My second video for The Videotones project takes a more ambient, slower turn with a widescreen video (I really recommend watching it at Vimeo or YouTube or fullscreen for full effect) for The Kleptones ‘Stay’ off the Downtime album, which includes the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s ‘Maps’ to great effect.
The thinking behind this video (yes I do have a reason for all I do, it’s not all just random, random, random!) is from the intro speech ‘Though I mean the world to you, your world won’t always be this new’ taking that as more of a ecological message (coupled with the ending speech There’s this stuff going down, I don’t think I can deal with it’). A contrast of destruction and beauty, tempus fugit and the futility of man, of how small the earth is in the scheme of things and how important it is to care for it.
Also a thematic one of clouds – from water to explosions to clouds of gases and stars – I was going to include part of this quote from Carl Sagan but decided not to break up the visual narrative with words-
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
The song worked really well with Koyaaniqatsi, a film I’ve loved since I saw it as an art student in the early 90’s, and another film I love ‘Powers of Ten’ and various more recent updates to it. I wanted to contrast how badly people treat the Earth (Wait they don’t love you) and how beautiful the world is (like I love you), a fragile blue marble speck of light in a massive cosmos (maps). A universe where we are searching and actively exploring for other worlds (Pack up, I’m a stray) whilst not caring for our own (stay…).
You can also download the iPod version here.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:49 — 56.4MB)
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