies about politics and philosophy typically discover ideas by figures like Martin Heidegger or Gilles Deleuze by means of acquainted varieties of popular culture. His model is austere — it’s merely his calm narration over clips and pictures, deftly condensing a substantial amount of info. Right here he explains the late Mark Fisher’s concepts about Modernist artwork by tracing the evolution of post-punk music. Čeika’s movies encourage viewers to learn and be taught extra about his topic — not simply to observe them as an alternative choice to actual research.