Between the Devil and the Wide Blue Sea

How can you avoid the television videoclip form for the representation of electronic music? In a few sequences and thanks to highly precise framing, several groups from the electro music scene (Alter Ego, Captain Comatose, CobraKiller…) give us a glimpse into the practices, rituals, and systems of representation and construction that bond them with their public.

” Our visual music library is fundamentally determined by the aesthetics of television. Live concerts are edited like music videos, music programmes look like video clips and music videos, which would not exist without television, follow the editing rhythm of live concerts. Behind this formal rigidity, the music is interchangeable, the specifics of the work can no longer be recognised and the musician disappears behind his own product.
So how can music be filmed so that the music and its artists come to the fore again? Are there images that lie behind the image of the artist and his music? Is it possible to film live performances by musicians at subculture venues with a single camera in such a way that the strategy of their presentation becomes clear? Are shots that are as long as the music tracks themselves not more suitable for showing the viewer in the cinema where we actually live? “

Romuald Karmakar, 2005