The Aesthetics of Fail Videos

Now so more than ever moments are caught on glass retinas, recorded, uploaded, observed. The culmination of this technology are short films in which people are injured then edited together into a ten minute compilation video titled 'Fails of the week'. Like 19th century optograms, the sight and sound of people losing control of their bodies is watched after the fact by hundreds of thousands of people, cheering and laughing in the near future. I find them to be of cultural value, the aesthetics of each video has a certain quality that is so far removed from reality and cinema it lends itself more to a dream.

Each snapshot is captured from the point of view of an observer, although occasionally the victim is holding the camera. The accidents vary in violence and banality, although most feature an urban setting, often involving human powered vehicles, such as roller skates, falling afoul of architecture and Newton's laws of motion. There is often a cosiness about the background, they are the places people go to have fun. American streets, ski-resorts, boats, sport days, the family home, out in nature. Each serve as the scene of a potentially lethal accident, through the lack of foresight in an individual or insane luck. The accidents themselves have a painlessness about them, even though the footage is caught in eye bleeding high definition the video cuts off soon after. We don't get to see the consequences of the acts. They are bloodless, there is little emotional response to the accident besides shock. We don't see the interior of hospitals where mothers sit in empty rooms drinking coffee, looking at the setting sun with faces dried by tears. Whilst watching this malarky we are jet around the world as it is today. The fashion technology people could be the same as the one's standing outside your door (waiting for you), although we are taken to such exotic locations as Russia or America. This is a version of the world away from news channels, as polished television drama, as documentary footage and so on. It is a window into a world that is normal to those in it, yet becomes increasingly alien as time goes on.

The viewers of these videos dub themselves 'The Fail Army', who scour the digital globe for the juiciest accidents and attacks for splicing. These vulgar nerds respond to accusations of sadism that what they are doing is slapstick and light-hearted, suggesting that for the video to be uploaded in the first place that there was an element of consent, an acknowledgement of survival. Not only is it amusing, it is inspiring how the human body reacts to falling down a flight of stairs or being hit by a tree whilst riding a motorbike. We are a durable species, it reminds us that the world isn't necessarily safe, yet that in itself can be overcome. Yet there is still an antiseptic nature to the videos. Though the event happened, the viewer is watching it remotely from the safety of a chair. The end result is still the simulation of violence rather than being in any actual risk. There is a sub-sect of 'The Fail Army' who call themselves 'The Pain Lords'. This group has a much more misanthropic view of the world. They spend hours collecting the screams of pain and making them into bizarre soundscapes they listen to in their sleep. They hang around accident black spots with night vision cameras, giggling to themselves as they wait for the next car containing a family to wrap itself round a tree. They watch snuff films on their phones as they ride public transport, not caring that the people around them are torn between curiosity and disgust. 'The Fail Army' is trying to distance itself from these sociopaths, yet they do have the best taste when it comes to selecting footage for the annual 'Fails of the Year' videos.

It is empathy that makes the videos worth watching. Is it more valuable to place yourself as the cameraman at a distance, or as the victim of the accident, imagining your vision spinning as your head tumbles over a fluctuating centre of gravity? To imagine the smack of concrete against an elbow or having a metal fence rammed between your legs brings out a more satisfying enjoyment of the videos. That way when the day comes in which you suffer a horrible accident, you will have already felt it a thousand times before. And maybe somebody will be filming you as it is happening.

Dog Looking At Jupiter

It has a penchant for astronomy.

The Unseen Great

The man that had no job filled his nights with work, building something of immense value. It was one of the greatest sculptures that had ever been created in the history of art, cast in iron and standing high above him as he laboured beneath, working the form real with his hands, his thoughts obsessed onto the subject. It seemed to have grown inside him, it's vines clawing behind his eyes and lying heavy in his belly, spearing his heart, lacerating his insides, killing him. And still he worked. The nights would turn into mornings and this would continue before he slept on a broken mattress by the window, his biorhythms and instincts replaced with working on the thing. He had become a slave to the idea. Even in his dreams he would continue sculpting, cursing himself on waking. He looked as if he had drowned, skin almost translucent white beneath the stained, filthy clothes that hung to his weakening body like dark flags. Hour after hour he worked, getting closer and closer to perfection. But as it neared completion the man choked on a famous brand of butter candy and died, alone except for the sculpture.

