Now I am a very open-minded person, but if anyone is looking for a psychedelic video that is playing a rather catchy beat and vocals to it, then you might want to check out QUALIATIK’s new music video for her new song “Physicality”. Arielle Herman, the producer, singer, and song-writer behind QUALIATIK, has always been trying to showcase a more innovative approach to the creation of her music. With this in mind, Arielle came up with the concept of this music video. With no budget and no crew, Herman solely was able to create her music video, expressing a more wild and experimental side on the visuals. Every concept seen, sound heard, and story told through her works are all generated by her. Through this piece, it has been mentioned that Herman got her inspiration through the flim “Ghost in a Shell”, which has “hugely impacted her relationship with technology, identity, and gender”.
During one of her press releases, Arielle was able to talk about the plot of this video in great detail, along with the process of producing it. The quote goes as followed:
The character singing into the camera is an embodiment of some of my worst qualities— she’s the twisted one who’s doing the self-sabotaging; she is full of fear and emotionally spastic. The cyborg CGI character represents the ideal future self you are striving toward, but compounded with the fear that it’s contrived— something you have invented, a lie you are telling yourself, rather than who you actually are—whereas the character in the white dress represents an honest, pure future self, and you are trying to bridge the gap between the two. Releasing the video is a bit difficult because the main character is not me, but a caricature of my flaws. Through exploring this character, though, I was able to come to terms with some of those flaws, and that side of myself, and work through them in the complicated pursuit of self-discovery…
The quote is then continued on as Herman explains how the filming process went and how the visuals were conjured up as well.
…The filming process parallels the subject matter— I filmed outside on a mountain in 106º Texas weather, where my makeup was melting off my face and I was sweating bullets, then submerged in a 50º freshwater spring, then dunking my face repeatedly into a bucket of glitter-filled water to sing into a camera with my eyes open, which felt like some weird form of water torture. In a kind of twisted way, the process of making the video is a testament to not feeling a full sense of satisfaction unless you’ve really put yourself through the ringer for your work. At the same time, I recognize the melodrama of this whole dynamic, so the dancing CGI character is a tongue-in-cheek reminder to a higher self not to take any of this seriously.
Based on this quote, anyone can see that Arielle puts in 110% effort into her work of art. The amount of time and energy she puts into the story-line is remarkable within itself, not to mention that her track lyrics can seriously make the listener think a little more profoundly about the life around them. But above all else, it is remarkable how Herman can go from a student of neurosciences at Haverford College to now traveling around the United States and working on dropping her EP to the public. She has done a phenomenal job with this transition and I hope to see more spotlights come her way.
If anyone wants to view the music video, you can check it out right here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iew7d6GXHw