Boards of Canada - Everything You Do is a Balloon
In a really strange, allegorical way, this video / music combo is pretty much how I feel about life [excuse my triteness and keep reading, or don’t; at least watch the video].
Interestingly, the original video (a bicycle safety video from 1963) seems to suggest that loneliness is a sign of success, of doing the right thing, and thus one has access to all resources and can reap the full reward (as the boy in the beginning is the only non-monkey, follows bicycle rules seriously, and as a result is the only surviving member of his entourage, and thus has access to all of their lunches). The original video takes a very individualistic stance on life. Of course, one could easily say that is all bullshit.
This re-cut video (recontextualized into the present through the usage of Boards of Canada’s music) seems to reveal the inherent sadness and self-reflectivity in loneliness, whether in its literal end-point manifestation (when all your friends are dead), or in the midst of your once-living friends, who recklessly go about life with no sincere concern for anyone or anything other than themselves. The video may even suggest a sort of solipsist mentality, that even the projections of our minds (suggested by the kids with monkey masks, implying their “incompleteness” as real, identifiable humans) are unknown to us, that we only know our own thoughts and feelings, and all these projections run separate and independent of us, that even the “almighty single consciousness” cannot console itself.
This isn’t an “official” video for the electronic group Boards of Canada…. but the music and video fit together unusually well, perfectly, in fact.
