Artist explores the damage our screens inflict in new video
After this summer’s release of their applauded Stories In Glass EP, Iris Lune have shared a follow-up video for their song “Screenshot,” which can be watched below.
The poetic embodiment of director James Berry’s “what if” scenario explores the lack of intimacy and empathy humans experience in modern life, due in many ways to the screens we use to hide behind–our cell phones. In the words of Berry, “This video takes on the human struggle to be vulnerable face-to-face. Our phones attempt to connect humanity, but our screen creates a shield to what is happening directly around us.”
That “what if” Berry brings to life chronicles a child participating in the funeral of their father—which is put on by the child’s stepmother—and the attendance of their mother who is estranged from the situation, but yearns to say her goodbyes to the man she still loves.
Pair that with the powerfully poignant song, which Iris Lune frontwoman Ella Joy Meir says is about, “being connected in many ways but also very disconnected in others.”
The pulsating rhythm creates a sense of urgency, as Meir’s ethereal vocals soar over the melody with an important message to deliver. She explains, “We are so attentive to our phones that sometimes we forget to pay the same attention to what’s in front of us, to be vulnerable with one another face-to-face…Sometimes it’s amazing being connected to the world in ways that weren’t possible in the past, just so long as we don’t forget that life is also happening right now, to us, where we are.”
