This article is based on this Dutch article of Martijn Benders
Where have all the children gone, the cream-colored sweaters?
Was it ever my dream to become a director of music videos? No, and to be completely honest, even with AI, it’s still quite a bit of work. However, creating something like the video above would have been unthinkable in the past, unless you were a world-famous musician backed by a massive record label. So, in a way, it’s a form of democratization. I hold no illusion that it’s going to bring me fame; that’s not why I do it. Those channels are firmly clutched by the Gleichschaltung.
No, this wasn’t part of my original dream, simply because it didn’t even seem possible back then. It’s not that AI is making dreams come true. Rather, it’s reshaping existing dreams and challenging their premises. If I were standing at the beginning of my life today, I think the choice for poetry might still be the same – but perhaps expressed differently. For example, like in this video, which is based on a poem from Gedichten om te Lezen in het Donker, narrated here by Welmoed van Klaveren:
(Oh no, that’s a different poem, fringe culture. I seem to recall Welmoed also narrated the one above, but I have no idea where that clip has gone.)
If, only a few years ago, someone had told me, Benders, you’ll have a Neue Mierlose Welle band called The Stoss, and you’ll also create music videos for it – no, no, no, that was not my dream. But whose dream is it then?
To be honest, making music videos can be rather exhausting. Even with various AI systems at hand – I use several video generators – it still feels enough like actual WORK to challenge the aversion of the so-called ‘normalo’ toward AI. It really did feel like WORK. I wrote the poem. I translated the poem. I composed the song. I mastered the song. I created the video.
WORK!
And so on!