New England-based art collective Paperrad has released their first full-length DVD, and, if you were cooler, this is what you would see when you closed your eyes. After rising to recent prominence directing videos for Providence art-rock duo Lightning Bolt (displayed in one such video as a bipedal purple tiger and Cap’n Crunch), Paperrad has fulfilled their promise. The collective’s trademark day-glo visual assault takes multiple forms over Trash Talking’s hundred-plus minutes, from an anthropomorphic cloud informing the viewer that they “don’t have to click ‘save’ when they’re done using the internet” to an animated Garfield watching a televised stuffed Garfield growing a beard.
Trash Talking can be seen as a reaction to the nostalgia many twentysomethings feel, perhaps inexplicably, for the eighties and early nineties. Here, Paperrad delivers all the nostalgia possible at breakneck speed while simultaneously laughing their asses off. The Muppet Babies show up, but the nostalgia primarily takes the form of the brain-melting colors and VHS compression that signify youth for so many of us. Much of this DVD may be complete visual chaos, but it’s the only work of art this year that emphasizes the huge cultural importance of the phrase “Da ‘Da Vinci Code’.”
Paperrad’s detractors have referred to them as repetitive, annoying, and gimmicky. That might be so — I’m no art critic. The fact remains, though, that if a cartoon dog in a tuxedo and top hat asks me if I want to go for a ride on a magic carpet, I’m going to say ‘yes’.
