Battles - Tonto

What this video is

Released in late 2007 as a single from Battles' acclaimed debut album 'Mirrored' (Warp Records, May 2007), 'Tonto' arrived at a moment when the convergence of fine-art installation practice and music video production was emerging as a critical and commercial frontier. Warp Records — already associated with artists who blurred electronic, experimental, and visual art boundaries — commissioned UVA, a collective whose…

Why it matters

A landmark artifact of mid-2000s math-rock and art-installation video crossover. The video's rejection of conventional performance or narrative formats in favor of a durational, site-specific installation approach had measurable influence on the intersection of fine-art and music video…

The director

Matt Clark and James Medcraft are co-founders and directors within United Visual Artists (UVA), a London-based art collective working across sculpture, installation, architecture, and performance. UVA is known for large-scale light-based public installations…