Pixelated people

July 6, 2007 8:20 AM

Single Link YouTube post of some amazing South Korean(?) coordination.
posted by Totally Zanzibarin' Ya (36 comments total)

A little long but worth it.
posted by Totally Zanzibarin' Ya at 8:21 AM on July 6, 2007

The animation parts have planted many seeds in my head. For instance, if you displayed porn on this beowulf human cluster, could individual pixels be jailed?
posted by DU at 8:43 AM on July 6, 2007 [3 favorites]

So the prevalence of that relentlessly upbeat, unbearably cheesy corporate jingle/pop/rock is not a cultural phenomenon unto itself, rather, it's an inevitable consequence of capitalist/industrial society. Fascinating.

Cool dancing and card display tricks, though.
posted by Western Infidels at 8:47 AM on July 6, 2007

DU:...if you displayed porn on this beowulf human cluster, could individual pixels be jailed?

I know a pornographic pixel when I see it.
posted by Western Infidels at 8:50 AM on July 6, 2007

The logistics of getting that together are baffling to me.
posted by empath at 8:54 AM on July 6, 2007

I'll admit it - my jaw dropped.
posted by ORthey at 8:54 AM on July 6, 2007

O_O
posted by Dr-Baa at 8:59 AM on July 6, 2007

The less cheerful version, from Iran.
posted by washburn at 9:00 AM on July 6, 2007

Watch the conductor at the bottom of the screen. I think he (she?) would be entertaining all by himself.
posted by desjardins at 9:02 AM on July 6, 2007

Too bad that "Hacking the Super Bowl" guy didn't have these people working in the crowd for him. Might have actually been a worthwhile prank.
posted by i less than three nsima at 9:16 AM on July 6, 2007

Is that "Go West" by the Village People? (Somewhat embarrassed that I know that)

Hear for yourself...
posted by The Giant Squid at 9:39 AM on July 6, 2007

i'm wondering how they did this. i guess you could give each person a bluetooth headset and rig up some system that sends out individual instructions.

or maybe they just practiced for a few years
posted by bhnyc at 9:51 AM on July 6, 2007

This seems distinctly NORTH Korean to me......
posted by lattiboy at 9:52 AM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

Is that "Go West" by the Village People?

I think thats by the Pet Shop Boys.
posted by Totally Zanzibarin' Ya at 9:52 AM on July 6, 2007

Re Go West: yes that's the tune. It's very popular for chanting during football matches with lyrics like "tis stil / aan de overkant". Which is a taunt: "the other side is mighty quiet".
Football is very popular in South Korea.
posted by jouke at 10:08 AM on July 6, 2007

Lookit those BLONDE Koreans. Jesus, the longer I live here, the stranger the country gets.
posted by Brittanie at 10:12 AM on July 6, 2007

This seems distinctly NORTH Korean to me......

Naw, there are too many mistakes in precision for this to be North Korean. Fear of banishment to the impoverished countryside makes the totalitarian Arirang dances from N. Korea so successfully precise.
posted by Burhanistan at 10:17 AM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

Yeah burhanistan; these people looked like having a lot of fun. I find the precision of North-Korean choreographies scary; as if drilled by threat of execution.
posted by jouke at 10:22 AM on July 6, 2007

Samsung = South Korean company.
posted by googly at 10:23 AM on July 6, 2007

I think thats by the Pet Shop Boys.

...doing a cover of the Village People song. But it's their cover that prompted all the football chants - 'Go West Bromwich Albion' being the funniest, I think.

This seems distinctly NORTH Korean to me......

Yeah, and the Mass Games card displays are way better than this (though the brief video I linked doesn't really do them justice).
posted by jack_mo at 10:24 AM on July 6, 2007

South Korean precision crowds? Charming and goofy.

North Korean precision crowds? Bone chilling scary.
posted by Nelson at 10:31 AM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

What's interesting is the way that the crowd can dissolve and reform without losing their location.
posted by delmoi at 10:52 AM on July 6, 2007

If Neil Peart had seen this video 30 (!) years ago, 2112 would have turned out completely different.
posted by KokuRyu at 10:52 AM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

I love how around 0:50 there's one person at the center-right who has his/her red and yellow cards switched...
posted by gottabefunky at 11:48 AM on July 6, 2007

yay mass conformity!
posted by dydecker at 12:14 PM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

or maybe they just practiced for a few years


Competitive high school and college marching bands and color guards can learn the basics of new routines in a few days. Each individual gets a packet stating what they're supposed to be doing at each place in the music, and you don't worry about what anyone else is doing.
posted by frobozz at 1:06 PM on July 6, 2007

I wonder if I could somehow hook my Xbox 360 into them. Gears of War would rock on SynchroVision®
posted by aldurtregi at 2:37 PM on July 6, 2007

Go West is beautiful and kind of melancholy on acoustic- google for tabs. Same with Oh L'amour. Gay tunes+acoustic guitar is really an undiscovered joy.

This vid is like Mad World times, like, a billion. Gorgeous.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 2:58 PM on July 6, 2007

God, I miss Korea.
Also, that 'Anycall' at the end is the name of Samsung's line of cell phones.
posted by shokod at 3:27 PM on July 6, 2007

It's entirely appropriate that moving images composed of extra-large pixels should be broadcast on YouTube.
posted by Tube at 4:27 PM on July 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

I love the song at the end -- it's so upbeat.

...and for some reason, I now want to re-watch Gunbuster.
posted by Kikkoman at 4:59 PM on July 6, 2007

Here's a little video clip also featuring Korean synchronized moves, but in the context of traditional drumming. Those Koreans, y'know, they just got this going on.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:08 PM on July 6, 2007

I love how around 0:50 there's one person at the center-right who has his/her red and yellow cards switched...

Clearly they need some parity card carrying dancers. You never know when a cosmic ray will come along and flip your bit.
posted by Chuckles at 8:42 PM on July 6, 2007

What The Fuck?

Seriously, how long did it take to coordinate something like this?

And like others upthread, when I am insanely rich, I will play videogames using this as my display.
posted by quin at 4:09 PM on July 7, 2007

This seems distinctly NORTH Korean to me......

I can't tell if this is a joke or not, or if I should yet again get depressed at how little some people seem to know about the rest of the world. Nork? Not freakin' likely.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:57 AM on July 8, 2007

Wow Washburn,

That video from Iran is disturb-o-rama.
posted by serazin at 10:45 PM on August 2, 2007