Aha, nice link. That takes it from batshit crazy to a mere highly eccentric. And actually eccentric in a quite good way; telling kids what you want them to do instead of what NOT to do is rather sage advice.

No getting around her technique being a bit avant-garde though, especially stripped of that context. I guess that's why it is going viral.

So conflicted!

A) She got a better sound and musical performance out of that theremin than anything else I've ever heard on one. Awesome!

B) With that kind of dexterity and musical skill, think how great she could be at playing literally any other instrument. You know -- a "real" instrument that isn't just a semi-pointless exercise in being as weird / avant-garde as possible...


...Still, my bias against theremin aside, that was great. Nice sift!

The Gist:

Guy in business suit looking thoughtfully out of window.
(Doubtful anyone who designs fine consumer goods, *actually designs consumer goods*, wears a suit). Maybe its supposed to be you! You avant-garde millionaire, you!

Person sketching watch designs. This is probably semi-close to reality, though they don’t show the hundreds of designs the visual designer creates that are dismissed at whim by the aforementioned, assumed (but inevitable even if not shown) suits.

People fiddling with plastic representations of what one would assume as the model for said watch design. Maybe realistic, though with the caveat that two people are sitting there going over said physical design, in any serious discussion concerning the actual physics of the end product. I can *not* imagine that nearly the entirety of this process today, both visual and mechanical design, are not done digitally.

Okay, there’s some CG. Because CG is the next step, rather than the first, least expensive step in any design process today. Who wants to quickly model everything in a matter of hours when you can fabricate expensive, physical material for iterative testing?

Holy shit, was that guy just looking at a wood cutout? I can’t even think of a shitty, sarcastic/realistic remark about that one. I might have misunderstood that shot.

Alright, now we’re machining shit. You can’t really fake that with a few grand for marketing. That’s the real stuff. (1.5m in)

No, they don’t sand/polish things by hand during the fabrication phase. That’s entirely too inaccurate and subjective to the assembler to leave up to human hands. (But hey: it’s a 2.5 million dollar piece of metal, so lets make those buyers feel good about their money spent).

Oh look: gemstones! (???) That's kingly.

More faux machining that is veritably inferior to quality mechanical assembly.

Oh shit, someone just turned a nob!

3.5 minutes in, and we see some actual hand-polished work that is legitimately viable to perform by hand.

Hey lets sand those nodules off the finished pieces, and micro-inspect those printed markings, because nothing about us says “accuracy” without a fallible human to do it. Also: what are they printing shit on there for? Was it pushing the price to $3mil to engrave the timestamps on the faces? That better be the highest quality electroplated coating, but even then I can't imagine that's superior than a tactile, physical representation.

Now they’re hand-engraving the sculpted ornamentation, but it’s one more point I can gladly give them because those kinds of human touches let you know at least some sort of artisan was involved. I can appreciate that, though realizing what I just said causes me to reflect on the inaccuracies of mass-production, and why we would take one over the other…

More microscopes. (Because if one notch is off, it’s back to the furnace for you!)

Awe shit, payday. A guy in a suit looking confident is walking towards your building!

Finally, the gear assembly. It certainly looks fantastic, photographically speaking. I can’t help but notice that all that detail is lost to hundreds of textural indentations or are due to stylized alternating polish/grinding. However, I’m confident that spending $2.5mil on this product would get me the absolute, most accurate, unnoticeable details (hand-made!) within a micro-millimeter of accuracy. Those indentations are like chrome on a street-racer in the 90’s: the more you have, the greater they perform.

@~8min, I’m pretty sure no one works like that at their desk. That posture would kill you in a month.

They know you can’t spin the head of a watch while it’s on your wrist, right?

Awe! It’s got 5 ringtones! That’s way more than any other watch I’ve even heard of! Except everything that doesn’t cost $2.5mil.


If I can take anything away from this that’s even remotely positive, it’s that at least millionaire shitheads are now being just as suckered as the rest of the consumer base. Let me sell ONE of those watches, and I would have enough money to overtake their business within a year, except for that I don't have the greed, dishonesty, and overall lack of morals that it would take to set up a quality factory, and trick such dickheads into buying (even superior BS) products.

