Tuesday, June 8, 2010

hitting too close to home.

how strange that phenomena you are able to recognize and name without trouble can become fuddled and confusing when they happen too close.

we're all familiar with it especially through troubled relationships: we've all got friends who are completely unable to understand their own situation even when they are presented with clear evidence and, naturally, we've all been there too. blessed be sweet oblivion and self-deception. it's also familiar as a political and, predominantly, religious phenomena: we're eager to point out faults and logical failures in other people's beliefs and utterly incapable in recognizing similar troubles in our own convictions.

but it need not be as serious – if the above is serious, dunno – and can apply to situations that are somehow novel. i, for example, have a fairly basic education when it comes to art. i can recognize certain aesthetic schools and time periods, but my level of understanding is very superficial. let's just say i am most comfortable when the discussion level rotates around the axis of likes and dislikes rather than deep analysis.

this morning i bumped into something that took me by surprise. watching a music video at stella's blog made me uneasy because for some reason or other i was not able to recognize familiar phenomena: inspiration and reference.

blame it on the lack of morning coffee or just the fact that the people involved are friends, but somehow my gut wanted to tell me something was wrong. not as infuriating "this is wrong!", but just a feeling of discomfort. i felt as if there was too much of someone else's work without explicit credit – given that i know that the same bunch of people work together on multiple projects and are better friends amongst each other than i am with any single one of them. in all honesty, i do not even know which parts of their projects should be accredited to whom. thus, i knew they weren't copying or stealing, but something inside me wanted to say "hey, where's jenni?"

funny, how the mind works... i feel kinda more than stupid and ridiculous, but also enlightened: perhaps there's a little, protective lioness inside me after all. not that there's a need for my little gurgle of a roar, but still...

the video in question is for femme en fourrure, a great clip by miika lommi, styled by vesa kemppainen artist/illustrator/stylist for diesel among others. the aesthetic is familiar from my friend, jenni hiltunen's video work.

a great video, enjoy.

2 comments:

Sugar Kane said...

I guess I kinda get your point here, though it's a tough one to articulate... Still, the video and song are great, as is Jenni's work!

stellagee said...

sugar kane, i actually feel quite silly about it all. i mean, it's a strange protective feeling that has no need or basis in reality... but feelings can hardly be controlled to the extent of feeling them. this time just trying to articulate and express it, i think, lead to a revelation of a sort...

great work, yes!