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Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Omega and the Mechanical Animals | I really don't mean any harm toward Mr. Lanning, but I find it very ironic that his company is now leaving the video game industry. This same decision from a man who promised to deliver a revelation with Much's Oddysee. Mhm.
But seriously, I wish Lorne Lanning the best of luck. He's actually an incredibly creative and talented guy.
Earlier tonight I was talking Marilyn Manson with my sister. She's a big fan and like me she's a relatively artistic person. She has a strong interest in photography and different types of art media (charcoal, watercolour, etc). If I can ever show you her work, I will. Her charcoal work in particular is brilliant - absolutely brilliant. Some of her pieces are almost photorealistic. Not bad for a sixteen year old.
I thought that she may be interested in learning about Gottfried Helnwein. Helnwein is an artist in his own right (in quite a large array of media), but he has also collaborated heavily with Marilyn Manson over recent years.
His work is really a mixture of different philosophies, but if you look at his photography you'll find that most of it is pretty grotesque stuff. He collaborated with Marilyn Manson on The Golden Age of Grotesque, which had pretty interesting results.
This led to a deeper discussion about Marilyn Manson's art. Actually, the discussion began because I was thinking about the thread on OB related to this subject.
Obviously there's far too much to say about his work overall to go into a lot of detail here, but I thought I'd share one thing with you:
| "Along with representing Mercury, Manson's personification of the Androgyne also is symbolic of half of the songs of Mechanical Animals. In album artwork the opposite cover of the album shows Manson dressed as Omega, the lead singer of the fictitious group Omega And The Mechanical Animals. Instead of the song progressions being cyclical like Antichrist Svperstar or linear like Holy Wood, Mechanical Animals represents the same era of time and space. With the story told with The Triptych of Manson's albums Antichrist Svperstar, Mechanical Animals and Holy Wood, an autobiographical story of Manson's life about a boy growing up and influenced by the world and wanting to change the world, to start a revolution. But when that revolution was enacted it ceased to be dangerous and any method of change, it becomes another product. And the only way to destroy the corruption and stop the hollow revolution is to destroy what you create and thus inherently destroying yourself. Mechanical Animals represents the point in the story of this rise to fame and where the revolution becomes another mere product. The side and half of the album represented by Omega And The Mechanical Animals shows the public side, the debaucherous and self-indulgent aspect of it. Ambivalent of the corruption of the revolution, this side of the album is full of facetious over the top hollow anthems of disenchantment. The other half of the album however shows not the public and indulgent side, but rather the internal and unseen conflict within; the sadness, innocence and sincerity which had been lost in the public light. The album's cover reflects this, just as the reverse side of Omega reflects the indulgent and hollow perspective of it. The Androgyne demonstrates this fragile childlike innocence. And one of the more esoteric representations of this is that Manson has six fingers on his left hand." |
Note the sixth finger in the close-up above.
That's one tiny little tidbit. But isn't it fascinating? And that's just in relation to one album.
This is the sort of thing that I think most people are missing. I remember one guy said that Manson's visual image was there as a kind of crutch, to back-up his music. It's funny, because in actual fact, there is a very clear and meaningful correlation between the well-crafted visuals and the very specifically-developed lyrics and music.
I wish that more bands put such thought into their music and image. Afterall, why can't music correlate with imagery that is just as detailed and multi-layered as the music itself? It's great that I can use both my eyes and my ears to have a richer experience.
If you are interested in learning more about this stuff, you should go here. It's become a favourite site, simply due to the wealth of historical information. It's also a really interesting way to learn about Marilyn Manson's many, many influeces in history (both in terms of art and religion). It doesn't disappoint.
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