Modern Music and Videos

As a mode of expression, music video involves the process of meaning making. Its unique method of assembling symbolic codes should be apprehended differently from film even though some film technical terms are found applicable. This research takes Taylor Swift's music video for her song You Need to Calm Down (YNTCD) which won two MTV VMA as Video of the Year and Video for Good in 2019. Barthes's theory of semiotics is firstly applied to scrutinise the music video which are done by answering how the denotation and connotation meaning is made to respond these issues. Discourse analysis is then applied to study what discourses are influential in the signification system of the music video. As a response to issues of hate speech, LGBTQ, and media toxic contestation, meaning in this video is built by (1) the objects symbolising personal experiences, (2) borrowing meaning from iconic show, (3) cameos demonstrating social conflict, (4) stage-setting exemplifying media toxic contestation, and (5) the painting indicating historical context. Thus, YNTCD music video symbolically voices a counter discourse to the mentioned social problems.

This study explores the socio-cognitive processes involved in the production of Pakistani music videos with political narratives. The time period of the research is for ten years starting from 2007 to 2017. This study suggests that music video is a newest and powerful tool to construct political narratives through integrative and disintegrative themes in Pakistan, and these narratives are used to stimulate the audience. The study rests upon qualitative analysis through in-depth interviews of the producers of music videos, lyricists and singers. Five respondents are selected for the interviews using purposive sampling technique. Then the themes are extracted from the answers of the respondents. The theoretical perspective integrated to interpret the results, is Rick Altman’s approach to film Genre (1987). The findings suggest an extension in Altman’s ideological approach. Findings also show that the positive themes are mostly portrayed in Pakistani sociopolitical music videos with the sponsorship of state institutions.

El espot es la pieza central del lanzamiento de una campaña publicitaria, al igual que el videoclip lo es para el lanzamiento de una producción discográfica. Sin embargo, pocos publicistas consideran que es un formato publicitario y son las casa productoras las que lo desarrollan. Esta revisión de literatura expone el porqué al videoclip se le considera como publicidad audiovisual.

The better quality pdf is downloadible from here: "http://www.leoalmanac.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/LEAVol19No3-Mailman.pdf
Through recent artistic practices and technology of interactive systems for music, composition and improvisation have more and more blended and interconnected with each other – a sui generis situation now called comprovisation. The concept of comprovisation applies equally well to the spontaneous generation and manipulation of computer graphics, especially as such graphics are systematically coordinated audio-visually, while being subject to spontaneous manipulation by a performer.
This is explained in terms of the Fluxations and FluxNoisations Human Body Interfaces, interactive dance systems that generate music and graphics spontaneously in response to hand and body movement. They enable spontaneous expressive shaping of coherent complexity and variety. Thus a multi-layered multimodal experience arises. The aesthetic experience of this multimedia spectacle relates to experiences of various prior music and visual art of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, as well as to hypothetical physical realities. Thus a kind of cybernetic phenomenology of art is pursued and enacted through an embodied cybersynthesis of art with simulated alternate reality. Call it a pragmatic speculative realism, an adventurous technoetic ‘what if.’ As compared to more traditional forms of improvisation, the opportunities for risk-taking and aesthetic exploration rise to a new level of uncertainty, as the reactions of the improviser simultaneously draw from and target both visual and aural modalities, such that the intentions toward each fuse together."

Through cosplay (costume play), fans perform existing fictional characters in self-created costumes, thereby enriching and extending popular narratives. Cosplay is an understudied form of appropriation that transforms and actualizes an existing story or game in close connection to the fan community and the fan's own identity. Although the costume can be experienced firsthand at convention sites, it is also remediated in photography, thereby extending its potential audience and performative possibilities. In the rich emerging genre of cosplay music videos, commonly shot and produced at convention sites, fans juxtapose different cosplayers and texts. Informed by work on other fan videos, such as machinima, I propose a reading of a selected corpus of videos to analyze the dynamics of costume culture as it transcends the convention grounds.

El género audiovisual más consumido en YouTube, el videoclip musical, resulta un lugar especial para la interconexión de contenidos en el contexto de estrategias multimediales transmedia, para lo que adquiere variados formatos, con el objetivo de plegarse a la producción industrial (multiplicando y extendiendo los formatos), la creatividad de los usuarios... Como modalidad  mediática de reciente consolidación, el álbum visual permite a los artistas y bandas crear conceptos abiertos, narrativas laxas, -parafonografías, metanarrativas y storyworlds como serán descritas- en torno a sus propuestas musicales/artísticas.
Enraizados en la tradición de crítica o rebeldía del rock de los años setenta y que preparó  fórmulas como las del album conceptual, el álbum visual toma los objetivos y estructura de presentación de contenidos de la comunicación transmedia para ponerlo al servicio de la construcción mediática de los mensajes del artista, con el propósito de planificar su imaginario frente a las audiencias. El formato debe también permitir la participación en variados grados de los espectadores, consumidores, fans... Los trabajos de Lemonade (2016, Beyoncé), Dirty Computer (2018, Janelle Monaé) y El Mal Querer (2018, Rosalía) sirven como ejemplos de reflexión en torno a este nuevo formato audiovisual de la industria musical.

