Virals and memes, aimed at the soul: WWF's "We are all connected", the Force Majeure avalanche, and "Truth" flying to pieces
Sometimes, the semiotic excess of the culture just piles up in our lap, and we have to share it on A/UK. Here are three virals/memes that span from the gently biophiliac, to the frankly terrifying, to the obliquely critical.
First one (above, and recovered from 2012) is short and beautiful from the World Wildlife Fund, titled “We are all connected”. Our kindred fate with animals and nature spelled out on a split screen.
Force Majeure Goes Viral
The second is a viral clip from the brilliant but somewhat unheralded art movie Force Majeure. As New York magazine reported, the art-film streaming service Mobi sent out a promotional clip from FM to promote its showing. But the avalanche has now become the disaster clip of choice for a Brexited, Trumped and climate-catastrophised age. (See the typical tweet above). It’s still as gripping for those of us who saw it the first time. The general complacency, the gathering panic, the disorganised fleeing…
Deconstructing “Truth”
Our final example is an art project from Alex Trochut (reported on by Creative Review) called Truth.AF - which is simple but startling. 9 artists and creatives were commissioned by Trochut to do a very short animation around the word “Truth”, with a brief to explore our “fake news” and “post-truth” times. We’d recommend going to www.truth.af itself and playing around - the videos are smoothly arranged, and the interface triggers a soundscape with each video, which can all play at the same time producing a weird cacophony.