Monday, March 8, 2010

Another Media Outlet Exploring Possibility "iamamiwhoami" Could Be: Xtina

Starting December of last year, six videos featuring a mysterious woman covered in dirt and distorted by camera effects have been periodically uploaded to YouTube under the account “iamamiwhoami.”
The first video, labeled Prelude, features tree branches as arms and legs and shows glimpses of a woman in a type of womb. The second video gets even creepier, showcasing her licking a tree until it releases a white, gooey sap. In the following video she is floating in a pool of water while strawberry cakes appear in the forefront. The woman then gnaws on a tree until she gets it pointy enough for her to spin around on in the fourth video. Strawberries make a return in the fifth as the woman moves onto her next sexual conquest, another tree, but this time she’s got competition — barking dogs.
In the sixth clip, the ugly muck-covered tree hugger evolves into what seems to be a beautiful fairy-like creature with a tail made entirely of six gargantuan leaves. In the last eight seconds, her previous mucky self reappears, asks us “Why?” and then dips her head down in shame and confusion.

The seventh (sixth excluding the prelude) and final video is expected to premiere this week — in fact, it may premier today — revealing the artist behind all the manure and distortions.

If all that seemed too bizarre to fathom, I’ll wait while you go to the nearest computer to watch these videos. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Now, you should have noticed how each video ended with a drawing of a different animal — goat, owl, whale, bee, llama and monkey, in that order. You should have also noted that each video title consists of a seemingly random combination of numbers. For instance, the second is titled “9.1.13.669321018” which when converted into letters with A being 1, B being 2, C being 3 and so on, the digits “9.1.13” translate to I am. The others titles convert to It’s me, Mandragora, Officinarum and Welcome Home.

The legend of Mandragora Officinarum, a species of plant, claims that when rooted from the ground, the plant screams, killing anyone who hears it. And so, a farmer would tie a dog to the root of the plant, run away as far as he could and then throw food in front of the dog. The dog would run for the treats, uproot the Mandragora, hear its scream, die and then be buried after sunrise.

This presumably explains why the woman is constantly trying to become one with the tree and why there are six dogs in the fifth video when the girl is still covered in mud, but six graves in video six when she has been metaphorically “uprooted” and cleaned of all the dirt.

But what about all the other symbols and clues? What do the animals mean? What about the cakes? What significance do strawberries have to the myth of Mandragora? What about the repeated motif of the number six — six wombs, six cakes, six strawberries, six dogs, six graves, six leaves?

And who is iamamiwhoami?

The videos were initially sent to music blogs and are all categorized under the “Music” genre on YouTube, so “I” is definitely some artist. The arrangement of the words in the username is suspect; with a few additions of punctuation marks, the username can be written as “I am Ami. Who? Ami.” The names of already established singers currently being thrown around are the usual weird, quirky subjects like Lady Gaga, Goldfrapp, The Golden Filter, Little Boots, Kerli, Röyksopp, Nine Inch Nails and The Knife, but it’s the name of a less eccentric, more mainstream singer that I find most confusing and thus by far the most supposable — Christina Aguilera.

Aguilera has a new album coming out this Spring called Bionic: defined as characteristic of, or having robotic or futuristic elements replace and function as physiological and natural components, which the videos seem to showcase. She’s worked with many independent artists for this new record, such as MIA, Santigold, Goldfrapp and Sia, which lends credibility to the claim that the music featured in these videos sounds much like what the singer promises to deliver this year. She’s been seen wearing a strawberry cake t-shirt and has repeatedly said her pregnancy has inspired her art (hence the womb imagery), but both her publicist and stylist have denied her involvement in the campaign. Of course, her camp’s rebuff means nothing, especially in the midst of a viral operation that’s dependent on the anonymity of the artist it aims to promote.

But still, Christina Aguilera? The “Genie in a Bottle” girl from the Mickey Mouse Club has the creative chops to pull this sort of thing off? I doubt it.

And so, the mystery continues.

Source: TheCornellDailySun

1 comment:

  1. OMG the video is not available in my coutnry because it contains content of WMG and SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT!! that's a sign that it's christina, right? yes no? maybe?

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