Niniejszy artykuł poświęcony jest dwóm ostatnim teledyskom Davida Bowiego. Są to odpowiednio wideoklipy do utworów Blackstar i Lazarus. Utwory te zostały wybrane na single promujące ostatnie, jak się miało okazać, wydawnictwo Bowiego. Przyglądam się im z semantycznego punktu widzenia, próbując nakreślić ich znaczenie, rozwikłać skomplikowaną symbolikę, proponując ich możliwą interpretację. Moje rozważania opieram o wiedzę pozyskaną z materiałów, z których pochodzą cytaty wyszczególnione w tekście.

Naanum Rowdy Dhaan (English: I am a Rowdy, too) is a 2015 Indian Tamil-language black comedy film [1] written and directed by Vignesh Shivan. Vijay Sethupathi and Nayanthara are in the lead roles. the film features music composed by Anirudh Ravichander.

Mainstream and independent music videos have taken on different approaches when it comes to the use of the digital intermediate (DI). Taylor Swift’s Style pushes on the boundaries of this paradigm by building an image catalogue that follows the rules of mainstream music videos but looks more like the work of experimental and independent artists. An examination of how the digital intermediate has been used to enhance the presentation of performance and color helps visualize the inner worlds of the video’s character’s in interesting ways.

"Through “cosplay” (costume play) fans perform existing fictional characters in self-created costumes, thereby enriching and extending popular narratives. Cosplay is a scarcely studied form of appropriation that transforms and actualizes an existing story or game in close connection to the fan community and the fan’s own identity (Lamerichs, 2011; Newman, 2008; Okabe, 2012; Winge, 2006). The activity can be read as a form of dress up. In the field of game studies, dress up is an often overlooked but significant category of play with its own affordances (Fron, Fullerton, Morie, & Pearce, 2007). While dress up can involve actual costumes or fantasy play, it is also encouraged in digital games and their user-generated content. Customizable characters and “dollhouse” structures in The Sims series are but one example (Wirman, 2011). Similarly, cosplay provides the player with the joys of make-belief and productive play.

This paper explores the possibilities of reading the costume itself as a product that facilitates performance and play. I analyze cosplay as a transmedial activity that is constructed at different online and offline sites through small-scaled ethnography and close-reading. The transmediality of cosplay is foregrounded in the methodology that, rather than adopting a player-centered approach, construes a cultural reading that involves both participants and spectators (e.g., photographers, fans, media professionals or outsiders such as parents). Through two case-studies, I focus on the costume’s materiality and emerging performances.
The first case details the materiality of cosplay through its consumption culture. Cosplay blurs the relations between labor and play. The activity takes shape at fan conventions but also increasingly at promotional events of the industry itself. Costumes are commodified by fans themselves as well that sell their cosplay photos, commission their dress from others or buy parts of them. Increasingly, costumes and accessories are sold over platforms as eBay and Etsy which will illustrate the dynamics between commerciality and creativity.

The second case explores the visuality of the costume through its mediation. While the costume can be experienced first-hand at convention sites, it is also remediated in photography, for instance, thereby extending its potential audience and performative possibilities. I exemplify this transmediality through cosplayer music videos (CMV) that are commonly produced at convention sites. These rich videos are created by and for fans and juxtapose different cosplayers and texts. Informed by work on other fan videos such as “machinima” (Lowood & Nitsche, 2011) I propose a reading of a selected corpus of videos. Thus, this study analyzes the dynamics of costume culture as it transcends the convention grounds."

This paper focuses on how music videos reflect the creator’s psyche and consciously or unconsciously reveal the the creator’s innermost emotions or desires. This paper will study the similarities in various MVs throughout the discography of the K-pop boy-band GOT7. Songs are chosen from the albums of the group as well as the subunits JJP and Jus2 to provide a uniform study. The reason for selecting a band from the K-pop industry is because the artists usually self produce the albums and its concepts, hence offering a truer representation of their psyche. These groups are an integral part of the process involved in the production of MVs. Another reason would be that the industry has recently seen many suicides and cases of depression and anxiety. It has also been a target to cyber bullying and body shaming and therefore understanding the artist’s mental health.

