Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Playing the piano with duct tape around the mouth

Rachmanonff must be rolling around in his grave, rather furiously, at this sight. But seriously, do you get the "art" in this "art video"??

Do I get the art? Sure. Although I think that it's tapping into some misogynistic veins.

This video's an easy target for the likes of us, and I'm sure it will be properly excoriated by the usual suspects. Personally, I hated it, visually and musically, and really couldn't watch much. But at least she's doing something different. I'm not unhappy that she's around.

-J

I am not unhappy either. I am trying to "get it".

Nicely said.

The duct tape is a good idea for me, especially when I'm recording myself. My language can get a bit, er, colorful when I get frustrated.

Do you need an explanation? (or perhaps interpretation?)



The filmography of the video is very good. I thought the playing and her interpretation, if anything, detracted from the whole thing.

I understand it like Jolteon. Actually I even like it in this sense.

Please don't tell me you're taking her seriously? I could care less about the video...it's all about the music.............the music.........the music.......nothing else matters.

Maybe the duct tape keeps her fingers from falling off.

The playing is meh, alright. The film is just a mix of bad acting with some strange ideas in it.

It's like a bad execution of Intro to Film Studies 101:

Dejected, the artist enters. The tape represents the harsh reality of a world that seeks to muzzle its artists. She's unable to truly speak, the music welling up inside of her until at last, she is no longer able to remain silent. She must be heard! In a defiant act against the yoke of oppression, she tears away that which has protected the world from her defiant missive. The music within is unleashed, allowed to run free as passions are want to do.

Oh, and bondage is sexy. And we'll put it in a dilapidated New York loft, 'cause urban is cool. We'll make the lighting dark and use that "Cracked" font, because it's cool and free with Macs running iMovie (gotta put the money where it matters - make-up!) And just in case people get too focused on the music, we'll switch camera angles every 4 seconds.

Pfft...

pity.. Rach's face itself was so very gorgous.. I'd rather look upon a still.

I saw it slightly differently.
A piano workshop, with shots of pianos in differing states of repair.
The finished piano being the sum of all the mechanical parts.
But, inherently useless without someone to play it.
A poke at the pianist being just another one of those mechanical parts, hence Lola Astanova being wrapped up in the same plastic as the piano was.
The duct tape being an extension of this theme, ( we dont want anything else from this "unit" other than it being the last piece of the parts)

Or, conversly, maybe Lola has tourettes and must be kept silenced.

Wow, I have never seen you so cynical Kreisler. I like it.

I think a good many people here would have thought just Lola Astanova would have sufficed on her own. No plastic bag necessary.

Yeah Jolteon's explanation seems to make most sense of it.

But it seems not to explain the long introduction with the noise and dust. Also it does not explain why there seems no public at all, or why the mannequin/artist is dressed up in the absence of public. I have the impression that even the man that places here leaves the place and comes back only later after the performance. He seems to put her there only temporarily for some other reason. Finally it does not explain why they put the mannequin in the garbage at the end, instead of wrapping it in plastic again.


I'm more tempted an alternative explanation:

Lola the pianist feels like a relic; the piano is considered an ancient tradition, to which nobody listens anymore and on which one plays solitary in some basement. After a life time of playing in solitude one is removed from the piano in the basement and dumped in the garbage bin.

+1

Well, she wants attention, like Lady Gaga.

However fatuous the video, I hate it when people write "art" in inverted commas.

This is awesome. I think it gives her a bit too much credit, however. Hahaha!