Sym Fera

Interview with Promo News

People are rendered monumental, and moments of a life are examined in forensic detail, in Alexander Brown’s mesmerising video for Los Angeles’ duo Sym Fera.

Brown employs a distinctive camera technique, using close focus lenses, to pass across the human body as if it’s a landscape, and effectively freeze time. It is a process that allows him to investigate the brutal moments in a character’s history that helped to turn him into the unflinching monster he has become.

ALEXANDER BROWN:

Seeing the surface of the body almost like a landscape made these characters feel like huge statues frozen in time.

“This video came about while experimenting with my camera – using close focus lenses and high frame rates it allowed me to film handheld but capturing an ant’s POV.

“These experiments felt interesting, and seeing the surface of the body almost like a landscape made these characters feel like huge statues frozen in time. They made me think of the memories we have from our past, and how we sometimes re-live these memories, forensically exploring each detail.

“The song Little Things is about corruption. This felt like a great theme to explore with the treatment – specifically about the cycle of violence, and how the seeds of corruption are planted in childhood and institutionalised later in life. So the video was framed around this monstrous character recollecting the big turning points in his life.”