SPECTACULAR SIGNIFICATION - NOISEWORKS' FREEDOM VIDEO

Abstract

Industrial Light and Magic', a study of the development of visual style in music videos (Hayward, 1990), identified a number of continuing strands of music video production. One of these was a series of videos, particularly prominent since the mid 1980s, which have attempted to grab viewer attention by the use of ever more surprising and spectacular visual effects - a cycle devoted to the pursuit of 'impact aesthetics'.In one sense however, the history of visual effects outlined in 'Industrial Light and Magic' mirrored its object of study and became dazzled by the sheen of the images it analysed.The arguments advanced there avoided examining the extent to which the images discussed continued to signify in more conventional ways. Images do not, after all, become completely drained of denotative and iconographic significance merely by being combined in decorative - albeit dazzling - montage. The signifying force of such images may be overwhelmed, subdued, or even dazzled, but a residual effect remains. This article will attempt to explore aspects of this contention with regard to a specific music video text; one which - unlike those exclusively Anglo-American ones discussed in the original analysis - was produced in Australia, Noiseworks' Freedom, directed by Warren Lynch in 1990.