The implications of using satellite imagery like Google Earth to illustrate biographical narratives has scarcely been explored. The Wilderness Downtown, an interactive video by the band Arcade Fire that was launched in 2010, raises questions in this respect. The project uses geolocalization to demonstrate various points of view shown on Google Maps while shaping both the narrative and the generation of personal memory. However, in spite of the aesthetic novelty of this experience, the mental processes being activated are not without precedent, as we can see with the telling example of Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities. This opens a broader issue. To what epistemology of spatial distribution does such an encounter between satellite imagery and individual storytelling subscribe? We will see that Google Earth’s interface has a lot more in common with the city than we might initially think. Ultimately, we will see that the nature of the city involved is culturally specific and is in some ways confining.

"http://vimeo.com/69186535
The finale (part 3) of an improvised duet performed with FluxNoisations and circuit-bent radio
(for front on view of the complete performance visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eBra9gd5QQ )

Joshua B. Mailman: FluxNoisations (sounds of wood, metal, water, sandpaper, sticks, etc. and live computer graphics controlled through infrared camera motion-capture and sensor gloves)

Luke T. Taylor: circuit-bend radio (dismantled analog radio played with wet hands)

No recordings, audio samples, or videos are used.
All sounds and graphics are generated in the moment of performance.

Joshua Banks Mailman and Luke Thomas Taylor present an extended improvised performance of high-tech and low-fi pulsating noise. The event includes improvised live computer graphics, a colorful spectacle projected on a large screen, controlled by spontaneous body- and hand-movements of Mailman, through his FluxNoisations interactive-dance system. Through this system, Mailman simultaneously generates and steers a stream of percussive-noise sound. Interacting with this, Taylor performs on his own devised noise instrument: a circuit board he plays with wet hands. Through micro-fluctuations of the movement, pressure, and moisture of Taylor's hands, the circuit board displays its hidden potential—a sound world with chaotic connectivity of rich noises, clicks, and glissandos.
"

RESUMEN El vídeo musical como producto audiovisual difundido a través de los medios de comunicación masivos e internet supone una herramienta útil como transmisor de mensajes con un trasfondo social, político y cultural. El presente trabajo estudia, mediante una metodología crítico-estilística basada en el análisis y la descripción de los aspectos reivindicativos, diversos ejemplos de videoclips en los que se plantea un mensaje de denuncia social sobre varias temáticas como son los conflictos bélicos y políticos, los movimientos de igualdad de género y aquellos de liberación homosexual. Tras los distintos análisis, se concluye el poder del vídeo musical para la difusión de estos mensajes y su aportación a la lucha pro-derechos dentro de la iconosfera contemporánea, no solo como formato audiovisual hipermedia sino también como un mecanismo que a través de la seducción y el espectáculo facilita la comunicación de los mensajes sociales de una forma amena, velada y casi invisible.

Drawing on a wide range of examples and case studies from many genres, this book explores the representation of subaltern communities in contemporary music videos. This book continues the academic discussion regarding the depiction of race, ethnicity, and gender in music videos, but also extends the conversation to include representations of Asians and Pacific Islanders, the LGBTQ community, Native American cultures, the incarcerated, religious minorities, and other “others.” It also accounts for the expanding definition of “music video,” and examines depictions of alterity in both traditional music videos and those created for emerging media, such as online video-sharing sites and mobile applications.

http://vimeo.com/fluxations/mc1 
An improvised audio-visual (interactive dance) performance by Joshua B. Mailman, employing the Fluxations interactive system developed by him and Sofia Paraskeva.  Body movement controls the music and the visuals. Movement around the stage (left vs. right and forward vs. backward) affects harmony and colors. Flex of the right wrist and body posture (upright vs. lowered) affect texture of the music and visuals. Flex of the left wrist affects rhythm of the music and visuals.  Recorded in Montreal in June 2012 at the "Skin-Surface-Circuit: Embodying the Improvisatory" conference of Improvisation Community and Social Practice (ICASP), hosted by McGill University.  Live algorithmic music and graphics designed and programmed by Joshua B. Mailman  Sensor gloves designed, built, and programmed by Sofia Paraskeva  Motion-capture interactive system developed by Joshua B. Mailman and Sofia Paraskeva  Video footage recorded by Stephanie Khoury  Other videos:  http://soundsrite.uws.edu.au/soundsRiteContent/volume5/MailmanInfo.html  http://youtu.be/8eBra9gd5QQ