I’ve long been a fan of Oneohtrix Point Never, and his new releases just won’t stop rewarding me for my loyalty. The cyberpunk LARP video for “Sticky Drama” (co-directed by Lopatin and Jon Rafman) has far exceeded my already-too-high expectations of his work, and I’m sure it will blow your mind just as hard as it blew mine.
Neighborhood adolescents duke it out clad in armor made of black plastic tubing, layers of Tamagotchi parts and iridescent CD-ROM chainmail – the source of their conflict, appropriately, seems to be a sticky blob of questionable motivation. Much of the narrative thrust of this video is shown almost as if it were a part of a dystopian Final Fantasy game, with small text-scrolling text bubbles popping up silently next to briefly-introduced characters (“What do you see?”). This video feels like it was taken straight out of my own childhood imaginary, combining the now-present youthful tendency to merge physical and digital identity with childhood war games and almost arbitrary struggles for the sake of play. The sonic production here reminds me strongly of Arca, but in a slightly more active and vocal-centric way; the video production looks like it was made for Instagram and a video game all at once, which is extremely fitting, I think.
Keep up with Oneohtrix on social media and keep an eye out for his new album, Garden of Delete.
