Synopsis

"Sleepy People" is a non-narrative visual music piece built around shifting abstract imagery rather than characters or a conventional storyline. Shapes, textures, and changing visual patterns unfold in measured correspondence with Microstoria's subdued electronic composition, creating an atmosphere that feels suspended between animation, signal processing, and dream imagery. The video favors gradual transformation over dramatic action, turning the track's soft glitches and carefully edited sound fragments into a cool, hypnotic audiovisual environment.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video dates from 1997, while "Sleepy People / Network Down" first appeared on Microstoria's 1996 album _snd.

• It was created within Germany's emerging visual-music and VJ culture, where abstract moving images were presented as an equal partner to electronic sound rather than as a promotional narrative.

• "Sleepy People. Network Down" was included in the YUV V.02 / Spatial Lines program, a curated selection described as a visual archaeology connecting avant-garde animation of the 1920s with contemporary electronic-image culture.

• The track runs for approximately five and a half minutes and is presented as a continuous piece, reflecting Microstoria's interest in texture, microscopic changes, and sound edited into carefully arranged fragments.

• Microstoria consisted of Markus Popp of Oval and Jan St. Werner of Mouse on Mars. Their work on _snd used improvisational source material, digital editing, and instruments alongside digitally implemented equivalents.

• The official online upload appeared through Thrill Jockey Records in December 2006, helping preserve and recirculate a late-1990s audiovisual work for a new audience.