Veteran Melbourne band Damn The Maps have unveiled their newest music video, for recent cut Haven't We Evolved? and managed to create both an economical end product and a thought-provoking social experiment in doing so.
Looking to keep things to a budget — the band estimate the average clip costs about $10,000 to make — Damn The Maps set about creating their clip for less than $100 (in new expenses, so not including the cost of, for example, originally buying their video camera).
Using said camera, a marker, some cardboard, some old clothes and $99 in one-dollar coins, Damn The Maps' Martin Green took himself downtown and sat out the front of an unoccupied space with a sign that read, "I don't need money. If you do, please feel free to take whatever you need", and waited.
What resulted over the next two-and-a-half hours was a study in broad social attitudes to (perceived) homelessness, as about 10,000 people passed by, many of whom paid no attention at all to Green even though he was attempting to literally give away money.
Of the people who did stop, there's a good deal of heartwarming concern and a few lovely gestures — one woman brings him a coffee, for example, and a couple of others add to the kitty, rather than taking from it — while the majority of those who took money appeared to truly need it for supplies such as food (and, in a couple of instances, methadone).
Green said in a statement that he and the band "had no idea what would happen" during the filming — how long it would take, whether anyone would notice him, who would take the money and why, and so forth — but it's a bit of a fascinating experiment nonetheless, and you can see the condensed experience over the course of the song's four-minute run time below.
To find out more about Damn The Maps and what they're up to, give them some love on Facebook.
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