The new music video for Suuns's “Brainwash” represents the latest obsolete 3D imagery to, paradoxically, find new life thanks to technological advancements. Director Max Henry has created a subterranean metropolis which you can explore on your Android phone with a free virtual reality app programmed by Jake Clover. Their vision is of offices beneath cities beneath more offices, all rendered by what seems to be a Nintendo 64 graphics card soaked in energy drinks and thrown into the wormhole from 2001: A Space Odyssey, all backed by the song's by-turns soothing and shearing propulsion.
The band's Max Henry described in an e-mail how the video came together. “I first came upon game designer Jake Clover’s work through a 'Let's Play' series on YouTube - Rockleesmile was covering a game-jam inspired by his stuff. Brash, ham-fisted and just generally bonkers - it was a touch dark, maybe subversive, maybe immature, definitely unique, definitely brilliant. VR wasn’t the initial idea, but with the upsurge of interest in the medium - and as we were puzzling over how to package Clover’s landscape - it seemed like a no brainer.
“We were introduced to the work of Nicolas Roy and DPT; they were instrumental in seeing the VR vision through, and what you see is entirely due to their fine work and generous time. So what we have in the end is not a game, per se, but it did come out of that fertile and generous gaming philosophy - always forward, always daring. Montréal has a really creative game-making community, and though I still consider myself a bit of an outsider, this is a bit of a shout out.”
