TEN LANDS
Video game, interactive videoclipYEAR 2020
ART DIRECTION, CGI, PRODUCTION Mélanie Courtinat
ORIGINAL MUSIC, SOUND DESIGN Yatoni
Ten Lands is a hybrid format that oscillates between an interactive video clip and a video game. Each level visually illustrates one of the ten ambient music tracks from Yatoni‘s latest album.
Ten Lands opens, in an underlying way, a double reflection that crosses both the video game industry and the music industry. This reflection emerged at a time when music could no longer inhabit public spaces and gatherings were forbidden. Far from clubs and concerts, new spaces and ways of experiencing music began to emerge.
With Ten Lands, the artist seeks to bridge the disciplines of music videos and video games. By merging the interactive format of one and the stakes of the other, Ten Lands is a cross-genre format in which each sound composition unfolds in relation to a specific virtual place. Landscapes and sounds happen and resonate simultaneously.
From then on, Ten Lands raises the issue of spatiality when listening to an album. Here the logics of unfolding the musical titles differ from those already in place, especially on streaming platforms such as Spotify or Soundcloud. Indeed, where one click is enough to start the next track, Ten Lands requires a journey.
By including the notion of space, distance and thus chronology, Ten Lands initiates a new logic of filiation when listening to a music album; close to the one, in particular, that animates the vinyl record. In fact, in the same way that the vinyl record requires listening to music one after the other, this new format requires that steps be taken in order to unroll the musical thread, unlike platforms that follow a logic of "deferred" listening, and the possibility of a disorderly discover. Here, this format pushes and gives you the opportunity to literally go through Yatoni's album.
Furthermore, from another perspective, the artist deliberately chose not to personalize every aspect of the experience. In Ten Lands, a single, enigmatic entity traverses the ten worlds. The avatar envisioned by the artist is defined by its anonymity: its thick, opaque metal armor conceals not only its face but any cues to its gender. Silent by nature, neither its voice nor its gait reveals any hint of its identity, making it impossible to discern distinct features or skin tone. In this way, the protagonist of Ten Lands stands as an inclusive figure, open for anyone to embody.
