Travis Scott: Utopia of Image

It looks like a mirage. An image that is miles away, standing in the middle of a huge crowd separating you from the stage and the incessant rain that has been pouring since afternoon. Travis Scott takes the stage half an hour late. It’s 9.30 pm, most of the 80,000 people at Milan’s Snai Racecourse have been waiting for their arrival for more than 6 hours black messiah, They faced inclement weather for more than six hours and an acoustic system that was far from perfect (manufacturer AVA’s performance was certainly weakened by malfunctioning speakers scattered around the racecourse). However, the expectation is too high. In this context, the delay of half an hour increases the tension even more. Travis Scott emerges on top of the stage in a surreal atmosphere. Behind him, is a nude scenery, while on the sides, two vertical screens project his distorted and confused image. There are many spectators who admire their favorites through the mediating filter of the digitized image. But all this does not bother anyone, rather the opposite.

By the way, let’s not talk about the only image made on the sides of the platform. There is also a mobile phone manufactured by Thousand Anime that remains on during the entire duration of the concert, recording the entire segment of the live, which is already on after less than an hour. TIC Toc, Instagrametc..

The image has always been a key concept of the collectivistic system introduced by Travis Scott. From a very young age, his first performances were noticed thanks to clips of him recorded live and then published on YouTube. His ability to command the audience’s attention is largely due to the iconic presence his character always manages to convey to the observer, on and off the stage. Travis developed a greater awareness of his own image and began to play with it, distorting it, reproducing it in different formats and locations. In this sense, it is impossible not to think about astronomicalFirst Live by an International Artist Fortnite,

While you can admire her antics without stopping for a moment during the nearly sixty minutes of live (very little for the ticket price), it almost feels like coming face to face with a wax image, extremely evocative but with Elusive, as if Travis belonged to a spiritual, rarefied dimension. The fact that his image is enough to send Milan’s eighty thousand people into a trance, who seem to feed on the adrenaline of being in front of Travis Scott. Here, what really gives Travis’ show a solid shape is the strong connection between the performance and the audience. It’s really the latter that makes the experience more than “obvious” through the classics. mosh pit (actual poghi inside improvised circles by the audience) but also through an atmosphere of general ecstasy in which the technical performance (certainly very short and several pieces of the lineup are abruptly interrupted after the first chorus) takes a completely second place. . In this dichotomy between the iconic power of an image and the physical response of the audience, a real community that is the protagonist of the exhibition, the distorted sound inserted by the autotune set on the American artist’s microphone, which exploits the very end of each piece to its full potential through long harmonization. In this encounter-struggle between performer and audience, between stage and parterre, between image and physical (re)action, the autotuned and fragmented voice provides the right spatial dimension, the right battlefield between these extremes.

And then, one has to wonder what will happen on July 28, the dayutopia Wanted by Travis Scott: His new album will be presented at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt with live broadcasts around the world. What better place to develop the cult of iconography that we were talking about earlier? Meanwhile, pre-order and merchandising utopia I’m already online at the Texan artist’s website. Only the cover is missing, of which Travis has created five versions, further expanding the infinite nuances of his iconography.