Written by Lauren Rosier
The incredible, late Harry Hains’ ANTIBOY project is proud to release a new single, “Insanity,” out today, February 9th, in addition to the cinematic music video. “Insanity” is the next track from the Hains family that emotionally illustrates “the conflicting duality of one’s inner and outer existence when in the grip of a mental health spiral.”
Take a listen to the track here. Hains’ emotional and vulnerable lyrics make the song and also depict a personal conflict that many people in the world experience today. It’s the music video, however, that really creates an emotional experience for the listener. The in-demand British contemporary dance artist Leah Marojević is featured in the video, and the video was directed by Agustín Farías, with choreography by Alice Heyward.
The late gender-fluid visionary artist, actor, and creative, Harry Hains, dreamed of a world of equality, a united world, where “social constructs and labels do not exist.” His vision of love and inclusivity continues on through the ANTIBOY project, which envisions “greater understanding and compassion for one another.”
The music video illustrates an individual in a laboratory experiencing some type of mental health issue or addiction. The goal of “Insanity” was to put the spotlight on mental health: the first scene they show a laboratory where a scientific experiment is trying to bring relief by “emptying the mind of someone who is struggling” is supposed to signify the real world how people can feel paralyzed by the judgment of others. The space where our subject is dancing becomes “more and more frenzied.” This was said to represent the “parallel reality of the descent into the freefall of insanity in one’s mind.”
“Harry‘s work, through ANTIBOY, goes beyond labels, categories, and names, coming up with new terms that can help us imagine what it means to be on Earth, aside from inheriting logic and conventions. Harry left us just before the Coronavirus pandemic, a catastrophe that has brought many people to points of extreme mental illness, and ‘Insanity’ is coming out at this moment, almost two years later, to help us understand our human conditions better, to know we’re not alone and that spiraling into depths of mental, emotional and cosmic complexity is part of being alive and not states that need to isolate or separate us from one another,” says director Agustín Farías.
Says dancer Leah Marojević, “I immediately felt an affiliation with Harry‘s creative relationship to post-humanism, or trans-humanism. Across my career, I have worked intimately with ideas of fictionalizing my body into new figures and forms to liberate from various limits or oppressions experienced in reality. It was truly a wonderful experience to be part of this. Working together with friends for another friend creates very particular energy of generosity and humility. I won’t forget saying cheers with Agustín and Alice after filming, dedicating it all to Harry with the hope that he likes what we did together.”
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