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The third exploration in this series focuses on those musicians and artists who prefer to foster a sense of obscurity and anonymity within the medium, therefore offering an alternative to the approaches to persona projection in the music video format made by Bono and Holly Johnson described in the previous two posts. In 1996, Fluke (John Fugler and Mike Tournier) created one of the main tracks for the new PlayStation game, Wipeout 2097 (Psygnosis) entitled “Atom Bomb.” Fluke were one of several emerging electronica artists who also created tracks for the game, including Leftfield, The Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy and Orbital.

Animation director Shaun Magher, who created the video, recalls that “In 1991, I was keen to establish my own animation studio, after recently graduating from the National Film and Television school, and was represented by a new production company, headed up by Fiona Stylianou, called Popata. We were approached by MCA records to look at a new release from Holly Johnson, who had firmly established his solo career beyond the earlier success with Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Holly wanted to develop a fantasy sci-fi adventure for his latest track Across the Universe, where he and his sidekick, Funky his faithful pooch, would traverse the universe. Johnson wanted a mix of “Tintin styling in a Star Trek universe.”

This piece combines the analytical and contextual writing of Shaun Magher and James Clarke with a series of first-person accounts and recollections offered by Magher relating to a series of specific case studies that illustrate the article’s area of exploration.

Across the spectrum of popular music, there’s a fascinating seam that intersects with music, visual culture, and animation. That intersecting seam is the form of the animated music video. These short animations have a rich tradition, and the animated aesthetic can offer a version of a rock/pop star as a fantasy incarnation of themselves.