I’m a big fan of the Adult Swim show, “Off The Air.” The episodes are all about 12 minutes long and are all available on YouTube. The show is a series of strung together vignettes and music that all follow a loose theme. Each episode is a one word theme (dance, falling, nightmares, nature, etc.) and includes stock video, bits from other movies or videos, and a lot of strange animation. These videos are incredibly fun to watch, as they break the traditional “rules” of media and rest gently on the border between profound social commentary and complete nonsense.
The one entitled “Nature”, however, displays some pretty great symbolism that represents and critiques humans’ relationship with nature, especially through film, art, and hunting. I made a bit of a scavenger hunt (much like the one in Cabela’s), and would love to know if you found these things in the video and what you think the filmmakers were trying to say by including them:
- Flash Drive -> Owl
- Hunter & Rabbit
- Digitizing nature
- Drumming birds
- Milk & Honey
- Park Bench
- “What’s up?” birds
- Bear & Rabbit
- Rhino & Airplane
- Cartoonization
- Dog “blob”
One thing I want to direct everyone towards is their attempt to reverse anthropomorphization. How did they do it? Do you think it worked?