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Music

Here's Why Oneohtrix Point Never's Live Videos Are Sick

This crew puts art on stage and in your face.
Screengrab from Repossession Sequence

Outside the Oneohtrix Point Never show at Brooklyn’s the Warsaw — a Polish community center that doubles as a music venue and serves pierogies between sets — one could overhear fanboys spreading rumors about their current idol, Daniel Lopatin, the creative mind behind the experimental electronic music project they had come to see. According to these hipsters, Lopatin has a studio devoted to perfecting his live show, tinkering with lights and video displays until they’re perfect (whatever that means). Lopatin denied those rumors to The Creators Project, which makes OPN’s live show all the better.

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Accompanying OPN’s spacey sounds on stage is a series of video works by Lopatin and artists Nate Boyce and Jon Rafman. Boyce and Rafman’s videos keep the audience visually engrossed, but mostly they contribute to a feeling of sensory overload. Besides the vibrations of the music and flashing bright lights, two sideways tilted televisions in front of one larger projection screen play a series of Boyce’s abstracted, dystopian animations and Rafman’s LARPing-inspired Sticky Drama series. But while the music and videos share a certain attitude, they are their own projects.

Contrary to rumors, Lopatin and Boyce actually seem pretty relaxed about the way their works are received, and non-elitist about how they’re made — Lopatin created an OPN logo in Paintbrush and the duo have always included videos in their set, Boyce tells The Creators Project.

“[The videos are] very free associative and intuitive. I keep changing and adding to the video. Ideas emerge out of delirious, sleep deprived conversations with Dan while touring. It's not really supposed to complement the music. It does end up being complementary at times, but we like the video to complicate or confuse how you feel about the music. People wanting a totally complimentary or consonant audio visual experience will probably be disappointed, annoyed, or agitated,” he explains.

Screengrab from Sticky Drama

The audiovisual experience may not be harmonious, but one might actually venture to say they are, in some way, complementary, if only for the fact that they represent a technological zeitgeist. On stage, there is little sense that these video works are “music videos,” due in part to technological limitations — the videos were chosen based on their compatibility with the live setup, and the final result is affected by Boyce’s other role as live performer.

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“The challenge for me now is delegating how much to manipulate the video live now that I'm busy performing the music live with Dan. I'm working on getting all setup to be controlled by foot,” he says.

“Reposession Sequence” by Boyce

That Boyce also creates physical work is evident in his work with OPN. In Repossession Sequence, (above) pieces of shrapnel float over a cracked ground. Convincingly realistic physical spaces are animated, collaged, and warped. The content of the videos extends into Boyce’s sculptures and his creative process for this live show.

“I think sculpturally about video and animation. I've been using vertically oriented screens in my work outside of OPN and it made sense to use them to make the stage setup more sculptural and less cinematic than R+7 era live shows that used a single large projection at the back of the stage.  Now we're using a three-channel setup using the two side monitors and the rear projection which expands the spatial dynamics of the show,” says Boyce.

OPN tends to appeal to the academic listener. Paired with artists who straddle the realms of internet surf clubs and fine art, their live show almost invites art critics. While the edgiest digital works have yet to convince commercial galleries, perhaps the stage, with the possibility for an ever-changing, immersive environment, is really where they belong.

Find more on Oneohtrix Point Never here, and more on Nate Boyce here.

Related:

Watch the Strange New Video for Oneohtrix Point Never’s “Still Life”

Oneohtrix Point Never Threads the ‘Net for His New Album

Listen to New Track “Problem Areas” from Oneohtrix Point Never