Skanky - Blindspot directed by the LOL Boys
The LOL Boys invite you to brunch at the café of ideas – what could possibly be on the menu?
Last time the preparation was solid but lacked seasoning. This time. Well this time it’s fascinating.
Firstly, Blindspot by Skanky is the most obtuse outing yet filled with ambiguity and possible readings. I’m going to stick to just one but feel there’s a bunch possible solutions. I won’t for instance be talking much about gender.
Initially I note that the music itself is really rather good – much better than Let You Go and right from off, with both the twinkly descending synth noise and the words (“keep loving me”), it marks its emotional ambition. It’s a far cry from Let You Go with its standard ideology of ‘people going to a club and dancing to house music.’
The key to the video is the last ten seconds in which a glowing torus knot moves constantly about itself – twisting into infinity. The Torus knot is an ancient symbol with multiple interpretations depending on its religious and geographical origin. Probably the best-known version of the torus knot is the Gordian knot which has come to mean, through ancient Greek mythology, any very difficult problem that requires a bold or unusual solution. So the video then is a kind of puzzle that needs solving.
Gordian Knot
The torus knot also gives a clue to the content of that puzzle. Its symbolism is long and varied but certain parts of its lore will illuminate our path.
http://www.merkaba.co.il/Torus.htm
Sacred geometry an ancient teaching mystery schools that stressed the one force or consciousness behind existence through the laws of geometry
made extensive use of this shape.
According to ancient teachings in the beginning there was a great void. This void is the creator, with no body shape or definition. creation requires a definition of space (as well as direction as seen in the Genesis pendant explanation). The torus tube provides this kind of definition by using the inside, the outside, and infinity. In that way it can be used as a philosophical model of creation itself.
The shape also represents the idea of THE ONE and ONLY GOD and the holy trinity relation which comes from the one GOD and exists in everything (positive, negative and neutral for example)
Many people claim they had dreams in which they were able to solve difficult “karmatic” personal relations or situations during the daytime after wearing the pendant. the reason for this might be that the pendant symbolists the idea of unity which binds everything into one.
Torus Knot
So the torus knot is the symbol of creation itself in which life begins with a void. The space of our world is not simply physical, (exterior) but also emotional (interior) and infinite. The idea is that the knot is the binding force of our consciousness – it embodies our humanity.
The knot also represents the idea of God in everything. For us God does not have to be some deity that must be appeased and in this case the term God should be thought of spiritually. With Blindspot we are presented with the argument that God is love and vice versa.
Love then, exists in everything, positive, negative and neutral, it is the binding agent between the physical and the non-physical. Without it there would only be a void.
Blindspot starts with the globe seen from space, this sets up the arena of interest – planet earth; but it’s a particular type of interest. The globe flickers as if it’s seen through accelerated eyelids. A clever trick because it invokes the viewers subjectivity directly – we are encouraged to think of them as our eyelids contemplating the world. So it is not just the world but our world, the realm of humanity. What is our nature? What makes the world turn?
Of course the simple answer is love. As soon as the lyrics ‘keep loving me’ kick in the general theme is revealed. The woman mouths the lyrics, a stylistic oddity in LOL Boys videos, and it feels like a plea. The woman is rendered hollow - only filled in, made whole, by the emotional heat of the sun. The implication is that love is the centre of our universe and it’s compulsive.
Hollow without the heat of the sun
In addition the woman is patterned like a tiger hinting at the primal, animal nature of love.
At this point things start to get interesting and the true inventiveness of the video begins to reveal itself. There seems to be a chronic disjuncture between the lyrics and visuals. The seemingly prosaic lines “why silly me, he turned off his phone” are matched with grand imagery of trying to catch a butterfly – a symbol for the soul, and falling from a great height in terror. Its grandness is emphasized by the intense vibrancy of the colour palette.
