GOING VISUAL!

Let's be honest.  Today, Leonardo da Vinci would be called intrusive, indecisive, and a dilettante.  Painter, scientist, artist, inventor?  We all accept multitasking when it means watch TV while updating our profile on some social network, but we almost cannot fathom those artists that don't fit inside the box where we've always put them, those ones who delve, whether it be mere dabbling or as a parallel path in their life and work, into other disciplines: filmmakers who pen books, actors who paint, or, as is the case we're dealing with now, musicians who pick up a camera and yell 'Action!'.  Going Visual! covers the work of a sizeable number of contemporary musicians who have decided to try their hand at filmmaking or who have worked first-hand creating visual universes to accompany their music, such as Animal Collective, Sufjan Stevens, Dj Spooky, Mr. Oizo, Daft Punk, Kanye West and RZA, to name just a few.   In an increasingly audio-visual world, where digital technology has democratized every artistic process, music and images are two sides to a single reality and the connections, the exchanges, and the syntheses that are created between these disciplines are becoming more and more common and even more evocative.  The film that starts off our series is perhaps the best example.  Daft Punk's Electroma, directed by the French electronic music duo Daft Punk, premiered at the Cannes Festival Directors' Fortnight in 2006.  With it, these Frenchmen delegate the piece's musical work to stock songs, omitting their own, to narrate the epic attempt made by two robots to become human.  Going beyond the level of mere capriciousness or childlike play with cameras, Daft Punk, as well as the rest of the musicians featured in this series, show us that their audiovisual incursions are not the fruit of boredom.  They are authentic pieces that complement, expand, multiply, and even contradict their musical efforts.  Whether it be due to their lack of training in the medium, in some cases, or thanks to their flouting of the rules and their industry tics, these pieces surprise with the amount of risk-taking and experimentation contained within them, elements that are hard to come by in more conventional films.   The series Going Visual! has been put together by Red Bull in the space managed by Matadero Madrid, the Nave de Música.  In April there will be two sessions, with the following schedule:   Thursday, April 4, at 9pm
Lecture Free admission
  Daft Punk's Electroma

Daft Punk (Thomas Bangalter, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo). USA, 2006. 74".
  Playing with their own iconography and image, always hidden under those two futuristic helmets, Daft Punk film the story of two robots who set off on a journey aiming to become human.  A take on the classic road-movie, but seen through a futuristic filter, dystopian, where dialogue disappears and an aural and musical element is favored, reaching, in its final sequence, one of the peaks of contemporary film.   Thursday, April 25 Lecture Free admission
  Oddsac

Animal Collective and Danny Pérez. USA, 2010. 53".
  It's not an album, and it's not a film either. Oddsac, an audio-experimental collaboration between videoartist Danny Pérez and the group Animal Collective, is, as they themselves have said, a “visual album”.  Shot between 2006 and 2010, the group and the artist worked together so that the images were not an illustration of the music, nor the music an accompaniment to the images, but rather so that they would work together as an organic whole.  Somewhere between delirium, experimentation, and sensory film, Oddsac is a fascinating and extreme experience.   Runaway

Kayne West. USA, 2010. 34".
  “First rule in this world, baby: don't pay attention to anything you see in the news”.  These are the words of Kayne West himself, the man behind the song, included in his album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.  He is the director of this unique mixture of video and short film with a powerful ability to create enduring images.  It is he who utters those words, speaking to an angel who's just fallen from heaven.  The rest-explosions, musical orgasms, and marching bands- is a must-see.   ADDITIONAL FILMS FEATURED IN THE SERIES GOING VISUAL!   Throughout 2013 the following films and shorts will be screened (selection):   - Sufjan Stevens: The BQE (2009) - Spike Jonze & Arcade Fire: Scenes from the Suburbs (2011) - RZA: The Man With the Iron Fist (2012) - Dj Spooky: Rebirth of a Nation (2004) - Quentin Dupieux (Mr. Oizo): Wrong (2012) - Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals): Separado! (2010)
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