ONE + NONE

Taylor Joe Berger
Oct 11, 2022
8 min read

Updated: Oct 13, 2022

A pile of dirt pulsating to the driving beat of the song. The ground scattered with pearls, dead butterflies, crabs, keys, and shells. A pale head surfaces with alert bulging eyes and gaping mouth, slowly unfurling a pointy tongue. A circling dance begins as the camera loops around the figure in centre, digging its way out. Molding and manipulating its surroundings, decorating itself with more and more pearls and objects once belonging to the soil it came from. A red flash, a regal statuesque appearance, and a sudden end as all is swallowed once again by the soil, only to give room to an emerging red rose, quiet and still.

Hercules & Love Affair

Hercules & Love Affair have recently released their latest, visually compelling music video for One featuring ANOHNI from their recent album In Amber (2022). The video stars designer and contemporary performance artist Salvia and was directed by legendary conceptual fashion photographer Tim Walker. The song was birthed from a place of resilience and empowerment, an anthem for queer people to rally behind and mourn our often stifled childhoods, or as Andrew Butler put it in a recent interview with Zero Nine Magazine:

"As queer people there's this sort of fragmentation that takes place as we grow up. The systems of power that are in place impose this shame upon us and we forget that original innocence we once had… So I think 'One' is a sort of a rallying cry, especially for people who have been marginalised."

Whereas the video encompasses even more, a different, less personal, and individual facete.

(Still, Tim Walker, Salvia in "One" by Hercules & Love Affair ft. ANOHNI, 2022)

Soil and Gaze

The video is set in what looks like a giant zoetrope. This round device, popular during the Victorian age, allowed in essence a real time stop motion animation. The inside walls would hold still images of a galloping Horse for example. By turning the device and peeking through slits that were made on its sides, the short flashing of the images and speed of the turn, would fool the eyes into merging the single images together, continuing the movement in a loop, allowing the spectator to read it as whole.

Different in function, and at a much larger scale, the images created for the video, all take place in the center of this zoetrope, a large pile of dirt, littered with pearls, gems, crabs, dead butterflies and snakes, turning it into a stage. The otherwise invisible gazes from the spectators looking through the slits, are now incorporated, by the usage of Jan van Eycks Singing Angels. Where otherwise the animation would take place, this painting now resides. The Singing Angels in this context looking concerned, confused, and judgemental as they gaze down upon the displayed behaviour on the ground. Hereby introducing a very biblical aspect to the video right at the beginning.

(Painting, Jan van Eyck, Singing Angels, 1427/1429)

IMAGES FOLLOW LINES

"One is a song Andy and I wrote to celebrate the vigour of survival as an eco-femme battle cry," ANOHNI said. "At certain points, especially as kids, we both fought hard to survive."

Knowing the deeply personal and autobiographical motivation behind the lyrics, it is exciting to see how different they can be read when the video chooses to focus on a further aspect of the song. With the context of ANOHNI’s statement, I will allow myself to refer to the figures as female and male.

The video offers a unique perspective on human beings as yet another species, by exploring a performative interpretation of our evolution, containing our simpler beginnings, reaching well into our more current state and behaviours. This can of course be read as a personal evolution, but also in a more generalist sense, depict our societal development. Doing so by referencing a meander of western societal milestones, whether through biblical, agricultural, or royal imagery. This is also achieved by combining the visuals and certain lyrical passages literally. An example for how the imagery at certain points directly follows the Lyrics would be:

"I've come to know the taste of dirt

The rejection upon my tongue"

The visceral lyrics, leaving us with a tingling feeling in our mouths as we watch Salvia taste the dirt on her tongue, might suggest that we have distanced ourselves from nature. Now being polluted bodies that are rejected by the very systems in which we evolved. Dirt from which we came, now strange and foreign in taste and touch.

"Oh, I know my coat is black I've been a threat since I was young"

Here the perspective on humans as creatures, even beasts, is highlighted. Our mere existence is declared as a threat to others, life will always thrive to an extent at the expense of others and their detriment. The black coat perhaps referencing wolfs or bears, regarding ourselves as apex predators.

"Im turning, twisting upwards

Chasing my essence towards the sun"

We see Salvia momentarily calm down in her efforts to escape the dirt, slowly rising the palms of her hands upwards, towards the sun. Mimicking photosynthesis of plants and their foliage. Gathering sustenance and strength from the rays of sun.

(Still, Tim Walker, Salvia in "One" by Hercules & Love Affair ft ANOHNI, 2022)

The lyrics go on to describe the triumphant uprising of an individual, pushing through each challenge ahead, using metaphors of trees and stone, as well as natural disasters to showcase strength, resilience, and power, inherently closer in meaning to the origin of the Lyrics as stated by ANOHNI herself. But by doing so, the words are also further weaving together the totality of life as a complete system with small parts leaning onto one another. Regardless of anything feeling like your own accomplishment and triumph, you won’t escape your very chemistry and particles which you are compiled of, all endlessly recycled. Therefore, undermining, if not criticizing, the individuality presented in the video by Salvia's character.

