Mutable Temporality in“OY”
InOnly Youthe mellow and cinematic trip-hop soundtrack–based on a strong
baseline, laid-back drums, sparse use of electric piano and guitar, audio samples
and record-scratching–is topped by the intimate melancholy of Beth Gibbons’
characteristic voice, relating thoughts on what seems like a relationship beyond
repair. The video locates us in a desolate back-alley where we see a boy who
comes floating in the air towards the camera and lands his feet on the street.
His shoelaces are untied. They draw interesting patterns though the space. His
hair does as well. Beth also comes floating into the space, singing. A third motif
is an insistent zooming in on a window above them, where a man is standing
looking out, as if monitoring the action below. The curious floating movements
of the boy and Beth are generated by a series of effects. First, their bodies are
shot under water. Visible traces of the water itself are then removed. What re-
mains is the water’s effects on the bodies’gravity, their logic of movement, as
well as on their eyes and skin. This material is then further subjected to Cun-
ningham’s acceleration and de-acceleration effects and extensive use of slow
motion. The movements generated through having them take place under
water are quite uniquely fitted to the dreamy, cinematic slow motion-like atmo-
sphere of the music. The under water footage offers a peculiar vantage point for
controlling the movements later in post-production.
If the mutable temporality ofStreet Spiritwas based in slowing footage
down and speeding it up, as well as in the hybrid temporalities inhabiting the
same frame, inOnly You, the mutable temporality takes a more explicitly mu-
sical approach. Cunningham, in effect,dancesthe bodies to the music by means
of adjusting the speed of the footage in post-production. The implication of this
dancing is not only to overrule the automated reproduction process audiovisual
discourse is based upon. It is also to re-situate the human body as a malleable
“puppet”body open to control by another performer, who, in effect, takes on
the role of a master puppeteer. If the puppet answers to the master puppeteer,
he again answers to the rhythmic pulse of the music itself. With its temporal
performance so intimately answering to the logic of the music, this video rea-
lizes new potentials for an exploration of fundamental rhythmic pulses–pulses
that may inform both body movements and musical beats, and facilitate corre-
spondences between them–like we see in dance closely synchronized to music.
The level of synchronization at stake inOnly Youis reminiscent of the extreme
forms observable in the way Michael Jackson danced his funky pop, drawing on
the tap dance tradition, or from a different continent, the aggressive, yet sweet
care for the beat displayed by the British dancer Akram Khan when performing
166 Arild Fetveit