Walter Stern
Teardrop (Massive Attack Music Videoclip)

THE REVIEW

Walter Stern (Gbr): Videoclip of "Teardrop", Massive Attack (Gbr) from "Mezzanine" (1998)

The line between sweetness and unease is always thin: what attracts us the most often coincides with what scares us the most. We are at the mercy of our emotions even before we are born, but perhaps even before that. In the mind of a god or several gods... or maybe simply the cosmic void: (ir)rationally more plausible.

Inside the warm maternal womb, we cannot even imagine what awaits us out there: how could we dream of something for which we don't yet have any image? How could we be scared of it? How could we be attracted to it? 

We are here and we feed on small perceptions: messages that reach us among the sounds of maternal physiology, a perfect rhythmic heartbeat, and the more confused ones coming from the outside. These noises are our tranquility. This little space is our kingdom.

Millions of possible combinations have led to our creation, genetically older than our parents, in an evolutionary drive that we currently ignore but is within us.

The line between sweetness and unease is always thin: only by being born will the answers come, but perhaps we still have some time to feel like masters of our imagination.

The video was created by combining digital processing with the animation of a puppet made of plastic material: the movement of the fetus's lips was digitally reworked from that of singer Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins): here is the genesis of the idea.