I enjoy Tim & Eric so I'll give it an upvote.

However, sometimes I wish their comedy had some level of content to it. Avant-garde, neo-surrealism (or whatever this is) is terrific and all but even one setup/payoff joke would be enjoyable.

To complete what oritteropo said: Laibach built a reputation for themselves as a satirical "mock-fascim" band* (their members came from late 70s avant-garde theater).

One of their more well known type of provocation has been to cover popular feel-good items and paint them under a fascistic light, the point being that empty rhetoric can easily be turned on its head to serve the opposite view -- fascists and communists where "feel-good", "patriotic", and "righteous" too, according to their own worldview.

A recent example, in light of the very partisan coverage of the issue from both sides and the "you're either with us or against us" tone, would be to make a song about whistle-blowers, and have it set to the tune of a military march.


* In less sophisticated circles they are taken at face value and some people actually believe them to be fascists.

More power to them for being unique and avant garde, but that girl's chipmunk voice sent my misophonia meters into the red.

I also believe that it is meant to offend, but it has gone beyond offensive to outright insulting, IMO. To each his own, I suppose.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
It sounds to me, without knowing any context, like this is a piece of sardonic political commentary, with the intention of being offensive to the ear. Not sure if it's pro or con - if he weren't an avant-garde jazz musician, I'd go with con.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
To my untrained ear this is just painful, but maybe you, as a musician, could appreciate it? Just way too much dissonance for my taste.

It sounds to me, without knowing any context, like this is a piece of sardonic political commentary, with the intention of being offensive to the ear. Not sure if it's pro or con - if he weren't an avant-garde jazz musician, I'd go with con.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
To my untrained ear this is just painful, but maybe you, as a musician, could appreciate it? Just way too much dissonance for my taste.

*obscure - right? I'm sure they'd agree.

I can't in good conscience upvote this, but it's a very interesting video. Not for the "art" aspect, because that was just ridiculously shit, but for the psychology involved. That moment after the "performance" where the photographer guy takes a pic of her leaving and then looks at the other dude, like "what in the fuck. is this shit over now?" and then starts clapping once he hears someone else starting to.. that summed up this video pretty succinctly. It's odd how people like this, who most likely see themselves as unique and avant-garde, display such sheepish conformity when confronted with this kind of pretentious bullshit conveniently called art. Clap along or else you'll seem like the uncultured idiot, the one who didn't get the joke. "She's pushing boundaries, man. That was deep."

/facepalm

Proof Avant-Garde is vapid and pretentious is when a baby can play it as well as a 35 year veteran musician.

They didn't show the part where Maggie fired the parrot from its government job, started a nationalistic war to get it to vote for her and lectured it for not showing true Victorian values.

And she also didn't mention that the avant-garde comedy she is referencing would never be allowed in her status-quo dream society. Funny that.

haha...i do have to say his avant-garde is strange yet entertaining.

The guy behind him is funnier though.

Mainly reddit, but also:


Facebook - You know...

Destination: OUT - Great jazz/avant-garde blog, with sound clips.

Kongregate - For when I need a quick fix of flash gaming.

Also an assortment of web comics and norwegian blogs. I hang in my RSS reader a lot. I get my news from newspapers (the paper kind) and TV.

>> ^videosiftbannedme:
"Awake. Shake dreams from your hair my pretty child, my sweet one. Choose the day and choose the sign of your day; the day's divinity. First thing you see.
A vast radiant beach and cooled jeweled moon. Couples, naked, race down by it's quiet side. And we laugh like soft, mad children, snug in the wooly, cotton brains of infancy.
The music and voices are all around us."


He truly was an avant-garde poet.


Well I suspect he is largely regarded as a decent poet, backed up by music that was in harmony with his lyrics.

Great sift OP.

From ages of 10 to about 16 I did about 3-4 8.5hr trips a year to a family property: the music that made the trip most bearable at 3am was the doors.