iamamiwhoami

        Back for good and for real. I was originally intending to write a post on one of the many artists I've bookmarked over my absence, but because it is currently very late in the evening (or rather early in the morning) and I've been animating all day and have therefore lost my mind, I'll leave you with something a little more cryptic, which I stumbled upon today.

        A YouTube user by the name of "iamamiwhoami", has been periodically posting one-odd minute videos which I can not make heads or tails of, but am absolutely fully drawn to. I'm guessing that the channel belongs to the girl in every video (so I'll refer to the artist as she for now), but I am not claiming to know this as the whole thing is currently some sort of big secret. Quite a few commenters have theories as to who the girl is, but none of them are people that I'm familiar with, so I will not go there. (Her most recent video, posted two weeks ago, which jumps from one to almost five minutes in length, suggests that she is a musician.) This is the video that I first encountered, and is actually my least favorite, although it is still extremely intriguing, a little terrifying, and somehow beautiful.
        The video reminds me of a dream I might have if I had a cold and went to bed with some Sudafed having just watched the scene with the hand-eyed monster in Pan's Labyrinth. Creepy and wonderful. I thought at first that the stretching/bending of some of the shots might bother me (it often reads more as just "effect" than actually adding anything), but I came away less concerned about it and more involved in the general bizarreness of it all (her long eyelashes around hauntingly blue eyes, the strange men looking on), it has some really beautiful moments.
        I was more interested however, in the six shorter uploads, which seem to be pieces to one big puzzle, although they don't fit quite exactly. You'll have to watch them yourselves, as it is difficult to put my finger on what exactly draws me to them, but they are really beautifully filmed, and the editing goes well with the sound/music.
        I'm also really interested in the way the work is being released (in little snippets, and anonymously), and think that it's almost equally as conceptually important as the work itself, but that is a whole other discussion and I am way too exhausted for it. In any case, watch the videos, they're wonderfully bizarre.

iamamiwhoami's youtube channel




images: screen shots of iamamiwhoami's recent videos