30 November 2010

We wanted to go to LA but we were headed for Spain.

Patrick Kielty,

I have a task for you; when Michael McIntyre fucks off (like I told him to) can you follow him please?

18 November 2010

I am what I am; and what I am needs no excuses.

Gay anthem there. But it's an ever-so-slightly witty reference to today's ra...well, it actually isn't a rant today.

I first became aware of it on March the 12th of this year via a tweet of Trent Reznor's (of Nine Inch Nails)


This was, of course, before I quit Twitter for the first time (I've done this twice now) but that's beside the point, the point is, one of my musical heroes was talking about something that I had never heard of, and it was, apparently, something that people thought he might be involved in. My interest was peaked, so I typed 'iamamiwhoami' into Google and Google directed me to the YouTube profile of iamamiwhoami.

I had a search around to get a grasp of what the fuss was about and found very little information at all, in fact, there was patently none. 

This was the first video I saw and also the first one uploaded.



Now please. What the fuck was that? Nice mellow trance-electronic music, and a video of a woman in black in a dark hole in a pool of water with limbs coming out of trees. Oh and what about that goat? Originally this had a video of a goat giving birth tacked onto the end but the uppity person who owned the video complained. And those numbers in the title, correspond to letters in the alphabet and spell out the word '
"educational".

Well I was truly intrigued now, as I always am by mystery, at first it reminded me of Nine Inch Nails BRILLIANT ARG (Alternative Reality Game) for their 2007 album 'Year Zero' which involved phone numbers, a multitude of websites, sonic analysis, mp3 files that had to be decoded, real life gigs, it was brilliant, and this seemed like the same thing. Well it isn't. Here's the second one.



Yeah, it's weird all right. the woman in the water is covered in some sort of mud and licks a tree, that then oozes white sap. And I don't think it's a Freudian interpretation by me that concludes that the sap is meant to look like semen and the knot in the tree is meant to look like a vagina. The animal is an owl (for inexplicable reasons as of the uploading of this video) and the numbers in the title spell out "iam"

After looking at that one I decided to look up other sites as to maybe shed some light on what I had of course assumed was some viral campaign for a new musical artist or album. Sure enough there were forums and articles rife with supposed 'evidence' that the artist behind these videos was Lady Gaga, Christina Aguilera, Trent Reznor, Little Boots, Goldfrapp and, the closest answer to the truth, The Knife. All of whom are not involved at all.

Here's number three.



Weirder still, strawberry cakes in a pool of water with a thrashing figure in it. This one's animal is a whale and its numbers say "itsme"

Number four.



What? Its animal is a bee and its numbers spell "mandragora".

By this point most interested people are ignoring the content of the videos with regards to what they might mean and are only concerned with the identity of the artist, who they assume is also the mud-covered woman. Here's another baffling video, the fifth.



Hooray! The strawberries are back and...we don't know what that means. What we do know is this video's animal is a llama and its numbers spell out "offiicinarum". Now that is a massive clue, when combined with the word from the previous video, 'mandragora' it becomes the latin name for the mandrake plant, the roots of which have a deep connection to folklore, because they can occasionally resemble a humanoid shape. So maybe the videos are all about mandrakes?

Here's the final of these 'prelude' videos and one that doesn't so much clear anything up as throw dust in your eyes and beat you about the head until you're thoroughly disoriented.



Yeah, I don't know either.But if you're following so far, this one's animal was a money and its numbers say "welcomehome". And did she say "Why?" or "Y"?

After this video there was a long-ish break of two weeks before the next video. Some of the more outlandish theories on who the lead singer was died away when they themselves or their publicity people denied any involvement and another heretofore unknown candidate was put forth based, of all things, on her teeth; some people started to say it was a little-known Swedish indie-pop singer-songwriter by the name of Jonna Lee.

Since the beginning of the campaign (if that is what it is) an MTV journalist by the name of James Montgomery had blogged about it. His was certainly the widest exposure the project had had so far. Creepily enough a package was sent to him at his desk at MTV that contained some chips of balsa wood, a strip of paper and a piece of human hair.


Now, Montgomery was stumped and later would criticise the entire project for being too long and too mysterious, so I call him a sour twat. But it did tell us that the animals meant something, and they meant something when put together.

A new video appeared on the 14th of March and it was unlike any of the previous ones, no animal, no numbers, and it appeared to be a full song. I'm going to put a whole bunch of them now, they were uploaded over the space of about 5 months.















