Haunted by You

In this video we see the artist Taiyo Kimura performing a sequence of amusingly absurd acts with records and turntables that are at once playful, shocking, and challenging. Kimura uses surprising objects including a balled-up octopus or a chicken leg to challenge our conventions and expectations of how to play a record. Food dances, the record skips, music distorts, and finally the turntable is put out of its misery, buried in the ground. These vignettes humorously illustrate the limitations of the record and find comedy in our failure as humans to master technology. In this case, Kimura himself is the victim as he humbly takes the brunt of his own jokes. The cartoonish quality of Kimura’s video reflects the cynicism and silliness of manga (popular Japanese comics) and enhances their comedic quality.