Monkey Drummer

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Monkey Drummer is a 2.5 minute long music video created by acclaimed British music video director Chris Cunningham in 2001. The video was commissioned by the Anthony d'Offay Gallery in London and was meant to be a companion piece to his Flex commercial, but it wasn't completed in time for the exhibition in September 2000 and instead made its debut at the Venice Bienalle's 49th International Exhibition of Art in November 2001. It subsequently went on to run in several exhibitions such as the Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland.

[edit] Making the Video

The music playing in the video is Mt Saint Michel + Saint Michaels Mount by Aphex Twin. It is the 10th track in his album drukqs which was released under the artist name of Richard D James in 2001. The video itself was supposed to be a humorous, kinetic study of a mechanical being with nine appendages, each one controlling individual parts of a drum kit with the 9th appendage representing the monkeys penis.

The owner of the different bodyparts playing in the video is Sigtryggur Baldursson, a founding member of Icelandic rock band The Sugarcubes. He was shot multiple times in various positions with his torso being chopped off in post and replaced with a mechanical one. The idea itself apparently came from the little wind-up mechanical monkeys of the past century, only taking it a step further putting a 21st century edge on it and having the monkey evolve from crashing a single simple beat on some cymbals to playing a full drum kit to a highly fast and complicated Aphex Twin track. To finish the video off, vertically running up on both sides of the screen is the wave frequency of the track, adding a kind of scientific test video edge.

[edit] Further Information

The video was distributed on a Creative Review DVD in November 2001, and is also featured on The Chris Cunningham director series DVD called Director's Series, Vol. 2 - The Work of Director Chris Cunningham - which was released in 2003.