“Corporate Cannibal" - a frightening pulse

"... I'm a man-eating machine

you won't hear me laughing, as I terminate your day

you can't trace my footsteps, as I walk the other way..."

Those are parts of the lyrics coming out of a stretching, sinister silhouette that kept shifting from on an empty background.

As I was looking at the video from Grace Jones called "Corporate Cannibal" on the first seminar we had of Context of Practice all that came across my mind was "disturbing". That must have been because I had no clue what to expect and didn't had any knowledge of what context or purpose that video was made.

After analysing and watching it several times, it was still a bit disturbing, but paying attention to the lyrics you realize that this music video was not only made with the purpose to promote an artist; but it was a way to express a feeling, of at that time was starting to experience the feeling of globalization. It seems like a simple video at first sight; a white background and a woman being deformed by a computer effect, but once you analyise it, all those aspects seem to go a bit further and things start to make sense.

The woman is a human representation of 'technology' it self. As technology is based on an electric and algorithmic plane, the background takes a place an blank or empty space, yet infinite, where the contrast with the woman being black (and not as in a racial aspect) gives a bigger impact to the image creating a minimalist effect.

" my rules, you fools"

By doing the distortion of her body the whole body and most of the time in a vertical way, it gives an effect of constant movement and instability which is a particular characteristic of electricity; as if she was a modulating signal.

At some point, getting lost in the lyrics, it made you feel like you have no scape to the 'prophecy' she's singing; a no way back no matter what.

The sinister way of singing and the multiple expressions she performs during the video are apparently part of the tendency Grace Jones has; although most of the times she sings in some kind of feminist wave. This time she has mixed an aggressive style of fashion and a genuine concern among many contemporary sociologists and that is the near future effect of globalization in a network society.

This could be a perfect example of how there's no need to represent a song's lyrics in a literal and cinematic way, and instead making it a call for the mass to realize how corporations have no limit in their greediness.

"... I'll consume my consumers, with no sense of humour

I'll give you a uniform, chloroform

sanatize, homogenize, vaporize...you..."