Mash // Kick // Walk // Dance

There’s something about this article and the collaboration it highlights that just makes me giddy. For centuries artists have found each other, discovered something magical when they combine forces, and created magnificent works of art…sometimes they’ve been unable to finish because they didn’t have the fame to get funding, or they had no audience. But today with the internet, artists can have instantaneous fame – and yes, even fortune. (Well, maybe not fortune…but the ability to raise enough money on Kickstarter to fund your project within one week due to your transcendental work going viral…well, that’s something, isn’t it?)

I think Girl Walk // All Day might be the quintessential representation of modern independent artistry. Yeah, that sounds like a string of BS buzzwords, but I mean every one of them. Think about it – a musician takes hits from across a plethora of genres and mashes them together into a fantastic and fun musical album, which he then releases online for free. A filmmaker hears that album and decides he wants to use it as the sountrack and basis for a short film/music video filmed geurilla-style in Manhattan, all shot, edited, produced, and released online for free. It stars a dancer who mashes together dance styles from every conceivable genre. A musician who cares more about making entertaining music than adhering to the archaic conventions of the pop music industry; a filmmaker who cares more about making an amazing viewing experience than adhering to the archaic conventions of the blockbuster film industry; and a dancer who cares more about expressing herself through motion and using her body to its limits than adhering to the conventions of any one style of dance.

There is something beautiful about all of those layers mashing together…and something magical in the realization that ten years ago the whole thing would sound insane, but in our modern age when we are starting to perceive of art and its distribution so differently, it is practically unsurprising.

Here is the Kickstarter video for Girl Walk // All Day: