Roused by My Epilepsy
Nick Jordan and Dave Griffiths’ music video Roused by My
Epilepsy, captures the kaleidoscopic rock the records the ramblings
of Manchester’s masked musical usurper Lord Mongo.
Lord Mongo prowls mad angry in a quarry, adopting various guises
and railing his gob against a gyrating void. His universe is as
thin as the newspaper from which his masks are constructed; a world
that owes as much to the cardboard and sticky tape mise en scene
of Doctor Who as it does to William Blake’s interpretation
of the parable of the conceited Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II.
Jordan and Griffiths ape the overlay techniques, gaudy colours
and choreography found in early 80s New Wave videos by Kate Bush,
Talking Heads and Devo. Directed by the acts themselves, such ticky-tacky
videos harboured an intense energy, the result of exploiting the
flaws and limitations of what was then new technology.
The mega-budget videos shot by directors such as Hype Williams
pale in comparison. Jordan and Griffiths’ lo-fi work reinvigorates
video’s dirtiness, its lost sense of adventure.
Extract from exhibition essay by curator Dr Neil Mulholland
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