The Persistence of Vision, Realism, and Hyper-reality

"The visuals of a music video cannot be reduced to a denotation or even a connotation of a song. Instead, they open another dimension-- another opportunity to express."Williams, K. p. 156, Why I [Still] Want My MTV

As Williams suggests, the performance of a music video portrays more than just a televised performance of a song, narrative, or creator's visual illustration. Although the tone and overall feel of the scenes in the song are set,the sounds and sights create a whole other dimension. Hence, the sounds themselves define the depth of the visuals. The music video itself composes the relationship between video and audio thus creating a new idea of presenting a performed piece of music.

Perhaps this new idea lies in the origins of the reality behind synesthesia-the integration of the senses. If senses themselves are mental constructions of an environment, one may find it difficult to decipher whether what they are seeing and hearing in music video is "real." In another sense, one may also argue that based on all ideologic backgrounds; their reality is not in fact another's reality. In that sense, when viewing the color in a video our environmental and ideologic background tell us that a cool color such as blue gives off a sense of mourning or relaxation. One could argue that in the same way with the warm color --red which tends to visually demonstrate a violent feeling, blood, danger, anger, etc. So how does this relate to this text? As Williams points out in his lectures, every video has its own color. With each color comes a semiotic value. For example, The Matrix's visual presentation was mostly green.

"Music video reveals itself as a form of video, as a mediated vision, and makes its technological basis the force of its appeal." Williams, K. p.150

In this case, the viewer cannot deciper whether the televised musical performance is actually live or not. The matter is that the music video is presented to us in such a way that we are not meant to question whether it is "really happening" or "pre-recorded." In this sense, the (music)video must not be mistaken for a live performance (even when it is live). Hence, music video codes specify that the video is not in a live setting. In this sense, the viewer takes on a visual bias by arguing whether something is real or not real. We live in the age of visual senses where visual bias ties "seeing" something to actually "knowing." The impact that television brought to the viewer connects to our culture's dominant favoring of the sense that is sight (our seeing). Our relation to visual imagery is indeed what defines our mindset as in the digital age.

"As clouds cover the sky above the guitarist, it begins to rain at the wedding. A glass of red wine spills on a white tableclot; a woman wearing a wedding dress lies dead in a coffin. The song "November Rain" does not musically or lyrically sing the narrative of the video."

Williams notes on the classic example of a video that transitions from narrative to concert video footage. Above, Guns n' Roses "November Rain" depicts the classic tragic love story as the musicians perform on stage. However, the narrative does not match the lyrics that Axel Rose vocalizes. The importance here is that the illustration of the song does not depict the song. Thus, the song gives off the intense feeling and rhythm that the story and band clips set forth.In this sense, a music video "performance" becomes more than just a televised medium of a song, its visual depiction, or its situation.

"The visuals of a music video cannot be reduced to a denotation or even a connotation of a song. Instead, they open another dimension-another opportunity to express. Thus, a single song may spawn several videos, esach with a different visual look, for the connection between the song and the video is neither fixed nor singular." Williams, p. 156 Why I [Still Want My MTV]

Vision is more something that reality cannot conquer itself in the five senses. What one "sees" may unintentionally mislead them to other biases. This misbelief may lead one onto what Williams defines as "the third communicative dimension." Hence, while sounds define the overall feel of one's experience viewing, the audio and visuals of the presentation give birth to this dimension.

The phenomena of music video allows us to escape from the "everyday world" that we are frequently caught up inside. Perhaps these mediums permit one's mind back to the child or teenager inside of us. The beauty behind this is one's privilege to critique what they are looking at and listening to. In that sense, we aspire to understand how music escapes the instrument it is performed upon. Although we may "see" music videos, but we strive to understand how one creates and expresses such a work through amazing visual imagery and editing techniques. While viewing, one may come across a sense to question exactly how the work's creators developed such skill. As semioticians, our minds are set to interpret these signs of communicative dimensions.