It is eerie how universal the current state of affairs feels. Universal firstly, because it’s a truly global and world-encompassing situation we all are confronted with and, in one way or the other, have to react to. Derived from this unalterable fact, another universality seems to be emerging: interpretation of culture in April 2020 inevitably demands a consideration of the bigger picture. There is not really a way around it and it would feel out of touch to dismiss reality. So here goes the video to Balzacc30 & RougeHotel’s “Prisonnier du Monde”, a corona-fever-dream that could not be closer to meeting the expectations of a contemporaneity. Contemporaneity as in: akin to what is happening now.

Exhibit A
The video is set in Skyrim, the eponymous world of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The trail blazing video game from 2013 re-defined what is possible in a genre known as open-world games. At a time, where more people than ever try to escape the grim factuality of our for-now-closed-world by playing video games (Animal Crossing! Untitled Goose Game! Fortnite! Minecraft!), Stranacorpus provides a video that’s set in a world of endless possibilities. The Geneva-based collective seems to be bitter-sweetly putting the finger on the wound.

Exhibit B
If there is a clear leitmotif to both track and video, it’s isolation. So, to point out the obvious: one of the more fruitful propulsions for creating art these days probably also has been the track’s nucleus. The world where the video is set feels deserted, from land to sea and mountains. Only rarely other entities are seen and if there is contact, things get competitively violent. From time to time, there are glimmers of hope, though the video’s hero eventually remains alone.

Exhibit C
The track is titled “Prisonnier du Monde”, what more is there to say?! Except for: Right in the feels.