OUGD406 Studio Brief 01 Choice of Artist

As a starting point for this brief I had to choose the artists to design for. After looking through all the different options that are available I have decided on Massive Attack and their single Karmacoma. I hadn't heard of massive attack until now but after looking at their music video for this song and listening to it a few times I really felt like it would pose a challenge. They are quite strange and detached from reality in their approach to music and this should allow me to create possibly more abstract designs.

The video is below.

The imagery in the video seems quite abstract because the link between it and the lyrics appears quite weak. This impression is increased by the somewhat incongruous match of the location (relatively posh hotel), with the music (quite chilled and almost reggae like in tone).  The whole video has a sense of the detached, far removed from reality because of the mish mash of camera angles used that pair together shots which suggest the presence of the camera and then treat the camera man as an invisible entity. The song has a very dark quite pessimistic tone but i will need to do further analysis to really understand the message of the song, if indeed there is one.

there are lots of inter contextual references in this video especially to the shining.

The way that there is always a shadowy figure behind this man when he speaks could be said to help illuminate the meaning of the song. The song name suggests that the endless cycle represented by the belief in Karma creates limitations to the individual; they are always limited by what past versions of themselves have done, (hence the shadow in the background). The constant slow rhythm maintained not only by the music but by the pentameter of the lyrics is testament to this idea, because of the way it embodies predictable monotony, brought into high contrast by the strange apparently non sensical lyrics.

There is also a strange reference to pulp fiction in the female character to the right of this frame.

Research Plan:

-I want to go on to analyse both the lyrics, the name of the song and band.

-Analyse some of their existing designs.

-Look at record designs from the 90s.

-Follow these leads to further research sources.