Decomposition had set in and the man was slowly melting. The cells that made up his body had began to rot, membranes disintegrated against a sea of cold enzymes and putrid blood. His landlord let himself in after a few weeks of unpaid rent. At the back of his mind he was aware that there was a corpse on the floor, though all of his attention had been drawn to the iron sculpture in the centre of the room, surrounded by various tools and materials. The sculpture set him into a trance that last for the next two hours and when asked about the experience later he said that it was 'the most beautiful moment in his life'. The sculpture was taken away by tree cops and melted down, though it's after image remains burned into their retinas like sun spots. The public doubts the sculpture had ever existed, though some of them do and they like the idea so why not let them think that as it's more interesting than if it didn't actually happen.

My Favourite Thing About Breakfast

I just wanted to tell everybody what a good breakfast I just had in bed post getting out of bed, pre-yawn hungry man achieving true 'burning man festival' memory space within the four walls of the head. Although I am a fan of breaking the fourth wall, preferably through the art of food making.

It begins by reviewing breakfast ingredients. Mushrooms from Calcutta. Bacon for Norway. Eggs from some underground battery in Slav. Whichever it is there is a calculated cooking time to reach optimistic food warmth. Pork is traditionally eaten at breakfast although I have also experimented with fish, beef and poultry. Your miles may vary on the ascent of breakfast meats although one thing is definite, it will require frying in roughly 2mm of oil. The pre-toast will be required a suitable time for grilling between overheated electrical wiring, the only danger are possible metallic polymers within the bread. If you consider your bread to contain foreign objects, microwave it. After a second or two it will start popping and whizzing like a

fourth of july barbecue

if there are indeed contaminants these can be exorcised using specific bread scooping tools such as the double lipped scissor or the angled spoon that any reputable chef or kitchenstein should own at this stage in life, since you can read. Fungals are next in the pan, followed by any other similarly sized brekky chunks such as black pudding, cheeseballs, bread, hash browns, tomatoes and the like. The last to go in a whole egg, cracked on the rim and then opened upside down in order to get no shell in the delicate membrane. All should be served on a single plate and then brought up with a cup or mug of tea and coffee. The difficult part is finding a suitable surface for your breakfast meal although I believe that the intellect needed to achieve this is best supplied by snorting a thick half crumbled pile of cocaine off your house key. Options for the breakfast include a glass of cold orange juice and a cigarette, depending on one's cancer apathy.

Visualize

Now we can see ultraviolet.

Three Skinner Box

The rat presses the button, the scientist is conditioned to give him food.

Geodesic

Fungal Infections throughout History

Catoblepas!

Saviour

There is an old oil tanker currently in the Pacific ocean that Jacob Donaldson has taken over and used to create a travelling island. The deck of the ship has been transformed into stretches of soil and vegetation. Amongst the grass and the trees move tigers and apes, the only two species Donaldson decided would go onto his boat. In the keel of the ship are various gardens, personally attended to by Jacob Donaldson. Nobody knows how long Donaldson will occupy the boat although his family are currently attempting to rescue him due to his previous history of madness.

January 16th 2013

face blast

HPPD Therapy

Magic eye patterns dissolve showing miserable sex acts. The only clues in the crime of the century.

The Beamer

Fake time machine magazines smelling like cheap meat and sweat, generally. Horror films portray the imaginary corpse diagrams for murders, shapes similar to sleeping positions found in both tall and short people. His whole digestive system was failing due to severe constipation, brought on by a dread. Beacons of nerve clusters echo out.

Small plants have recently been found growing inside people. Drug smugglers are known to plant rows of seeds underneath their skin, nefarious flora. Certain tribes in darkest Vietnam have been found to actually get vitamins from the sun. There is hope that science can understand in what way will growing vegetables inside your chest would be useful.

History of Pain