For their new music video, oddball Canadian chamber pop band Arcade Fire — who last year made a music video that utilized Google Earth and had Spike Jonze turn their album The Suburbs into a mini-sci-fi movie set in Texas — now want you to participate in the editorial process of their new interactive video by dancing. Yes, you heard right. Dance.
The video for their new single "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" comes viewable as a traditional music video, directed by Vincent Morisset (who recently directed the concert doc "Inni" for Sigur Ros and who is also strange and Canadian). But, for the more adventurous Arcade Fire fans out there (you know who you are, Mr. Has-a-bootleg-copy-of-"The Box"-score-on-their-iPhone), you can head over to a dedicated website, where you're encouraged to interact with the video via dance.
The way this works (and we're not entirely sure if we were doing it correctly since any kind of motion-based control more advanced than the Wii is a little beyond our comprehension) is that you activate your camera on your computer and are prompted to wave your hands in front of the camera. This will dictate things like the speed of the edit and how long the person (mostly Arcade Fire member Regine Chassagne) is dancing. Your dance dictates the on-screen dance. Yes, this is an interactive ouroboros for people unafraid to look silly at their desks.
While the traditional video is pretty charming and gorgeously put together, the interactive element of the online video is even more fun. It's kind of great that Arcade Fire are trying to step outside the box of the standard music video/promotional cycle around most albums (this video comes as the band has wrapped up an extensive world tour for The Suburbs) and in the process, pushing the boundaries the bit of what you can do with the format. You can watch the traditional video below, for the interactive website, click here.