Tim Walker said the following regarding the song’s lyrics:

"The lyrics of Andy Butler and ANOHNI are prophetic, important and a warning. All are natural no matter who you are. You are a child of Mother Nature. Respect Mother Earth, respect nature and the natural. With no respect for the earth, she will unleash a natural armageddon she created ... "

This statement unsurprisingly showcases a somewhat contrasting angle to what ANOHNI described before. Perhaps explaining why the video took on a different perspective than what would be expected from the inspiration behind the song. By overlooking the artificial separation of humans and nature we are enabled to not see an individual, a person, in the video, but nature herself unleashing her might. For once displaying her power and vigour instead of her gentler more nourishing self we expect her to be.

Rotation, Romeo, Red

Most camera movements are light pans from left to right, circling around Salvia. This might be a nod to the zoetrope, which would also turn counter clockwise or, on a larger scale it might be a reference to the earth’s rotation. By doing so, stating that this is a progression where time passes, where the present, the image straight ahead, is centred in between the past on the left and the future on the right, a timeline like the one used when editing the video itself or even when sketching out a storyboard.

The notion of evolution and time passing, is further embodied by our main character. In the beginning she appears somewhat powerless, frantic, nude, exposed to the elements and at their mercy, waiting to grow and slowly be freed from her roots. Once free, she explores her body with smaller gentler movements. As she grows more confident, a male counterpart (Lewis Walker) is introduced. He makes a big entrance by jerking his muscular body in the middle of a circle of white and pink roses. A display of health and vitality not unlike a courting dance held by peacocks for instance.

(Still, Tim Walker, Lewis Walker in "One" by Hercules & Love Affair ft ANOHNI, 2022)

He then starts prancing about, exploring her, touching her, eventually gifting her a pearl neckless, placing his desires and expectations onto her. This imagery can be read as romantic, but also somewhat biblical as this stage or garden only holds those two residents, watched over by angels, not unlike Adam and Eve. Here however, the female was first rather than Adam and instead of introducing sin through their companionship and a forbidden fruit, it is implied that life itself holds sin, as the angels’ distaste was clear from the get-go.

For a brief moment we see Salvia alone again, sitting with a giant Harp. Harps are a common symbol for heaven, worship, and hope and often seen as the chosen instrument of angels. In the Old Testament the harp is usually linked to David, a warrior and hero who was chosen to play for King Saul, in an attempt to free him of the evil spirit residing in him. Might this be a breaking point in the video? Was the harp stolen from the angels? Or is it perhaps a gesture and chance for reconciliation? Salvia however, doesn’t really play the harp, she seems weary of it, refusing the temptation of plucking its strings.

(Still, Tim Walker, Salvia in "One" by Hercules & Love Affair ft ANOHNI, 2022)

"My body crushes yours now"

ANOHNI sings whilst we see Salvia, now sitting on her male counterpart like a conqueror would on horseback. Claiming land, riches, and status. Vigorously pulling the gold reins she controls him with. Her appearance turning more regal with every second, by having the shaved forehead and getting dressed in a rich red satin gown, resulting in a very elizabethan look.

What can’t go unnoticed is the fact that the man dressed her, starting with him gifting her the neckless. Men have historically often been the policymakers when it comes to female clothing. Determining what is acceptable, ladylike, or sexy on women themselves, once again making choices over their bodies. So even though he is seemingly placed in a more submissive role in the video, fading into the background, he still is having an impact on her imagery.

Now in her most powerful, and demanding position, she holds up a mirror redirecting the light towards the camera lens, illuminating us, the spectators. As the light floods the screen, we are reminded of our state as voyeurs. By doing so perhaps even holding us accountable as bystanders who have lived similar lives, strived for the same materialistic things, put ourselves before anything else as well, at the cost of surrounding life.

(Still, Tim Walker, Salvia in "One" by Hercules & Love Affair ft ANOHNI, 2022)

One

The video ends with Salvia being returned to the soil from which she came at the height of her power. Swallowed by the earth. As this happens the camera for the first time pans from right to left. If there were a timeline, we would now be rewinding what occurred beforehand. The dress is unravelled, the pearls removed, the man is gone, and she is stuck in the dirt once more. All that has come to pass has been undone.

But instead of starting the exact same loop over, we are now watching a red rose pierce through the surface of the dirt, which is now cleared of all the previous litter. The rose can be read as the Life that follows the decomposition of her body. The colour matching her previous gown as a quiet nod. Making the rose new life, but simultaneously also being Salvia herself, as well as the male figure portrayed by Lewis Walker, the butterfly, and the crab before. All part of an endless cycle, regardless of personal and individual history, aspirations, or accomplishments. One.

A quiet, calm, and humbling thought on which to end an explosive song and video full of urgency, might and bravado.