The Daily Psychedelic Video

There is something attractive yet deeply disturbing about the videos of  Champagne Valentine, which showcase the work of artists Geoff Lillemon and Anita Fontaine. Maybe it is because Lillemon and Fontaine are artists creating  psychedelic commercials, which  seem to be aware and to reflect the disturbing nature of late-capitalistic society.

See for example Anita Fontaine’s video “Beefeater London” (above) which follows a young blonde through the streets of London. Although it seems to sell the viewer on the romantic image of a young and beautiful girl roaming the streets and having fun by herself, the videos seems to be inherently aware that this is a fantasy, something which comes to bare in the small viewing disturbances which appear on the screen from time to time to remind us that this is not the real thing but a simulation. The girl in the film is not really just roaming the streets and having fun, she is actually nothing more than an image which sells us notions about cities and identity and who we can be. But we are not that carefree person happily roaming the streets, we watch this video on our digital screens, where this kind of free adventure is just a substitute for life. Moreover, our hero seems to be inexplicably alone all through the video, or just flirting with the camera, something which is emphasized by her strange, somehow disturbed  gazes, caught by the camera in close up shots. When the video ends, our hero is toasting a glass with somebody, but we don’t see that somebody and somehow it seems like she’s still all alone.

A similar sort of disturbing psychedelic simulacra is also evident in the §tereop§i§  video, and in the the Versace, and Louis Vitton commercials created by Champagne Valentine

Tags: anita fontaine, capitalism, Geoff Lillemon