Holly Herndon - Movement

Staying true to the track’s title, the video for Holly Herndon’s Movement is a visual in constant flux, centred around two sweat-soaked male and female dancers captured twisting and cavorting.

Director Mathew Dryhurst has shared that the video is a conceptual piece, aiming to present a visual counterbalance to how China can still be viewed by the West as some kind of concealed, imminent threat:

“It often reads like a horror story; jobs are ‘stolen’ from American communities, Chinese manufactured products look exactly like domestically produced products, yet like insurgent entities are often discussed with an air of suspicion and dread. In opposition to that suspect mindset, we set forth to produce a moving image in intimate hi-fidelity, inspired by the grace and power of Chinese Olympic legend Guo Jingjing, master filmmaker Jia Zhangke and the elegance and futurity of Joyetech e-cigarettes.”

As well as exploring this concept, the video also expands on the sense of human/machine collision that ran right through Holly Herndon’s debut for RVNG. At times while the dancers are in motion a finger creeps into view, which then “swipes” away the current shot, Ipad-style, as if some higher technological force is secretly controlling proceedings.

Holly Herndon will join Oneohtrix Point Never and Ducktails for a Hurricane Sandy relief performance as part of MOMA’s PS1 Sunday Sessions in New York this weekend. Dummy’s Selim Bulut recently interviewed Holly Herndon, discussing technology and dance music’s endless need to experiment, which you can check out here.