GOING VISUAL! II

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 May there will be two sessions, with the following schedule::

Thursday, May 9 - 10.30pm
  Scenes from the Suburbs Spike Jonze. USA, 2011. 28".
  Was Arcade Fire ever just a music group?  Interactive websites, mutating moving cover art, and, as is the case at hand, lengthy videos that go beyond the confines of video and become films in their own right.  In keeping with the tone and spirit found on The Suburbs, the Canadian group's latest record, Spike Jonze created this short that captures the melancholy of returning to your childhood places once you've already got one foot in the door of adulthood.   The BQE Sufjan Stevens. USA, 2009. 50".
  Contemporary music's most shining star never studied music, but rather film.  The BQE is his first film, a voyage through one of capitalism's major icons- the car- and its paradoxical mix of freedom and dependance, a pay-as-you-go dream for consumers who believe they are buying liberty every time they fill up their tanks at half-empty stations.  Filmed in Super 8 and initially conceived for screening on three screens, The BQE proves that Stevens works with images the same way he does with his records: far beyond commercial standards, and maintaining a dialogue with fields such as experimental and expanded film.    Thursday, May 23 - 9pm

The Chemical Brothers: Don't Think Adam Smith. Japan, United Kingdom, 2012. 90". The title leaves no room for doubt.  Don't think.  Just dance.  After two decades traveling around the world, The Chemical Brothers have produced this film combining audiovisual documentary and their incredible live shows with the physical synesthetic journey lived by those in attendance.  By way of suspension of disbelief during one and a half hours, by turning yourself over to the limitless joys of dance, Don't Think delivers the experience of a live concert as a place without time or space, exclusively dominated by the passion and the music's transformative and ecstatic effect.  Directed by one of the show's creators, filmed with twenty-one cameras and produced by the musicians themselves, Don't Think is less a documentary of a live show and more an attempt to extend that experience to the film hall audience.

ADDITIONAL FILMS FEATURED IN THE SERIES GOING VISUAL!   Throughout 2013 the following films and shorts will be screened (selection):   - 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)