Synopsis
Gary Setzer appears in a ritualized performance staged at the boundary between land and air. Framed by projected imagery and the stark surface of a landscape, the video presents the artist in orange coveralls as he performs a series of deliberately awkward, repetitive actions. The music and visuals remain closely intertwined, creating an abstract audiovisual piece rather than a conventional narrative. Its shifting images and physical gestures suggest a confrontation between language, meaning, nature, and the limits of representation.
Factoids & Trivia
- "Ineffable (I Did Not Know the Green)" is part of Gary Setzer's larger interdisciplinary project "Supralingual/Sublingual: The Tongue Is the Terrain," which combines electronic music, video art, and performance.
- The project uses the boundary between atmosphere and ground as a metaphor for the divide between language and meaning. Setzer's performances place symbolic actions directly on that imagined seam.
- The visual work is credited to Gary Setzer and Black, and dates from 2012. The song appears on the album "Supralingual/Sublingual: The Tongue Is the Terrain," released by Pretend Records.
- The album contains 17 tracks and runs for approximately 52 minutes. "Ineffable (I Did Not Know the Green)" is listed as a four-minute track.
- Setzer has described the project as a way of making performance art more accessible by combining its repetitive, process-based actions with the physical immediacy of rhythm and electronic music.
- Setzer's stated influences for the broader project include the performance and conceptual practices of Bruce Nauman and Joseph Beuys, along with the deliberately unconventional pop sensibility of Devo.
- Setzer is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice includes installations, performances, music, and video. Before developing his solo work, he fronted the electro new wave project Canada's Electric Tiger Machine.
- The video was later included in programming that treated music videos as extensions of experimental film, video art, and performance art rather than simply as promotional clips.