Fuel for Hatred
What can be learnt from the visual quality of black metal, as well as from its staging practices and deviations within the genre, about the socially unconscious that it has produced? What is the fascination and attraction of such an extreme and outwardly disturbing style of music and style as black metal, and how should we as a society treat such a phenomenon? Are there possibilities for finding artistic approaches that can open up black metal? Are there elements worth preserving? Or is its proximity to fascist aesthetics and ideology not a problem to be resolved? By adopting a psychoanalytical proposal for interpretation based on the writing Klaus Theweleit and aided by Jan Grünwald’s definition of archaic masculinity and its staging practices in cinematic space, I have attempted to understand the structure of imagery produced in black metal.
Vogelfrei
Vogelfrei (free as a bird) is a music video by the multimedia artist Alex Traka which is based on found footage that was animated using rotoscoping in order to create an experimental piece of music in black metal style. The protagonist of the piece is an urban pigeon, whose fate as an outsider of the urban jungle is conveyed.
As a pet, it was once seen as a useful companion to humans. However, the pigeon is now, in its feral form, considered by many to be nothing more than a nuisance. In Vogelfrei, their daily struggle for survival amid concrete and human refuse is condensed in expressive drawings that act as emotional pleas for the welfare of the outcast and misunderstood.
