If you spend enough time on YouTube, you’re sure to come across a wormhole of crudely computer-animated videos that are so unbelievably bizarre that you can’t imagine a human story-boarded them. Take Airplane Johnson, for example: what the fuck?
This seems to be the aesthetic Laser Background—the solo moniker of Speedy Ortiz guitarist Andy Moholt—strove for (and achieved) in his video for his latest Evergreen Legend single, “Getting Warmer,” which appropriately contemplates the rising likelihood of an A.I. overhaul of our individual consciousnesses.
“‘Getting Warmer’ is the result of many late night tour van discussions exploring the inevitable advent of true Artificial Intelligence, which I personally believe will happen sometime in the next thirty to fifty years,” Moholt shares. “Thinking further about this possibility, there is a real fear amongst some of us ‘diet luddite’ types that in order to keep up with super-intelligent machines, humanity will begin to augment our brains with technology. Imagining a future where you can surf the wide world of webs in the simple blink of an eye can be fun, but when considering the potential dystopian implications, the slope starts feeling a little slippery.”
Despite these anxieties, the track is a pretty loose and playful number, pinning the songwriter’s soft Nick Reinhart–like vocals over undulating synths and acoustic and electric guitars as the video projects images of a severed computer-animated head dropping down a flight of stairs.
“Imagine, for instance,” Moholt continues, “receiving advertisements in your vision that you can’t skip unless you pay for ‘Premium.’ Further still, if we come to be born pre-fitted with a mental internet connection, how will this impact how we as a people perceive and learn about the world? How far off are we then from achieving a shared consciousness hive-mind type situation, a ‘singularity’ so to speak? What happens, then, to individuality? What recourse is there if a potentially malevolent government or malevolent A.I. controls how we think, communicate, travel, etc.? I honestly think about this subject endlessly, with both terror and fascination for what is in store for us this century. My takeaway is that the genie of technology is out of the proverbial lamp, and as a wise person once said, ‘Once you pop, the fun don’t stop.’”
Evergreen Legend is out May 1—cop it here.
