Finding our identity amongst the barrage of incoming ideas is a difficult thing. Family, religion, nationality, friends, press, politics, socials, what’s right, wrong, acceptable, reprehensible, cool or not, so many things trying to make us think and behave in a certain way. And often at odds with each other, with us left in the middle of it, trying to figure out who WE are.
When I spent my month looking inward for my own foundations for the 'One Hundred Billion Sparks' project, the collection of these value systems and ideals was a big part of what I found. It was also clear that they are all much more malleable than we usually assume, with our identities being tailored by us over time, rather than bestowed and unchanging.
I wanted to turn all of this into an audio-visual project, so I started with the idea of an identity constrained by the external barrage, but always there underneath, waiting to find its moment to emerge fully, and also with the idea of the intensity of the whole process, which demanded emergent noise.
Eugene Pylinsky created a great visual rendering of the idea in parallel, with a digital self bombarded by news, ideals and value judgements in an intense glitching format fitting for the track. It’s been one of my live show highlights because of the intensity Eugene has created visually, and hopefully will make for a nice music video too.
- Max Cooper
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Listen to the new album 'One Hundred Billion Sparks': maxcooper.lnk.to/OHBS
For a deeper read into the ideas behind the project: onehundredbillionsparks.net
maxcooper.net
instagram.com/maxcoopermax
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Directors thanks, Eugene Pylinsky (Pylik):
"I've been following Max and his collaborations with artists for a long time and I was hoping to work with him someday, and here we are.
I got a clear reference from Max to some of my videos on Instagram. We understood each other without tons of words, so my workflow was clearly.
The idea of the video is 'Identity'. All of us come under the influence of informational environment around us. It impacts us, shapes us and opens up our personality. We both find and lose ourselves in it.
I was trying to find balance between web and live versions of the video. That’s why I decided to generate strong graphics, like barcode and qr code, in my compositions, with characters melting and disappearing in it. I paid much attention to synchronize the music with graphics to deliver intensity, atmosphere.
Big thanks to Max Cooper who entrust me to create video for his music track 'Identity', and to my friend Roman Scrypchenko for helping me with direction."
instagram.com/pylik/
behance.net/pylik
vimeo.com/pylik