If you lived the Internet at the end of the nineties, you certainly remember Flash animations overflowing pageswith embedded videos, interactive parts that were sometimes like complex riddles … They were the first steps of the web exploring their potential as an advertising tool, and all groups wanted to have a digital presence. Gorillaz made one of the most sophisticated proposals, and now … his virtual house has returned.
A walk through Kong Studios. In 1998, we could take a digital walk through the interior of the alleged studies where the Gorillaz virtual band lived and rehearsed. It was a website that worked under the missing and cried Flash, and was full of Easter eggs for fans, extra material that was not on the discs, miniguegos … a large amount of material that grew for ten years, when it ended up closing.
The best non -existent band in the world. Gorillaz is a virtual British band founded that same 1998 by musician Damon Albarn (Blur) and the cartoonist Jamie Hewlett (Creator of Tank Girl). The group is made up of four fictitious animated members (2-D, Murdoc Niccals, Noodle and Russel Hobbs), whose history has been developing, in more or less real time (they have been aging, in fact) through an elaborate narrative universe. Gorillaz He was born as a criticism of the superficiality of the MTV -type media, and with their characters, Albarn and Hewlett wanted to subvert the codes of the pop stars.
They debuted in 2001 with a homonym album, where they already had successes that merged rock, hip hop, electronics and pop. Since then, and Despite more or less prolonged parenthesisthey have not stopped recording and playing live, with sophisticated assemblies that respect the virtual identities of the members.
Kong Studios rises. Gorillaz (who are now more active than ever) have brought back that original walk through the Kong Studiosthey have reprogrammed the web so that it is not necessary to execute flash, but it remains faithful to the original aesthetics and limitations: rigid animations, pixelated visuals … and with a gift, a game (which seems programmed, really, in 1998) where we must enter the cemetery that surrounds the study armed with a shovel to defend ourselves from the attack of some zombie gorillas The legendary ‘Clint Eastwood’ video clip.
More of the same. The original site provided half an hour of delusional minijuegos, a jukebox where the then short discography of Gorillaz in full could be reproduced, including unpublished remixes and versions … in This video You can remember what that walk was, which has not been replicated with total accuracy, but in large part. Enough to miss the days when the presence of the bands on the Internet was not a mere Instagram account, but a real effort to dedicate their fans, with gifts and interaction with anyone who would give them some time.
Long live the flash. With one aesthetics that today we would consider squeaky and excessive In these times when gray is the norm, Flash Player, deceased since December 31, 2020 He laid the aesthetic basis (and almost philosophical) from another internet era, where everything was a chaotic jungle of animations and games made by clown in their rooms. Kong Studios was an Asian luxury compared to the shabby and debauchery that he camp on an internet without limits, one that will not return: although we can celebrate it as it deserves, returning to the Gorillaz domains.
In Xataka | Large rock bands have found how to extend their withdrawal indefinitely: with digital avatars
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings