A 2006 music video for the darkwave band Addicted2Fiction's song MECHANICAL GADGETS, released with their self-titled LP on Ernesto Foronda's Heartcore Records.
I'm always fascinated by how people get along well enough to create art together. It's a simple idea, but collaboration is a mysterious and magical process, possibly a mad one. The concept behind MECHANICAL GADGETS was to explore Addicted2Fictions's creative collaboration. Heather Hellskiss' costume and character were influenced by her daily fashion, where I imagined F.W. Murnau's 1922 Nosferatu meeting the 1920s design work of Russian Constructivist artist Alexander Rodchenko. For Aisha Bhagat, a lover of computers, I created a turn-of-the-century tinkerer, an amateur inventor of the very first radio, who successfully receives echoloquacious transmissions from Heather's spectaclephone walkman. John Ghadami, who creates the live visuals for the Addicted2Fiction's performances, plays the mad scientist playing God.
In contrast with the band's breakbeat sound, I intentionally indulged in a lo-fi aesthetic as an ode to the handmade. Made with a few hundred dollars, shot on super-8 during HD's emergence, many of the props and costumes were made from trash or discount store items with the help of volunteers. Hellskiss' Rodchenko sheets were hand-stamped from a rectangle of rubber and an inkpad. Indoor scenes were shot in my living room, and outdoor scenes in my Los Angeles Koreatown neighborhood. The process was madness, yet absolutely magical. How we made it happen in a couple weeks is still a mystery!
Selected screenings:
Addicted to Fiction Concert. Grand Star Club. (Los Angeles, CA)
Outfest: Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival
Homo-a-Gogo. (Olympia, Washington)
Brooklyn Museum of Art (Brooklyn, New York)