M.I.A. is still relevant. See? She’s proven it with her latest music video for that song that’s in the Captain Morgan White Rum commercial, “Double Bubble Trouble” off of her 2013 LP Matangi. The video features all of the hip stuff kids are into these days: 3D printed guns, 3D printed drones, and group make-outs in front of elevators.
The video begins with news coverage of Cody Wilson’s 3D printed Liberator pistol spliced with an Ultimaker 3D printing the letters M-I-A, which is either good press or bad press for the 3D printer manufacturer, depending on how you look at it. Then, we see gangs of indifferent youths grabbing what are probably meant to be 3D printed assault rifles, but are more likely toy assault rifles because no one really wants to wait that long to 3D print a bunch of guns just for a music video. One way that you can tell that they’re probably not 3D printed is because of how refined and functional they look; in real life, most 3D printed firearms look like an 8-year-old’s crude drawings of laser cannons.
This footage is followed up by 3D printed drones in the shape of peace signs flying above M.I.A. as she line dances with other women wearing shirts that read “DBT” (Double Bubble Trouble). Also interspersed throughout the video are clips of a young adolescent 3D printing a copy of a key, referencing the stories that have come out about the potential to 3D print duplicate keys for illegal purposes. And then there’s a short clip of an Arduino doing something Maker-ly.
If you watch the video, it feels as though it glamorizes 3D printed guns and violence at the same time that peace signs float overhead. You’re supposed to think there’s meaning there, like maybe the video is meant to paint a near future in which, using cheap hardware, the youth, whilst smoking e-cigarettes, rebel against the Orwellian corporatocracy revealed by the leaks of Edward Snowden. Political commentary and such. But this really seems like another example of the artist using shocking images for media attention. So, as much as 3D printing guns looks really fun and awesome in this video, she will likely tell people she doesn’t advocate the practice, meanwhile having a great SEO phrase associated with her song and subsequent interviews. If that happens, then what the video really demonstrates is M.I.A.’s attempt to appear tech-savvy and “with it” as she continues to brand herself as a rebel. (Had she really wanted to seem tech-savvy and with it, she would have done a video more like this.)
I do have to give her props, though, for knowing about the 3D printed key thing and showing that cool dude who can do sweet vape tricks out of every orifice of his body.
Source: Gawker
