"Eternally" and TXT glorification as artists

By Maria Eduarda Ribeiro Cavalcanti

"Eternally" M/V© HYBE Ent.

What is art? The basic definition would be the act of externalizing feelings and ideas into some form of communication, whether that would be music, painting, movies, texts, or sculptures. Plato defined arts as the human capacity of making things smartly through learning, in that way arts would be a reflex of the capacity humans have to create. On the other hand, to Aristoteles art imitates nature but can also complete it. Kant used to think art was connected to pleasure, both the sensation of pleasure and the pleasure of reflection.

The truth is, none of the philosophers are alive in the 21st century, where art, at the same time as it explodes, also becomes more and more artificial. Art has become more of a product than art.

"4 Seasons" M/V© SM Ent.

In the golden age of entertainment, it's easy for art to become superficial. Let's be honest, despite every form of entertainment selling some ideal or emotion, not all of them will be art.  In times of streaming, the quality doesn't matter as much as the quantity. We want the episodes of our favorite TV shows to arrive as soon as possible, that our favorite singer doesn't take too long to release another album, and that our favorite direct finishes his next movie as fast as he can. And when we stop to analyze our personal life, we realize we barely have time for art. We don't have time to analyze lyrics, sit and watch a movie and reflect on him for hours. The culture of the masses talks exactly about that: a substitute for art, that entertains us and lets us breathe and take a break from our tiring routine, making us forget how meaningless life can be. 

And that is perfectly fine.

Not everything has to be serious 24 hours a day, there would be no fun on that. Sometimes all that we need is to put a funky song with nice beats and bad lyrics, and just this act makes our day ten times better.

But sometimes, deep down, our soul begs for more substance, something that gives us more ground and feeds us spiritually. That one art that feels more like a missing puzzle piece from ourselves, and when we finally find it, we feel complete. 

The " Eternally" music video from the Korean boy-group TXT offers exactly that. But before anything else, what is the relation between K-pop and art?

"Psycho" M/V© SM Ent.

What does it take for a music video to become art? After all, music by itself it's considered art. And although several songs declare the opposite of this, if a song is still capable of expressing some emotion and some ideal, in a certain way, it would still be art? So, we killed the riddle and we can declare the end of the post, right?

Wrong.

New eras, new definitions: on times where the culture of masses reign, it exists music with personality and pieces of music that exhale art. And video clips can be as essential as music because they can communicate things that the music by itself wouldn't.

It's undeniable the talent that K-pop has to make music filled with personality. If K-pop had to be a type of art, it would fit in better with theater. It's the culture of the masses at its best.

Every single K-pop music video creates its universe, and every object present in the videos are just gears that make this parallel world able to gain life: the lights, the decoration, the clothes, the dances, the makeup, and the singers, together, create the magic of K-pop. 

"Blood, Sweat & Tears" M/V© HYBE Ent.

It's satisfactory to see the pieces taking their places on this big articulation that is the South Korean music industry. And it's refreshing to see the K-pop music videos because they are so different, new, and creative, against the over-saturated boring pop music videos, where some white singer sings without any energy while stares lifeless into the screen static. There is no emotion, because it's so real, that we can't use it as a form of escapism to our imagination. We don't find any comfort in the because it's so realistic, common, ordinary.

But on the K-pop stage, it's easy for its actors to transmit personality and perform their respective roles in their world created by their companies, but a true artistic vein only a few can have. With "Eternally" TXT consecrates themselves as artists.

"Eternally" M/V© HYBE Ent.

The length of the video can scare some, after all, our brains are so used to receive so much information that even the simple act of sitting and paying attention to a video longer than the usual may be seen as an impossible task. But when I finally gave in and watched the video, it quickly turned out to be one of the best audiovisual experiences I had in a long time.

The 20 minutes short film from TXT serves also as a music video to the 6th track from their EP "The Dream Chapter: Eternity" and has the name of "Eternally"

The music starts with a soft guitar but as the music goes on, the initial melody is constantly and abruptly replaced with an aggressive upbeat song, replicating a fall or a change of realities. This speaks with the lyrics that talk about the feelings of one who is stuck in an endless nightmare.

The video clip is divided into 7 parts: The Night of the Last Day; Music of a Star; Promise; Room N°17; Moratorium of Rest; Girl of Eternity and The Beginning of the End. Each part plays a homage to several film genres.

The first and last part serves as introduction and conclusion respectively, but the 5 parts located in the middle are what makes the video worthy to be considered art. Each part shows in detail the nightmare of each of the 5 members of the group. But actually, every single nightmare is happening simultaneously and it takes place in a group rehearsal, for the second time where the bottles fall from the table to the floor.

"Eternally" M/V© HYBE Ent.

