For the Record: The Politics of Design in Music Video
For the Record
Since the early 1980s, when the US video channel MTV launched with Video Killed the Radio Star, the music video has been a controversial and transgressive medium, both affirming and questioning dominant forms of representation. Media platforms such as YouTube have brought a more diverse and complex audiovisual landscape: artists are not necessarily dependent on major labels for the production and distribution of videos, but rather work with independent teams of designers, directors, screenwriters, editors and cinematographers. Contemporary music videos both reinforce and challenge a dominant gaze, articulating questions around gender, race, class, power relations and political realities. While still being a promotional tool for artists, the music video also continues as a medium for experimental and critical practice. During the Covid-19 pandemic, while video platforms have ensured the continuation of gathering and communication outside our own domestic environments, DIY music videos and live-streamed concerts and Zoom parties such as Club Quarantine or Hometour have enabled forms of solidarity and collectivity across borders.
For the Record is a research project by Het Nieuwe Instituut. It investigates how contemporary music video culture operates as a public space for consumerism, activism and emancipation, by exposing realities and imagining alternatives. For the Record documents and reflects upon the technologies, spatial design and forms of representation deployed in music video and live events, using public programmes, video production and tools for annotation as the main methodology. The project engages with local and global issues and dimensions in video culture, involving a broad network of designers, architects, artists, filmmakers, musicians, choreographers, media producers, scholars, institutions and audiences.