3#

3# is part of the Pop Manifestos series, a five video project realized in collaboration with Cokes' former students Seth Price and Damian Kulash, and originally conceived as part of a series for the conceptual band SWIPE.

"3# uses a track "composed" by media artist Seth Price, its music based on the forms of 1980s electronic pop songs. Price uses music production software to copy the structure of popular music from the recent past. By editing out one element (in this case, the singer), he comments on the genre through an imperfect copy. The video uses text and graphic transitions to outline an argument about how and why pop music functions, pointing to its promises of unique, infamous, and sublime experiences through repetition and mass distribution. 3# borrows lyrics from British "mope pop" icon Morrisey."

--Tony Cokes

"The Pop Manifestos series of five promotional videos are in fact not designed to promote anything, rather to question the use and value of pop music as a culturally significant (promotional) form(at)."

--Stephen Vitiello