The first nightmare "Music of a Star" serves to trick us, the watchers, that based only on this part, would think that the rest video is going to be as calm as this part. The yellow blurry lights say that we are not watching exactly a nightmare but more of a memory. This is a technique very used by romantic movies because the yellow lights create a feeling of comfort. But as we see the main character, Soobin, cry, we feel discomfort. The break of the expectation, from a safe memory to some event that we don't know what could be that makes our protagonist cry tells us the something is wrong. But the information is purposely denied to us, so we can discover it later on.

"Eternally" M/V© HYBE Ent.

The second nightmare "Promise" revolves around one of our biggest fears: the future. The lights and the scenario all remind us of the horror genre in cinema, and as we see Yeonjun watching his own dead bloody body, we feel scared. Even though we don't know him, just the notion of seeing your corpse laid down in the wreckages, it's enough to disturb anyone.

"Eternally" M/V© HYBE Ent.

The third nightmare " Room N°17" it's probably the most confusing one. Throughout the 20 minutes, we feel powerless, we don't know what we are seeing and how the times work in this world, we can't distinguish if it's a memory, a dream, or a premonition of the future

We are strictly stuck to Beomgyu's point of view, and he is spying through the door and sees himself suffering at the hands of others. The genre the reminds most of Beomgyu's section is dystopian/science-fiction. The discomfort that we feel in Beomgyu's nightmare is because of the frustration and the feeling.

"Eternally" M/V© HYBE Ent.

The fourth nightmare "Moratorium of Rest" it's the peak of the video and it has the best cinematography in all history of K-pop and outside of K-pop too, of course on my unprofessional and very biased opinion.

"Eternally" M/V© HYBE Ent.

In this nightmare, Taehyun it's the protagonist. Yet again everything seems to actively try to make us feel uncomfortable and confused because they take traditional devices from film genres and twisted them, so we can feel confused. The violet flowerbed around Taehyun and the soft song give us a calm sensation that everything will be alright. But the artificial light and the black scenario tell us something is wrong. If the flowers are there, why doesn't have any trees or an open sky? Deliberately, the video creates little contradictions, further exploring the feeling of confusion on the watchers.

On the horizon, Taehyun sees his friend and feels comfort given the sense of familiarity. But when he screams his name, he doesn't move. He screams again but the soft song is louder than the desperate screams and we have to sit down and watch uncomfortably while he screams silently.

As he gets closer to his friend, he steps into a purple puddle. This puddle confuses us. After all, it feeds us a hope that his friend is not dead because blood it's no purple, so logically, he isn't dead, right? But we forget that this is a nightmare, and in the dreamworld, rules like this don't exist. 

As he approaches his friend we see the sliced throat and the purple blood completely paints Yeonjun's whole body and it also stains Taehyun. Flowers take over Yeonjun's body, making him look almost ethereal at death as if he was forgotten there, making his dead body look more part of the ambiance than nature itself. And there we are, disturbing the peace of Yeonjun's resting place.

"Eternally" M/V© HYBE Ent.

The last nightmare is "Girl of Eternity" and has Hueningkai as the star. The scenario's calm and comfortable, the clouds bring a sense of familiarity and the light of the day brings us to hope that the nightmares will finally end. Hueningkai opens the door so he can escape and be with his friends on the other side, but he soon finds out he is stuck and there is no way out.

"Eternally" M/V© HYBE Ent.

Lastly, we are back at the rehearsal room, the bottle of water finally hits the ground and we are done with the nightmares. Each one of them goes back to finish the activity that they previously were doing as if absolutely nothing had happened.

And for an instant, we also believe that nothing happened and that it was just bad dreams, that's it until Soobin shows in his hand that one of the dices he has holding in his dream, was still in his hand. He looks into the mirror and for the first time in the video, we finally understand something: everything was real. And it was just the beginning.

"Eternally" M/V© HYBE Ent.

"Eternally" it's just an addition to the giant cinematic universe created by TXT. Every album tells a little bit more of this fictional story that happens to the group in this parallel universe created by Bang PD, CEO of TXT's company, Big Hit. And every single video clip that it's released it's a further chance that we have to explore this universe offered by them. "Eternally" it's just a fraction of this universe, when explored, we fall in love with the rich history created by them. And just mixing music, dance, theatre, and literature prove that TXT it's one of the most original groups in K-pop, with one of the vest concepts in the music industry.

The effort that goes into each one of the video clips so that the history can be further enhanced is enormous. But with "Eternally", probably will go down in both TXT's and K-pop history as one of the best music videos

The cinematography's smartly used in each one of the sections not only to transmit the emotions of the song, serving as a compliment but also as a piece of art by itself.

"Eternally" it's what every music video should aim to be. And I am happy that it's just the beginning, and I hope the end is far away. Even though it's about a nightmare, "Eternally" it's the best dream I ever had.