Zombies, corporations and disturbing truths

Published May, 2014
by Easterndaze

“This is the story of apocalyptic times for Bog in ancestral lands of his country. Bog lives in Romania, Bucharest, a young girl half-naked and wild. Her body struggles between the stars of Europe and America’s omniscient eye, surrounded by hostility from her sisters Asia, Europe, Australia and Africa.“

A pseudo-mythical past, ideologies and inconvenient truths feature in the 40minute audiovisual bonanza entitled Cocalar Cosmos – National Geografic soul mix. Ceaușescu appears with his gargantuan palace, “Dacian hypnotized zombies”, corp/cores (Chevron and Rosia Montana, which spawned a wave of civic unrest in Romania last year with their environmentally damaging business activities in the country), as well as objectification of women. Bucolic landscape images are interspersed with graphic porn images…

Bogdan Marcu, the creator of both the music and the visuals, has toyed around with subverting nationalism and Romanian national identity. His bona fide insane mashups (check out his Easterndaze one here) encompass Romanian music – be it the much hated manele or the more traditional and contemporary one – with anything and everything that catches his fancy. In that way, he alludes to Negativland and their plunderphonic activism.

Cocalar Cosmos – National Geografic soul mix from LocalRec on Vimeo.