can adapt signals to our visual register. Yet another element focusing on percep-
tion and its manipulation are the drugs involved, the therapist’s injection as
much as the white stripe. One of the parameters through which drugs can be
assessed, is whether they are energizing or relaxing, whether they support high-
or low-speed activities. Another is whether they support presence or open alter-
nate worlds of fantasy through changing our perceptions, even offering halluci-
nations. InRubber Johnny, drugs, at least the white stripe, may evoke a sense
of both the energizing and the hallucination-inducing, but first and foremost it
can be related to the speed of a certain kind of music, which through the aes-
thetic of post-production, has ventured beyond the realms within which a hu-
man musician can handle without special aids. The tempo is simply far beyond
what a human body can play.
The music forRubber Johnnyis therefore largely produced by means of a
computer operating the instruments (or sound samples). This allows program-
ming to take place at a human speed, where both the sense of rhythm and the
body of the player/programmer can keep up. The speed of the tracks can later
be played at a completely different speed, in this case much faster.Thus, the
limits of human performance and perception also become an arena for the mu-
sic here. The music pushes up against and partly beyond the limits, not only of
what the human body can play and dance, but also of what it can perceive.
Sound and image in the ordinary music video, according to Michel Chion, are
only occasionally synchronized.Vernallis also notes this in her discussion of
the music video director, Francis Lawrence’s work:“Editing is subtly articulated
off the beat and irregular. It makes the music the dominant voice–the image
serves as a coloration or counterpoint.”She also describes how Lawrence’s
“softly articulated editing falls off the beat, bringing the song’s rhythm to the
fore.”InRubber JohnnyandOnly You, Cunningham articulates a diametri-
cally opposed vision. InRubber Johnny, synchronization is taken to the ex-
treme, much further than in the already strongly synchronizedOnly You.
Thus,Rubber Johnny, by means of music and imagery, pushes us to the edge
of or beyond human perception. Cunningham comments on his exploration of
the limits of perception by saying:
I wanted to see how fast you can go before it becomes nonsensical, a mess. The edit-
ing style inRubber Johnnyis actually very old fashioned and simple. If you were to
watch it at half speed you would see that.
It was incredibly difficult to edit this video and find that line, where it seems break-
neck, but still flows and makes sense as a sequence. I would have to redo each shot
about twenty times in order to find something that worked. It involved a lot of ex-
perimentation. It was closer to animation than editing and I had to create the video
two frames at a time.176 Arild Fetveit