Video: YACHT, ‘I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler’

Daiana Feuer on October 22nd, 2015

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On Wednesday, we arrived at the day Marty McFly went to the future, so it seems appropriate today to examine the future presented in YACHT’s video for the title track from their new album, “I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler,” just out on Downtown Records. Directed by Eugene Kotlyarenko, the video pretty perfectly captures the sentiment in this catchy song about disillusionment with and detachment from a reality dominated by technology. YACHT’s Claire Evans and Jona Bechtolt have this to say: “VR, drones, self-balancing scooters (“hoverboards”), telepresence robots, selfie sticks, Soylent, and vape pens. All of these things have variably been presented as symbols of our futuristic world, but up close, they just feel straight-up comical.” They teamed up with director Kotlyarenko after seeing his film, “Zeros and Ones,” which takes place entirely in computer interfaces. “He was a perfect partner. He totally understood what we wanted to do and how to do it—from faux FaceTime to faking scrubbing ahead on YouTube.” Kotlyarenko felt the same. He adds, “So much of my work is about the anxieties induced by technology and how absurd it makes our lives. When I heard the song and met up with YACHT about their original concept, our sensibilities congealed immediately…There are just way too many silly objects running our lives these days. Exhibit A: The Eggstractor.”

||| Watch: “I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler”