Pure Adult (Bianca Abarca and Jeremy Snyder) were just beginning to ramp up some real Brooklyn hype right before the world kinda ended. Their shows are loud and violent and sweaty but also heady. They’ve definitely thought everything through very carefully.
This video for “Mise En Scène” is no different, really. I was a little bit uncomfortable watching it. It makes you uneasy, and the way its filmed so bare-bones and sometimes dimly-lit brings you way too close to the intimate moments happening within it. It’s my duty as a viewer to come to my own conclusions about the video but I really just wanted to hear what Abarca and Snyder were up to in the deepest part of their psyches while making this. So I just asked, and they said:
The video and song are about the corrosion caused by compounded simulacra and the ideological effects of the representation of a thing replacing its own reality (creating a new hyperreality). Throughout the video, the brash starkness of the character and the environment are slowly encumbered, both by physical items and by the fog while continuing a mundane ritual, periodically interrupted with moments of self-expression. It is an attempt on my part to take the early concepts of Jean Baudrillard and apply it with the socio-economic experience of the American working class.
As far as the details of the video, beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. A lot of things were intentional but I feel they’re better left to be inferred (and possibly created?) by the viewer.
(Also, that’s Bianca in the video.)
For some reason, I wanted to know, “Why specifically Cheerios?” I wanted to find the roots of the personal side of this grand, idealogical story they’re telling. However, Pure Adult will almost definitely – almost always – refuse to let a simplified reality be an answer to a question.
In making me uncomfortable and provoking a confused and tangled line of questioning about What It All Means… I think this video’s done exactly what it came here to do. It’s directly in line with the song itself. Take a look for yourself.
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