The wilderness downtown

Ok, I'm a complete sucker for this experimental music video collaboration between Google and Arcade Fire. Try it out before reading any further and then come back.

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I've watched some of my more jaded and net savvy friends and relatives experience the video and it's as much fun to watch their faces as it is to watch the production itself.  It's more than a personalized music video.  It's a geo-video that connects you to home spaces and regular reader(s) will know that's something that I find vitally interesting.  I wasn't quite sure what to put as the house where I grew up because I'm not sure that process is complete yet -- I'm in no hurry -- but I had no shortage of ideas for advice to send back in time to my earlier self, and that's an interesting way of making a connection to previous homes and probably my favourite part of the whole experience.  I've thought a lot recently about going back to visit previous homes, but I've never really thought about visiting previous selves there and giving them all a talking to.

I've been thinking a lot recently about ways to connect personal history to the present via movements through familiar or unfamiliar spaces, and this is a really great example of the same kind of thinking, and remarkable how well it works in cyberspace as well.  It reminds me of a game that I play with one of my kids.  She asks me to tell her stories of my troubled youth and I use Google Earth as the vehicle.  For example, recently I recounted for her the walk that I used to take to school when I was in grade 2.  We followed the route in Google Earth and used Streetview to take a look at my grandmother's house which I passed enroute, the place where Barnie the crossing guard used to be waiting to usher me across a busy street, the house where the frightening dog used to wait for me, and the place where the girl lived who I now realize would have kissed me if only I'd known how to ask her (well ok I kept that part of the story to myself).  We were both wide-eyed with amazement at how real the experience was for us.  This video captures some little piece of that and it does a good job of it.

Comments

[Danny]

VERY neat. What a great direction in music and film.