Experts have speculated that the barrier between fiction and perceived reality has been on the decline for some time, citing largely the influence of David Lynch, Boohbah and Psilocybin.
Tonight, over 100 million television viewers in Europe will have their perceived barriers between fiction and reality tweaked for a short stretch of time during a performance by the UK hip-hop act The Gorillaz as part of the MTV European Music Awards.
The group, created by Blur vocalist Damon Albarn and Tank Girl creator Jamie Hewlett, has always been a little on the eccentric side, appearing in music videos and even on tour as a bunch of two-dimensional, animated not-quite-gorilla creatures. Odder still, perhaps, is the fact that the vaguely creepy visage of an eyeless, simian face fronting a band has proven to be massively successful.
The MTV Euro performance, however, will be their most bizarre feat to date, as it will feature the entire group represented by three-dimensional holograms, courtesy of a new technology that has never before been used as part of a live music broadcast.
Though details about the performance are not particularly forthcoming, Hewlett has let on enough to reveal that this won't be a technological breakthrough on the same scale as, say, dancing Gorillaz cyborgs.
'Mind you, for the effect to work, everyone has their places where they're allowed to go and where they're not,' Hewlett said. 'If you ran behind them, shining a torch at them, it would probably all go horribly wrong.'
Still, the concept is impressive, and seems to be a sign that technology has finally reached the point where a group of musicians can put on a live performance from backstage without leaving fans perplexed or disappointed. The Gorillaz themselves had some experience with this on their last tour when crowds responded lukewarmly to the band's idea of projecting their two-dimensional cartoon images on a screen.
Fortunately, fans everywhere will soon be able to admire their new three-dimensional Gorillaz in the pixelated flesh, as the band has already announced they'll bring along the holograms for their tour, which supports their latest album Demon Days.
In a way, the Gorillaz have become an inversion of the Monkees, who began their career as a fictional band appearing in real form and then later broke away from their television roots while trying to build a reputation as a legitimate act. Albarn and company began as a real (and deservedly acclaimed) band and are working to downplay their own personas while fleshing out their cartoon alter-egos more and more.
The acts do have something in common (beyond the thing with the names) in their trailblazing presence in the media. The Monkees were created when television was still fairly young, and they are now seen as the precursors to both corporate- created bands of all types, and MTV (a concept which Monkee Michael Nesmith actually sold to Warner). The Gorillaz' music videos broke from the MTV mold right from the beginning and the band is now trying to do the same with the idea of performing itself.
Whether or not the Gorillaz will bring about a significant change in the music industry as a whole remains to be seen, but mixed-media performances already have a following that goes far beyond a bunch of stoners standing in line for 'Laser Floyd.'
If witnessing the possible beginning of a creative revolution isn't enough motivation to make you scour the Internet for a recording of the broadcast, it may interest you to know that the ceremony will also be hosted by one Borat Sagdiyev. Sexy Time!
