NEW STEVEN WILSON VIDEO FOR “SELF” PREMIERES VIA NEW YORK TIMES SQUARE BILLBOARD THIS MORNING
WATCH AND SHARE “SELF” HERE
THE FUTURE BITES AVAILABLE TODAY VIA ARTS & CRAFTS
BUY / STREAM THE FUTURE BITES HERE
Steven Wilson has released a mind bending video for the track “SELF”, taken from his just released album THE FUTURE BITES. Directed by longtime visual collaborator Miles Skarin, the video uses similar deep fake technology (DeepFaceLab) to that used in Channel 4’s Alternative Queen’s Speech. In the clip, Steven’s face is warped into those of a series of iconic (and occasionally infamous) celebrities including (among others) Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Zuckerberg, Brad Pitt, and David Bowie (to name a few). The effect is equal parts mesmerising and disturbing, questioning the nature of identity in an age where everything is so easy to fake.
The video for “SELF” premiered today on a digital billboard in Times Square (corner of Broadway and 7th and 43rd) at 7am EST and went online everywhere at 1pm GMT.
WATCH AND SHARE “SELF” HERE
Steven Wilson: “‘SELF’ is about our new age of narcissism and self-obsession, one in which a human race that used to look out with curiosity at the world and the stars now spends much of its time gazing at a little screen to see themselves reflected back in the mirror of social media. In that sense everyone now can take part in the notion of celebrity, and has the potential to share their life with an invisible mass of people they will never meet. The video take things further by exploring the idea that anyone can now project a version or ‘self’ that has no bearing on reality, and by using only well known faces the deception is made transparent.”
Miles Skarin (director): “In our early discussions about the ‘SELF’ video, we were talking about the concept of identity in the digital age, how your face is not only your key to a lot of the media you consume, it represents who you are - or who you pretend to be in your online personas. One of the most intriguing new developments in recent years have been the ability to create deepfakes, where a computer runs a machine learning algorithm to predict what one face would look like in another’s pose. Anyone with the right tools and ability can now turn themselves into anyone else, so what does that mean for identity?”
BUY / STREAM THE FUTURE BITES HERE
THE FUTURE BITES was released on January 29, 2021 to huge acclaim:
“Wilson’s strongest outing to date... The Future Bites is guaranteed to weather the ravages of time” Record Collector 5*
“OK Computer for the Amazon age... one of the boldest and best albums Wilson has made” Prog
“The Future Bites is a great, grown-up pop record - knowing and self-aware, but never too much for its own good” Mojo 4*
“A beguiling pop rabbit hole” Uncut 8/10
"Pink Floyd’s Welcome To The Machine if Rick Wright had been given free rein with the synths and Nick Mason had programmed a drum machine” Electronic Sound
“Wilson has never before paced such a rollercoaster ride into a single album…another triumph” Classic Rock 9/10
