This month’s video essay recommendations include some truly excellent films, from a “desktop horror” short to a video that manages to make Tetris competitions engaging. Works on “children’s cities” and post-punk music round out this issue. Plus, is creating and/or consuming art effective activism? The answer might surprise you!
“The History of Tetris World Records” by Summoning Salt
The best storytellers make the most unlikely scenes captivating. Tetris is one of the most elegant and simple video games, but it has formed a community that is remarkably complex, strategizing even the smallest elements, like the optimal way to touch the D-pad. This video is perhaps Summoning Salt’s best yet, and visualizes statistics and data in an engaging way. In one scene, a broken record is represented by a panning motion over a bar graph of high scores, underscoring its importance and making the feeling of triumph palpable.
“Art will not save us from capitalism” by Lily Alexandre
The title says it all. Alexandre analyzes the effectiveness of artistic creation in real-world activism and in influencing change – and more often than not. But this cynical-sounding summary belies the hope Alexandre is trying to convey. More interesting than this first question is the natural follow-up question of what art is “good” for, because it reveals the essential flaw in this way of thinking. It assumes that art is worth pursuing and consuming for its own pleasure.
“Kid Cities” by Defunctland
Before I saw this video, I was unaware of the brief boom in theme parks that allowed children to simulate the adult world. Now I wish I could have visited one as a child. A child could perform tasks ranging from surgery to pizza delivery, and earn money at the park that could be spent on other amusements. In addition to the history the video explores, it also shows how children pushed the boundaries of these theme parks to inadvertently replicate adult lives even more closely. Through interviews and news clips, we see them complain about the frustration of tight budgets, invent police corruption, and even figure out how to be a good criminal defense attorney.
“Sticky” by Maria Hofmann and MUBI
Each year, streaming service MUBI produces a series of video essays in collaboration with the FILMADRID International Film Festival. “Sticky” is the best of this year’s output so far, described by creator Maria Hoffmann as a “horror desktop documentary.” By switching between different browser windows, some of which contain news and videos about the Mediterranean refugee crisis, while others simply show work apps or social media sites, Hofmann illustrates how atrocities can perversely become part of the mundane background of daily life—just another element in the constant feed of internet-mediated society.
“Post-Punk, Mark Fisher & Popular Modernism” by CCK Philosophy
Jonas Čeika’s videos on politics and philosophy often explore concepts from figures such as Martin Heidegger or Gilles Deleuze through familiar forms of pop culture. His style is rigorous – it’s simply his quiet narration over clips and images, cleverly condensing a lot of information. Here he explains the late Mark Fisher’s ideas about modernist art by tracing the development of post-punk music. Čeika’s videos inspire viewers to read and learn more about his subject – not just watch them as a substitute for real study.
