The Arcade Fire - Sprawl II

The videos by The Arcade Fire can be considered postmodern because they blur the boundaries between producer and consumer. The viewer is no longer passively watching a structured video they are interacting and creating the action within the video. Traditional music videos are usually one of three styles; illustrative, amplified or disjunction which are viewed passively by the audience. For example, Mountains Beyond Mountains traditional version follows the conventions of a typical music video using a "narrative" in the form of disjuncture while performing the song by lip syncing. The audience's role is to watch and listen rather than participate in the film. However the interactive version, although set in the same setting with the same characters, is completely different and depends on the audience to participate and interact with the video for anything to happen. The audience controls the speed and movement which is possible through web 2.0. http://www.sprawl2.com/
The Wilderness Downtown uses hyper-reality where the viewer is taken into a simulation of their home town mixing the reality of the town from bird's eye and street views from Google Maps with animation scenes. There is no apparent purpose to the video except entertainment for the viewer which is made more personal with the fact it can be set in their home town. In the video the viewer can create their own postcard which encourages the audience to participate rather than just sit back and watch. http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/
http://www.beonlineb.com/ Neon Bible also requires audience interaction, with the audience able to control what they see happen throughout the song which leaves it totally up to the individual viewer. All of these interact videos are examples of anti-narrative because there is no obvious story or narrative structure. In The Wilderness Downtown the audience may interpret different meanings for the film as the viewer is portrayed in hyper-reality by the character who is either running around, to or from the town depending on how it is individual interpreted. Neon Bible and Mountains Beyond Mountains also have no narrative structure or apparent representation of the lyrics or music which make them look incomplete as the audience have to make up the rest of the action in the video.


http://blabla.nfb.ca/
The chapters show stages of communication: learning a language, making small talk, expressing emotions. It uses a mixture of techniques both traditional and hi-tech, this is a Postmodern aspect because it mixes the use of hand-made art with graphic animations. 
"BLA BLA uses xerogrpahy, drawing on paper, ActionScript generated animations, puppet stop-motion combined with real-time 3D mapping... I am inspired by projects that feel free aesthetically. I wanted BLA BLA to feel hand-made, imperfect, fragile so we forget about the technology."
The music and the visuals are used to create a mood for the viewer who is essential to the performance because without the audience interaction nothing happens. There is some structure to the website as it follows chapters and a lose narrative around the stages of communication. 
Although I liked the style of the graphics and the audience interaction I didn't really understand the purpose of it because it wasn't exactly entertaining or follow any conventions to make it a game. However I can see the possible development for the future - if this kind of interactive software could be used for children's books for example which would give the website and this type of audience interaction more purpose.


Vincent Morisset the director for these videos and the website: (possible quotes on Creativity for Section A) www.hypebot.com/
"Ideas always drive my projects, and I use the tools that are around me to achieve them. I think it's important that we understand the possibilities and the limitations of those tools, but for me, it's important that the projects are driven by ideas so that they don't become technology demos."
"I like to play with different mediums and to blur the lines and the codes of each of them. Using lo-fi and hand-made content to make you forget the technology in an interactive experience is another trick."
"One of my mottos is "The web is fun." I love this medium but the way we connect with images on our laptop is really different from the way we relate to images on a TV screen. Since I want to trigger emotions through my projects, I work hard so that we kind of forget we're in front of a computer."