The Music Video: Critical Potential and Aesthetic Innovation
3rd Winter Symposium of the Nordic Summer University’s aesthetics studies circle, Process, Design, and Aesthetics.
The Danish Design School, Copenhagen, March 26th-28th, 2010
The modern music video has undoubtedly been very important for the development of pop-culture and of popular music since the emergence of the MTV television channel in the early eighties. At least, the modern music video has been crucial for some of the most dominant and innovative stars of popular music since then—from Madonna and Michael Jackson to Grace Jones and David Bowie whose careers all intertwine with important steps in the development of the music video.
Nevertheless, the scholarly informed critique of popular music and visual media has found it difficult to take music video seriously as a genre or indeed as an “art form.” Whereas “true” music aficionados (the rock critic, the performing artist, etc.) have seen the music video as an unfortunate diversion of the “pure” musical expression, film directors and their audiences have in turn bemoaned the music video as a degeneration of the feature film as the ultimate form of (narrative) cinema. And the world of fine art has looked down on the music video as a mere illustration of another artist’s work, or even worse, as a simple advertisement where the artist’s will is tied up with commercial interests. The music video thus seems to have been met with distrust—or even disgust—from traditional critique. Coinciding with the emergence of the discourse of post-modernity, it was easy for the philosophically informed critique in the beginning simply to reject the music video as a symptom of a culture that has been corrupted by capitalistic systems of production and, consequently, of regressive systems of representation (simulation). Finding it difficult to assert any real value or meaning in the music video, this genre could at least be celebrated as a nihilistic contribution—but as well, of course, studied critically as an increasingly dominant cultural system of representation involving an alienated consumer subject (Kaplan 1987, Kinder 1984). When not discredited, the music video was celebrated as the epitome of the emergent post-modernist aesthetic. The music video has been recognized – sometimes with regret – as the driving force behind a new aesthetic that has come to dominate cinema, TV and other visual media – and aesthetic practices in general. Whereas the 20th century in some respects can be described as cinematic, perhaps we are now witnessing a new post-cinematic aesthetic.
So, although the music video now has been a central stage for the development of audiovisual culture as well as of new technological and stylistic means of cinematic expression for almost three decades, critical literature on this genre is still limited. Most work so far seems to have been done within studies on popular (consumer) culture (Goodwin 1993, Kaplan 1987), audio-visual communication (Højbjerg 2008), and visual culture and subjectivity (Fausing, Kinder 1984). In the rearview mirror, it is regrettable that the early critique of the music video did not include voices from scholarly fields that might have been able to assert the cultural richness and depth of the music video, or at least would have been able to identify its importance and recognize the value of this genre to contemporary youth culture.
Especially, the music video calls for contributions from interdisciplinary cultural analysis where the music video could be studied in terms of the genre’s possible cultural complexity as well as its impact and innovation; in short: the possible critical potential of the music video. Do this genre and its dominant channels of distribution offer a platform for a critical artist subjectivity that is capable of challenging contemporary culture in an interesting, innovative way? Does the music-video in this sense form out an interesting alternative to traditional avant-garde strategies, or could actual music-videos themselves be seen as the expression of avant-garde positions?
Another voice which has been missing is that of interdisciplinary research into the communication design of the music video. Whereas the music video has long been problematic to students of cinema and fine art, designers and design students do, in turn, not seem to have had much reservation as for experimenting with and contributing to the development of this genre. The reasons for this are probably many, but one could mention the significant heritage of illustration within design education as well as the traditional, interdisciplinary thinking of designers; that this profession in many cases has been used to adapting to very different institutional contexts and very different media (from graphic design to craft and industrial design; from print to mass produced objects as well as crafted artifacts). In short, the critique of the music video is short of a voice of the doers (or at least of voices which are capable of talking about doing). Music videos thus relatively early developed into a medium of auteurs. In 1992, MTV thus began listing the director along with artist and song credits, and quite a few recognized film directors started their career as the directors of music videos, e.g. Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, David Fincher and Mark Romanek. And film directors on the other hand took a shot at the music video (David Lynch, Lars von Trier, Martin Scorsese and others).
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the critique of the modern music video needs to consider the meaning and value of those new ways of producing and distributing works that have lead the culture of the music video to flourish again. Whereas in the eighties, MTV and a few other, competing television channels (VIVA, MGM, etc) were the dominant networks for distributing music videos, Internet-based channels like Youtube and social media like Myspace and Facebook have brought about entirely new ways of sharing, selecting, enjoying, and reflecting on works of music video. Moreover, it has become much easier for amateurs, individual artists, as well as small, independent production companies to produce their own music videos due to easy access to inexpensive, digital video equipment. This is contrasted by the fact that music videos today play a relatively limited role compared to reality shows and documentaries in MTV’s transmissions. Moreover, whereas in the MTV days, the genre was dominated by very costly productions for artists like Michael Jackson and Madonna, the culture of the music video today thus seems more and more to be characterized by what the layman lover of music and video wish to share—that may be videos which are not necessarily new, and it may be videos which have been made by fans to interpret a favorite song.
The music video – and MTV – got a lot of attention in cultural- and critical studies during the 1980’s and 1990’s, but apparently a lot less here in the first decade of the 21st century. We would like to see a new departure for music video studies now that the music video has come of age. The research seminar circle, Process, Design and Aesthetics (2008-2010) thus calls for papers for a research symposium on the modern music video with special reference to its critical potentials as well as its potential to develop new form and facilitate new aesthetic positions. The symposium will be held at the Danish Design School in Copenhagen on March 26th-28th2010.It will be funded partially by the Nordic Council of Ministers by means of the Nordic Summer University (http://www.nsuweb.net/wb/). The call for papers is particularly orientated towards scholars who would like to take the opportunity to share and discuss their new ideas by means of a working paper. Presentations should be in English, should not exceed 30 minutes, and should be based on the analysis of one or more works of music video. Abstracts should not exceed more than 4000 characters and be submitted for review before December 1st, 2009 to Claus Krogholm (clauskrogholm@mail.dk)/Troels Degn Johansson (tdj@dkds.dk).
Please post your comments and suggestions for further reading below.
Literature
Beebe, Roger & Jason Middleton (2007) Medium Cool: Music Video from Soundies to Cellphones, Duke University Press
Frith, Simon, Andrew Goodwin & Lawrence Grossberg (1993) Sound & Vision. The music video reader London: Routledge
Goodwin, Andrew (1992) Dancing in the Distraction Factory: Music Television and Popular Culture University of Minnesota Press
Kaplan, E. Ann (1987) Rocking Around the Clock. Music Television, Postmodernism, and Consumer Culture London & New York: Routledge
Kinder, Marsha (1984) “Music Video and the Spectator: Television, Ideology and Dream”, in Film Quaterly, vol. 38, no. 1, 1984
Movin, Lars & Morten Øberg (1990) Rockreklamer – om musikvideo, Amanda
Shaviro, Steven (2008): “Grace Jones, Corporate Cannibal“, The Pinocchio Theory (http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=653)
Strand, Joachim (2008) The Cineastic Montage of Music-video: Hearing the Image, Seeing the Sound, VDM
Vernallis, Carol (2004) Experiencing Music Video: Aesthetics and Cultural Context, Columbia University Press







