Inochi is one of the best pieces of video art I have ever seen. It effortlessly combines directorial authorship with industry craft to create a conceptual commercial campaign capable of containing and critiquing the Freudian psychological complexes of an entire nation (Japan). I totally just got my alliteration on.



As much as I love this video, I was hugely disappointed by the new Kaikai Kiki animation in his retrospective. Korean and Japanese cartoons have dealt with fecal matter as subject for quite some time. The only thing new he is bringing to this is that he is showing normal subject matter from that part of the the world to Western audiences. He could have just popped in a DVD of Doggy Poo. The book that film was based on was written in 1968. Don't even get me started on Dongchimee. I'm only using Korean examples because I know them better; there are plenty of Japanese examples out there.

The "trailer" for his new live action movie looked way off as well. For one thing, it was at least 6 or 7 minutes long (trailers are exactly 2:30 or less) and it was nothing but amateurish atmospheric shots. I'm going to reserve full judgment until I see the whole video, but if a trailer is supposed to make you want to see the movie, this one failed.

His video for Kanye West (bootleg shot in MOCA):



I'm not sure how this is anything more than entertainment. Murakami seems to have stopped trying to insert any kind of Freudian psychological discomfort or tripped out post-nuclear narrative into his video work (its still deeply embedded in his painting and sculpture). In my book, after Inochi, he pretty much earned the freedom to do anything with video and get my attention and respect. He instantly squandered that. It's as if he sees video as only capable of being the commercial. He has dropped the conceptual aspect of it all together. Video as a medium is not a logoless Louis Vuitton bag waiting to have a design put on it.

Labels: inochi, kaikai kiki, kanye west, louis vuitton, poop, takashi murakami, video art