Saturday, August 24, 2013

The making of Esther's video

This is exactly how I pictured a robot would sneak into my house and present me with a robotic flower - right before it murders me in front of my book collection.
Top comment at the original video by Amon Tobin called Esther's, here.

What impresses me is how intimate people are with the work of artists I've never heard of. Commenters to the upload linked above note a sample of the same artist's works in the woman's bedroom. Where I didn't notice any transition at all, they recognized one of his earlier tunes, and it only lasts a few seconds. That is in the linked video, not this one shown below.



What I like is the blending of organic wonder of a seed sprouting, that always gets me, with mechanical fantasy and engineering impossibility. The robot starts out as a seed robot, a weed,  a vine. It takes the characteristics of a climbing vine but fails to use the devices that plants use to grasp. I kept waiting for tendrils to reach out and anchor but that never happens. Then it takes on the aspect of a free-wandering snake, and then the aspects of insects, the whole time very menacing.

1 comment:

Methadras said...

Amon Tobin is great. I have all of this stuff, but then again, I'm a huge Techno fan. Not all techno, just some techno, Trance, House, Trip-Hop (not really techno), Psy, Ambient, Chill, etc.