I love this new video from the rapper I can never spell right, Azealia Banks for her track Atlantis. Strangely I found out about it over the outcry of her and Rihanna apparently co-opting the sub-micro-so-hip-it’s-self-deprecating hipstertumblr genre ‘seapunk’.
Now nothing funnier than reading the comments over there (‘post internet’? Rilly?) but apparently this ‘genre’ (?) has been going for 2 years. I know it more as the much longer history of glitch graphics that (re)inspired the (re)design of this very blog. It’s the 90’s revival which has been bubbling under for ages crossed with glitch mixed with dolphins, rave and b-more, Amiga demos and genlock vids, 90’s Geocities gifs and those java water anims that were all the rage but crashed Netscape 2 with a memory error on your 286. Right up my street since I was there designing pages back in those days, along with Amiga genlocking and animation, glitching and bending hi-8 & VHS hence why I felt comfortable doing my ‘Google sweep’ mashup quickly done graphics and glitching JPEGs and files to get weird colours. It was like full circle.
But I just had a massive argument about this on Facebook because I feel that, silly name aside, you can’t really get upset at someone taking the same influences as you, especially when they’ve been floating around (hoho) for ages. Apparently I’m ‘too old’ and ‘sour’ to get it. *eyeroll*. Especially when all the old skool demo makers, website builders, video makers and suchlike they’re ripping from aren’t getting the love either. Irony 2.0. They’re not even first with the revival (that’s from 2006). Or that well known time-travelling swaggerjacker FatBoySlim from 2001!
It’s like someone inventing the technique of mashups (no-one did, like everything it was gradual) and then balling out Bassment Jaxx, Orbital or Chemical Brothers for doing a mainstream version. If it was a more direct steal I’d say yes, but really the comments quoted in the Buzzfeed article comes off like a few spoiled hipster children with arts education (the last generation that will be able to do so – enjoy it kids 😛 …#ironic #immature #postpostmodern #solongandthanksforallthefish #etc) which might be wrong, but using the C word (commodification) in the arts or post- anything sets off the bullshit alarms. I usually start looking for the funding source and see if it has the word ‘Daddy’ or ‘arts grant’ in it at that point.
So a few ‘tumblr artists’ aren’t the only people with these influences you know? Nor because we don’t jump in and do same do we not understand all the ironic trash/cutesy/shock in-jokes being made, in the vein of Nyan cat? I’ve been waiting for Geocities revival for years…I was saying it was going to make an ironic comeback around a decade ago. People laughed then…as they laughed when I said home computers would be collector’s items. Digital or online history like consumer electronics or pop music is seen as purely ephemeral, but it’s been going on for 30+ years and has such a cultural pull now, so of course there is going to be generational divides and knowing or not-so knowing revivals. Just like rock n’ roll came back in the 1970s, or the never-ending story of the 80’s revival (which I hope is completely dead now). Although I’ve been more moving to ‘now’ rather than the past, and moving away from jokey referencing and irony. Such as using sources I like or have a message, rather than being too meta or contradictory. I’ve always been uncomfortable with how irony et al can be used to distance and escape difficult conversations, or hide dodgy views or politics. That’s probably the battle scars of the endless postmodernist squabbles of the 1980s and 1990s – others won’t have that baggage.
But anyway it brought me this excellent video and the Reblorg blog and Totally Fucking Amazing so it’s all good 😉 And maybe the seapunk lot can get past believing this video was the end of their scene, or that this Azealia video was made in 2 days (umm…no. Your videos might be unless you’ve spent days making them look so badly edited, badly keyed and recorded on VHS/stuttering DVD which I sadly suspect is true…). Always found it strange people spend so much time and money trying to look like a dodgy VHS from 1991 linked to a genlocked Amiga. I have both still if you want to buy them 😛
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