Phew, that was a slog eh? So how much did you notice? Well yes, it spelled out BOUNTY and when 't' came out the faithful who'd stuck with the project began searching like mad for 'iambounty' finding a website www.iambounty.com that has displayed the same image (a drawing of a hand doing the American sign language for the letter 'b') from then until the at least the time of this post. The more investigative of them even performed a whois query and found that the site was in fact set up by none other than Jonna Lee. Well the mysterious woman's face was revealed and yes, it was Jonna Lee after all. And did you also notice that each video contained the words 'to whom it may concern'? Well that ends up being quite important.

What is abundantly clear is that music is a major part of whatever this is, but the videos aren't just there as music videos, they're just as important as the music, so it transcends being just another electronic concept album and reaches into the echelons of art. Each of these songs (or singles maybe?) have been released to iTunes by the way so if you really want them...there you go.

Over the past few weeks (as of the 18th of November) a few videos have been taken down, not for any breaking of YouTube's rules reason but for...narrative reasons. I'll do my best to explain from memory.

On the 1st of October 
a video titled "20101001" was uploaded calling for one volunteer from the YouTube community. This volunteer would be our representative who would give their name, telephone number and home address by the 8th of October. The video also gave us a link to http://towhomitmayconcern.cc/ (now dead) that appeared to promote an upcoming live performance.

Three days later a new video appeared, now this one hasn't been removed so I can put it on here you lucky shits.




If the previous videos had not convinced the community, then this has to be utter confirmation that the 'story' of the videos is that of the myths of the mandrake plant. In that video we see a hanged man, his semen dripping into a plant pot (representing the ground) from which springs a person. This comes from the folklore of the mandrake whereby a mandrake is made by the semen of condemned men, as people had noticed that it can happen that the hanged involuntary ejaculate. Of course Michael Hutchence and David Carradine knew that as well.

The next video, entitled '20101109' continues right where 20101104 left off, the woman descends the spiral staircase until she reaches a phone, above it is a printed out letter from the YouTube representative 'Tehhills' informing iamamiwhoami that she couldn't attend because she didn't have a passport (amongst other reasons) and that she endorsed the user 'ShootUpTheStation' in her place. Scrawled underneath that was ShootUpTheStation's (or SUTS as the community have dubbed him) phone number. The woman dials, slowly, then twirls the cord in her finger while it rings. A man answers and the woman tells him to turn on his camera, the scene shifts to that of a low-quality webcam and we see a young man, faced away from the screen, blonde, apparently German, this is SUTS. The woman asks him about himself and his beliefs, she then tells him he must record his journey and hangs up.

Over the next four days the videos are all in the style of a webcam 'vlog'.

101112 shows us SUTS' journey from Germany to Sweden. On arrival he gets in a car and is driven...somewhere.


101112-2 Shows us that 'somewhere' was a hotel. SUTS enters his room and reads an envelope addressed only 'to whom it may concern'. In the envelope is a piece of paper, an itenerary, each day is busy with 'Visits' and a 'Talk.'


In 101113 SUTS answers the phone in his hotel room. Music plays in the background and there is a knock at the door. SUTS answers and the camera shows us only his bed, the sound of plastic and masking tape is heard, we hear a camera go off and the video ends with an arm that does not belong to SUTS turning off the camera.


In 101114: A bearded man with a blurred-out face teaches SUTS to waltz and bow. In complete silence. After the man shakes SUTS' hand and leaves.


In 101115: A man arrives with a plastic bag of clothes, which he lays out on SUTS' bed, he leaves. SUTS shows us the dark clothing.


The next video was not a SUTS vlog style video. It was entitled http://towhomitmayconcern.cc/ (a link that is now dead) and, matching the background of a cork noticeboard that was present on that website. A woman's voice (presumably Jonna's) speaks, "At 12:01 AM Swedish time we act in concert on the wish to evolve. We will present you with a plausible path available for 6 hours on 'It Is What It Is'."


One more video appeared on the iamamiwhoami YouTube channel, it was called 101115-2 and showed us the now-familiar sight of SUTS' hotel room, SUTS can be heard talking on the telephone, telling whoever is on the other end that his webcam is on. There is a knock at the door. The video ends.


And that is all I have to tell you about iamamiwhoami. The mystery continues, since December of 2009, nearly a year, these videos have plagued my brain, my dreams, my waking thoughts, even my nightmares. I'm left questioning everything. Is it a marketing ploy? Is it art? Is SUTS in on it? Or is he a real, normal person?


I'm starting to think I may never know the truth. What the story is. What it all means. What it's for.


But I've enjoyed the ride.


P.S. the story isn't over. Just after the promised time of 12.01 Swedish time, a concert appeared on http://towhomitmayconcern.cc/ it was up for two hours less than the promised six hours. I was unable to see it 'live' but I did see it the following morning via download. If you like what you've seen on this blog post, if it interests you and you want to know more, there is something I can give you. Something I am not responsible for you seeing. The concert.