http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/
I really loved the interactive Arcade Fire video. I’m a huge fan of Arcade Fire’s music and always feel a deep connection with the imagery of their music to begin with. Needless to say, this format took that experience to the next level and realized the personalized visualization of music that often remains unspoken and unconsidered.
I enjoyed the way the screens jumped around on the screen during the song. What makes a song work, in my opinion, is its ability to inspire some sort of resonance and connection with the life of the listener. Often this manifests itself in the recollection of feelings and memories and the moving pop-ups created an effect that seemed to mimic the generation of ideas and memories that occurs in my head when I listen to music. The content, too, evoked a sort of nostalgia and allusion to this deep story of boyhood and coming of age. The hooded runner, eye of god focused on a neighborhood, and birds in the sky really worked as a deeply personal yet universal “imagescape”.
What drove the piece home for me, though, was the fact that it was so meaning-driven, not in an imposing way, but in an entirely open-ended way. Nothing about the piece is static and there is really no message to speak of other than the message that the users were prompted to voluntarily create.
I love to see pieces like these because, as simple as they are, they seem to hit something so deep and personal in all of us. That kind of yearning for purpose and meaning in the stories of our lives.