After watching PilotRedSun’s latest video Burners (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ3Pi1QBAlQ), I have found myself in awe at the stellar use of both visual and auditory means of expression to create a eerie, dreamlike atmosphere.
In our modern times, the frontiers of surreal art have been broadened through the accessibility of creative tools to those of all creeds and types. In fact, PilotRedSun (PRS for here on, for brevity) is a prime example of how this accessibility has allowed for a unique fusion of various mediums of surrealism to create a thick, rich and convincing atmosphere in a way different than those of their surreal predecessors. No longer is there a limitation to the only the visual or the musical, these two mediums can intersect to create a more powerful work.
One the aspects of the short film that arouses this combination of strange dread and wonder: the structure and progression of the plot. While most may be familiar with nonlinear story telling, this non-standard method of plot elucidation still assumes that the story has a sensical thread of well, story, on which the observer jumps around. The most surreal aspect of PRS’s work, however, is that no such plot exists and even when it appears to exist, it is only a simulacra of conventional diagesis, There is a notable distinction to be made between the lack of storyline, and a storyline about nothing, such as in the series Seinfeld. In that series, there is still a logical progression of events to some narrative end, no matter how inconsequential the motivations or actions of the characters may be. However, in true surrealist fashion, PRS chooses to abandon the construct of narrative all together, creating something that is to viewed and appreciated outside of the limited scope given by the implicit expectations of the viewer. The lucid awareness of PRS of the unsaid expectations and his oblique subversion of these standards creates something that is appreciated much more for what it is, that what it is expected to be due to its presentation as a video.
He happens to avert presuppositions about the very form of cartoon storytelling in more ways that the absence of well… a story. Take the characters, for example, which have only the most pallid of personalities and obscure directions for their actions. It is almost as if their behavior has been determined by a sophisticated, yet psychedelic-influenced monkey at a typewriter. Yet, despite this entropy, there this remains enough spoken content to distinguish the two’s attitudes, although only on a very topical level.
Perhaps this may only be an artifact of the fact that there simply are some many contextual questions within the narrative world of the video that are left unanswered. Why are those two men together? Why are the piles of iron shavings in the basement? Why is there a soccer ball on the stairs? Why is there a box of pre-lit candles sitting in a (cardboard?) box so close to the powder-bomb-waiting-to-happen? The list simply goes on and on and on. To me, this is part of the magic of the video. By bombarding the viewer with mountains of unintuitive, nonsensical information, PRS inspires thought and causes one to abandon the bindings of logic. It forces one to simply appreciate the video for what it is as an artwork, not necessarily due to the message.