The words “why silly me, he turned off his phone” may be prosaic but also betray the obsessive nature of love and how that obsession tends to manifest itself in the day to day rather than as grand poetic concepts. The most inconsequential of things can seem like the most important. The ‘he/she turned off his/her phone, he/she mustn’t love me’ is a familiar paranoid accusation.
So the idea of this section of the video is to represent the irrational turmoil of love generated by the simplest of acts. The words explain the physical act; the images represent the mental state. In the manner of much great dance music vocal sampling, the words “why silly me” are ambiguous. They could alternatively mean ‘why is it silly for me to think he doesn’t love me because he turned off his phone?’ or ‘why am I being so silly? Him turning off his phone has nothing to do with his feelings towards me. Of course he loves me’. In short one reading suggests a love lost the other suggests a love unquestioned.
This section then highlights to us the fragility of love – its imagery is one of missed opportunity, (failure to catch the butterfly or the soul mate), the vertigo inducing terror of rejection (falling from a great height). The key insight however is the fact that we feel these emotions through the most banal of everyday occurrences, (someone turns off their phone).
Missed opportunity
The next section features a pulsating kaleidoscope effect. No doubt this is an appealing visual effect but in the context of the love theme it acts also as a metaphor. Non-specific human figures dance in front of it and obviously bare some relation to its existence. The assumption is that the kaleidoscope is a metaphor for love in which love is conceived as a technicolor abyss. It’s both exciting and terrifying, urgent and marvelous. This reading is confirmed by the urgency and desperation of music.
The human figures demonstrate our ambivalence to love. The heads of the first two figures explode with a bright, jagged light – is this the light of ecstasy or the light of terror? The second two figures beg the question - what is love except to dance in front of an irresistible canyon? The third figure is rendered inert, immovable and powerless in the face of love. The fourth, engaged in a flying kick, suggests violence towards love and anger at its contradictory nature.
Dancing around the abyss
The next section deals with love as both a constructive and destructive force. It is the material that builds us – like sand rushing into a vessel. This is emphasized by the impression of vertebrae in the flow of the silver grains; it is the backbone of existence. This is then followed by an act of extreme, rapid and fragmentary destruction. No sooner as love has built us then it destroys us. Love then is presented as a continual cycle of construction and destruction – a gradual build up followed by a rapid dismantling.
Love constructs
Love destructs
Again the insight here is that for us these grand themes manifest themselves in the banality of the everyday. The words ‘he turned off his phone’ are paired with images that present profound ideas of love as a constructive and destructive force. As mentioned the ambiguity of the words indicates a love lost or a love gained and it is the simple act of turning off a phone that produces these wild extremes.
The next section is related to our own contemporary circumstances and the status of love in advanced capitalism. The key is what is and what is not reflected in the mirrors. A man stands in front of three mirrors but his reflection is absent – the only things that reflect are the objects. There is a play between the words ‘keep loving me’ and the absence of one’s reflection, the implication being that love is not a narcissistic pursuit. Love me and not yourself. The logic of consumerism insists on the satisfaction of the ego and the video works against this contemporary orthodoxy. Love therefore is not an egotistical reflection of ourselves in objects but a elemental force between human beings completely separate from the world of material desire. There is a feeling that humanity has lost its way and through the release of the ego and the embrace of actual love it might find its path once more.
Removal of the ego
The video then finishes with the symbolism of the torus knot.
Torus Knot
The impression then is this – love is irrational, compulsive, banal, destructive, vibrant and complicated but we have little choice because in the end it is the absolute core of human existence. It is positive and negative and neutral because that’s what gives it vitality and if it seems less than perfect we should be thankful for that fact.
Blindspot is a rallying call for both the mess and majesty of our primal selves.
So far I’ve not mentioned technology and digital existence which seem to be key concepts in the LOL Boys project. Blindspot feels like a departure from previous videos in this respect and there’s a sense that the digitalness of the iconography is less relevant. But whilst the technology is downplayed here, there remains a strong idea present in 123, Blockz and Blindspot of humanity reclaimed and it is perhaps this idea which is, in fact, at the heart of the LOL Boys project.
