Bruce Springsteen at SxSW - lyric video [mixed media]

Way back in 2012 the mighty Bruce Springsteen gave his keynote address at SxSW, a thoughtful meditation on the creative process and process of life. This is just his peroration, he speaks about the way we are, the way we set out, and recognises the very simple truth of the duality of life.

This is my mixed media visual response, a way of interpreting a philosophy that I have always had stuck on post it notes around my desk, that I think about when people wang on about absolutes and extremes. A call to arms need not be bombastic, a dance of competing interests is always more complex and challenging, a mindset that allows yourself to elevate and humble yourself at the same time, the push and pull that forces you to accept the paradox and then find a way through it, that I’ve always let guide me. Creativity is a process of solving problems and it’s not restricted to people who art around for a living.

This was a mammoth project and had bits of it existing in my head over the last 9 years, but have been delving into animation over this period where I can’t work with humans. There’s no one way of creating, I couldn’t decide on one style so I threw the book at it, a patchwork of different disciplines - stop motion, photomontage, paper craft, graphics, illustration, typography, an attempt at puppetry and ruining existing classic artworks. None of it was planned properly, for each phrase it was a mess of thinking what format, animation and materials to use, chasing stimulus rabbit holes, how to tell the visual story of each phrase and how it transitioned to the next part of the story, then realising that it looked crap and rethunk the section entirely. Ran out of ideas by the end!

Animation + Visuals: Daniel D. Moses www.danielmoses.com

Audio: Bruce Springsteen SxSW in Austin, TX on March 15, 2012

Music: “The Lost Woods” - CK.Martin @codykurtzmartin

* Personal project