#sinking inside yourself

Hammock - Sinking Inside Yourself

When I was in high school, one of my awesome English teachers taught me that there are essentially two ways you can look at art. One of those methods looks purely at the work itself and ignores any biographical, historical, or personal background associated with it. The other does just the opposite: it looks at the artists background, what he/she/they put into the art, and what it means to them. This video can and should be looked at through each of these perspectives, because they reveal - in their own ways - different kinds of beauty.

Simply looking at this video as a work of art, it's fucking brilliant. It's not everyday you can take a 6 minute shoegaze song and pair it up with visuals that really make you feel what the music is trying to say. But, if anyone's gonna do it, it's Altobelli. This dude is a masterful storyteller, and no one's arguing about that, but some credit should also be given to genius DP Larkin Seiple. His oft-underexposed images mixed with some lightly trippy lighting tricks really make us feel like this girl is 'Sinking Inside [her]self'. So yeah, from that perspective, this shit is DOPE. But if we take a step back and look at this video from a broader perspective, it takes on another kind of beauty. 

A quick history lesson:  - One of David Altobelli's first major music videos (Breathturn) was with Hammock back in 2010  - That video was also DPd by Larkin Seiple and produced by Ross Girard - This video uses a decent amount of footage from a couple other Hammock videos Altobelli directed (namely Cold Front and Tape Recorder)

- This video was uploaded one year ago, but was just made public last week - Hammock said in an interview recently that Altobelli will no longer be making their videos

*end history lesson*

Okay, so what does all this background info tell us? Well, in my opinion, it could tell us a few things. I don't want to read into anything too much, but I also don't think it's too big of a stretch to assume that this video may essentially be a break up video for the Altobelli crew and Hammock. It's almost like he rounded up everyone who was there from the start and tried to create the most subtly meta video of the year. I mean, come on, it directly draws from two other Hammock videos and is a song about detaching yourself from the world around you. I don't know and will not speculate as to whether or not the band and/or Altobelli has sunk deep inside themselves with their art, or if their decision to no longer work with each other is 1) actually true; and 2) mutual.