Warning - some of the footage is extremely graphic NB! Some of the footage is HD - so remember to select 1080 resolution
By ChaosNavigator
When we talk about compassion we talk in terms of being kind. But compassion is not so much being kind; it is being creative [enough] to wake a person up
- Chogyam Trungpa
'Video Review':
Ole Dammegård: 'Excellent'
Laura Jadczyk-Knight: 'Horrifyingly true'
I took the liberty to edit and use Moby's excellent animation footage from his new video ( 'Are You Lost In The World Like Me' performed by Moby & The Void Pacific Choir, ) as an intro to this piece and picked Peter Gabriel's song 'Milgram's 37', since I find it perfectly fitting for Moby's visual theme, as well as Gabriel's lyrics - it fits as complementary perfect visuals to the atmosphere in Moby's video as well.
Milgram's 37 (We Do What We're Told) references the experiment on obedience carried out by American social psychologist Stanley Milgram, intended as a reference to the obedience citizens show to dictators during times of war. Marotta's drums on the song were said to resemble "a heartbeat heard from the womb"
The second part after the intro is 'Signal to Noise', with Peter Gabriel & Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the one and only version before Khan died.
The video speaks for itself - suffice to say that it's a clarion call (just like the lyrics) for discernment and vigilance in the midst of deadly misguided blind obedience, rampant mindless hedonism, apathy, destruction and chaos on this planet. The depiction in the video is extremely poor compared to the complexity and radicality of what's going on (so it's not indulgence, on the contrary [1])
It took 12 hours of intense work to do this nitty-gritty video with minute detailed sound and picture synchronizations, speed adjustments, effects, and much editing in general in both footage material and music.
Film material (from the top of my head): Moby & The Void Pacific Choir, ( 'Are You Lost In The World Like Me'). 'They Live', 'Terminator', 'Lost Highway', 'Koyannisqatsi', 'Knowing', 'Timescapes', Pearl Jam ('Do The Evolution'), 'DMT - The Spirit Molecule', and various documentary and news footage, Live Leak, and much more, etc. The text is fast and not intended to follow one's reading speed (you gotta stop it if you want to break the continuity the first time)
_____________________
Milgram's 37
We do what we're told
We do what we're told
We do what we're told
told to do
We do what we're told
We do what we're told
We do what we're told
told to do
One doubt
One voice
One war
One truth
One dream...
Signal to Noise
You know the way that things go
When what you fight for starts to fall
And in that fuzzy picture
The writing stands out on the wall
So clearly on the wall
When what you fight for starts to fall
And in that fuzzy picture
The writing stands out on the wall
So clearly on the wall
Send out the signals deep and loud
And in this place, can you reassure me
With a touch, a smile - while the cradle's burning
All the while the world is turning to noise
Oh the more that it's surrounding us
The more that it destroys
Turn up the signal
Wipe out the noise
With a touch, a smile - while the cradle's burning
All the while the world is turning to noise
Oh the more that it's surrounding us
The more that it destroys
Turn up the signal
Wipe out the noise
Send out the signal deep and loud
Man I'm losing sound and sight
Of all those who can tell me wrong from right
When all things beautiful and bright
Sink in the night
Yet there's still something in my heart
That can find a way
To make a start
To turn…
Of all those who can tell me wrong from right
When all things beautiful and bright
Sink in the night
Yet there's still something in my heart
That can find a way
To make a start
To turn…
Live version (the studio version used the recording from the live performance): Signal to Noise Peter Gabriel & Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Live at VH1 Honors 1996 Los Angeles
[1] In one of the most profound and revolutionary books published (called "Presence") there is a series of dialoques which is drawing on the wisdom and experience of 150 scientists, social leaders and entrepreneurs - the four authors Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski and Betty Sue Flowers (highly proficient intuitive pioneers and experienced leaders in organisational global change strategies themselves) are discussing the dangers facing humanity and the imminent need for societal and psychological change.
In the book there is a passage dealing with what the authors call "The Requiem Scenario", originally a term from an article called "Global Requiem" written by a senior adviser to the J. Paul Getty Trust. The article asks what would happen if we started to realize that humankind might not overcome these problems, that we might not develop a sustainable society – that the human race might perish.
In the dialoque bewteen the four authors they tend to agree that such scenarios evoke fear and that this sort of fear is usually met by denial or simply makes us feel hopeless. Nonetheless they agree upon that imagining negative futures can actually open people up and that such scenarios can make people think about a future that they’ ve ignored or denied, that "if people really believed we could be headed for extinction, we would do collectively what many people do individually when they know they may actually die.....if we could face our collective mortality and simply tell the truth about the fear, rather than avoiding it something would shift"
