This past year has been a period of deep reflection. At a time of serious social, political and economic upheaval, triggered by an ongoing pandemic, each and every one of us has been pushed to confront the systems, structures and spaces we inhabit—both as a community and as individuals. Gathering in clubs, theaters, galleries, even our homes has been deemed unsafe. With that we have been forced to look even further inward, into our hearts and our minds, while developing new spaces of energy, action and connection on the internet. Creamcake’s “Pop Psychology” video program is one such productive and proactive outcome.
Dropping online at 3hdTV from July 15 to September 15, the series of film commissions traces the unresolvable tensions between political activism and noise, empowerment and performativity, consumer culture and self-care. Four artists and collectives from London, Berlin, New York and Changchun, China, make these points of friction visible as therapeutic drives of sustainability and empowerment. Fauness presents an experimental twist on the aesthetic of the pop music video, her spritely alter-ego ‘Plexaure’ traveling through English countryside with her wild pony companions. Alice Z Jones x Dis Fig’s collaborative audiovisual project takes the notion of a “casting-off” as a starting point to explore bodies in crisis, theories of dissent, and potential healing practices through art and music making. unseelie lead a guided meditation inspired by the Brood X cicada swarms, and Yikii shoots, directs and edits a visual accompaniment to six of her tracks exploring the connection between personal loneliness and society.
As our primary modes of organizing have been taken from us with social distancing and self-isolation protocol, the question has become, “where do we go now?” There have been benefits to this moment of crisis and consequent self-examination and “Pop Psychology” attempts to find and reveal them. After all, joy is an integral part to maintaining mental health, and now is the time to find it through music.
