Representation in the Time of Videoclip

Abstract

Musical videoclip is a theme which involves different disciplines, including the history and technique of photography and cinematography, but in this study we concentrate on the images of some videoclips which deserve special interest because of how they use methods of representation of space on a plane, in their scientific and expressive value. Episodes of great interest can be found starting from the 1970s, when videoclips began to spread through TV channels - for example Ian Emes with One of these days (Pink Floyd, 1972), featuring a succession of animated one-point perspectives, used later by Broken Fingaz in a perspective cross-section for U2’s song video Get out of your own way (2018). Examples can be also found of two and three dimensional ambivalence of axonometric representation (Stromae, Tous les Mêmes, 2013) or even of videos based on the ambiguity of anamorphosis (OK Go, The Writing’s On the Wall, 2014) and on recent 360° immersive techniques (Caparezza, Compro Horror, 2014), besides countless examples which show an interest in reflected vision, with infinite conceptual references and an inexhaustible potential for stimulating the imagination. In videoclips, which often present ties with pictorial and architectural culture, contents are transposed in a much more direct fashion, because they are addressed to a public which is not necessarily aware of figurative arts.