Tuesday, February 28, 2012

iamamiwhoami: "drops"

The mystery of the newest iamamiwhoami series continues with today's release of the enigmatic video and song "drops." It picks up at the exact moment the previous video, "sever," ended.



While dancing alone in an empty apartment, we see that the hairy creature has expired before our heroine begins to sink through its body, and through each lower floor of the apartment building. She ends up in the basement parking garage, covered in pieces of dry wall and sheetrock, in what certainly appears to be armor and a sword (St. George? Archangel Michael?)! A hairy creature is waiting for her, perched atop a Volvo station wagon (the kind we have seen in previous iamamiwhoami videos). The creature splits into five (including the corpse of the hairy creature, we reach six, the magic number in any iamamiwhoami video!) and they surround her and charge. She seems to be resigned to her fate but as they are about to slam in to her, we mysteriously cut away to the station wagon.

There are two more singles/ videos to be released in the next few weeks. One assumes the story will be continued... and that the mystery will deepen. Are we even still watching the Mandragora saga unfold or have we embarked on a totally new journey?
The next single, "good worker" will be released March 14, 2012. The single after that, "play," will be released March 28, 2012.
It also bears noting that iamamiwhoami will be releasing an actual physical album, described as an "audio-visual" album, on June 22, 2012. But what could the date in the teaser "20120611 kin" refer to???
(UPDATE: A kind anonymnous commenter has pointed out that the album will be released on the 11th of June after all... apparently Wiki simply has the wrong date listed. Wiki can be wrong? *gasp* Who knew? Thanks for the tip, anonymous commenter!)

As I have said in previous postings, if you are unfamiliar with iamamiwhoami, do yourself a favor: go to their YouTube channel and watch all of the videos in sequence... and watch this mythical, abstract story of the Mandrake root unfold.
http://www.youtube.com/user/iamamiwhoami/videos

Wiki has a good overview of what they have created, but without any editorializing or information about the Mandragora root.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamamiwhoami

The more the layered, complex, and symbolic iamamiwhoami/ Jonna Lee project continues, the more I am reminded of Matthew Barney's epic, mesmerizing, complex, and highly symbolic "Cremaster Cycle" consisting of five films of varying lengths accompanied by sculptures and props from the films. If you are unfamiliar with the "Cremaster Cycle," visit:
http://www.cremaster.net/
And to learn more about Matthew Barney, visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Barney

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

the album is actually coming out on June 11th, which is what the "20120611 kin" video is referring to. wikipedia has it wrong saying that it comes out on the 22nd