The talented Mr Fingers is at it again. This time he built a rowboat out of a super realistic sculpture of Jeff Bezos’ head.
What is this stuff? Is it performance art? Social commentary? Documentary? … No, don’t tell me, I think it’s a pointless argument, anyway. I suppose we could have it, but “what is art?” goes back to shortly after someone came up with a word for – whatever it is.
Needs a cannon.
What, you’re not going to seek out the treasure hidden within the video? (I skipped to the actual rowing part at ~23 min, and don’t plan on watching more. Can’t take his narration)
Why is it over the decades, the “art-or-whatever-it-is” videos I like, seem to end up at some point, utilizing Erik Satie’s ‘Gnossienne No. 1’? Perhaps it’s the music drawing me to the piece!
I enjoyed it.
;-)
@mjr:
I have a question: after the Michael Jackson video, you commented that he had set the bar “suicidally high”. Would you consider that he’s cleared it?
My own answer: no. And yes.
I mean: the actual construction is incredible. The thing he has been able to make is unexpected and astonishing in all sorts of ways. The video, on the other hand, while it is absolutely brilliant, doesn’t (for me at least) have the breadth and sheer strangeness of the MJ one. Nothing can really prepare you, in that one, for what happens after he says “I took it to the west of the world, where Billy Fingers makes magical things happen”. Nothing in the Boat video matches that, or the brilliance of “Dicky Don’t Fuck My Sister”, or the punchline, or the post-credits drink-tasting scene.
When the trailer came out, two days before the actual video, a friend and I speculated on what it was he’d done. My prediction – given VERY brief clips and the title “The Boat” – was that he’d done a diorama (again), this time of newspaper owner and pension fund thief Robert Maxwell in the process of “falling” off his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine. This would have been consistent with the previous three, being a diorama recreating a difficult moment in the life of a dreadful person, and would have fit the title, so I figured it was a good shout. I’m happy to have been wrong, and fascinated by the complete change of scale.
I’d be interested to read what you think of it, in the context of his previous work.
OK, that’s weird – I posted something and it didn’t appear, and posted #3 and it did. Weird. I didn’t put links or code or anything shonky in there. I did put the title of “Dicky Don’t F My Sister” in, in full – but I’ve never known that be a problem before. Curious.
sonofrojblake@#4:
I did put the title of “Dicky Don’t F My Sister” in, in full
I guess Akismet didn’t approve. I dug them out of the spam bucket, shone them up with a bit of spit and the hem of my Tshirt, and approved them.
[As there was some duplication, I put through the larger comment, since I value your words.]
Nothing in the Boat video matches that
True, though the trip to Turkey and the transplant was pretty over the top it was not as cool as the live-collected horse poop and mushrooms. But perhaps I am biased toward mycology.
Robert Maxwell in the process of “falling” off his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine
That would have been amazing. It still could happen! I’m one of his contributing patrons on patreon so I suppose I could suggest it. But what about the incident where the guy threw his shoes at George W Bush. Bush’s expression was a work of art.
What I mean about him setting the bar suicidally high is that he’s going to create an army of fans that expect every episode to be more impressive and weirder than the last. That’s how you wind up with someone going “let’s have the Fonz waterski jump over a shark tank.” I love what Fingers is doing and I don’t want him to get in an arms race with himself.
[That is a very weird reference to a great story by (I forget) a science fiction writer about a special effects guy who was doing SFX for a sci fi TV show and got in an arms race with himself – and lost.]
Meanwhile, his timing was exquisite – the Guardian was carrying a series about some analysis that indicates that the billionaires of the world produce more CO2 than the bottom several million humans. I think the metric is extremely sketchy, but it’s nice that people are finally looking at the Gulfstream class and going “waitamminit, Elon…”