Magdalena Bay - Venice

What this video is

Released August 2019, 'Venice' arrived during a period of rapid growth for Magdalena Bay, who had recently been signed to Luminelle Recordings off the strength of their DIY 'Mag Minis' video series. The video exemplifies the late-2010s microbudget indie pop aesthetic, in which artistic ambition compensates for minimal production spend through surrealist concept and practical ingenuity. The song's lyrical theme —…

Why it matters

A key early artifact in Magdalena Bay's visual identity, 'Venice' demonstrates how late-2010s synth-pop artists used surrealist, low-budget video aesthetics to build cult audiences ahead of mainstream recognition. The video prefigures the duo's later elaborate world-building and is an exemplar of…

The director

Pete Ohs is an American filmmaker born and raised in Ohio, a 2005 DePauw University alumnus. He is known for writing and directing feature films Jethica (2022) and Everything Beautiful Is Far Away (2017), and was named one of Filmmaker Magazine's '25 New…