Ever wondered how to get into North Korea, how war affects heavy metal bands in the Middle East, or what it’s like to live in a Filipino garbage site? Well even if you haven’t, the answers will intrigue you, made readily available in free streaming video on VBS.tv.
VBS.tv is a website dedicated to the broadcast of hard-and-fast videos dealing with all aspects of underground culture. The wealth of videos on offer includes profiles of extreme-sports personalities, independent music, and off-the-cuff interviews ranging from international stars like Kayne West through to a struggling Lebanese death metal band.
The real draw of the website is the Vice team’s drive towards serious documentary, which often sees amateur filmmakers venturing into locations and situations that most professionals would balk from. Amongst their numerous recorded exploits, VBS have gone minesweeping in Lebanon, visited Manila’s City of Garbage, in the Philippines (where people live on a mountainous pile of garbage), and interviewed the President of Bolivia. The site’s most popular video, Guide to North Korea, sees Vice co-founder Shane Smith slip into the restrictive country. The reactions to his karaoke rendition of the Sex Pistol’s Anarchy in the UK speak volumes about the different culture.
The website, quietly launched in March 2007, is the spawn of Vice Magazine, a controversial publication founded in Montreal, 1994, by Suroosh Alvi, Gavin McInnes and Shane Smith. VBS.tv, now based in New York, was created as a platform for bringing Vice’s subversive style to the internet generation. It gives the magazine the opportunity to air documentaries that circumvent network intervention, available for free across the globe.
The site is funded by MTV Networks, but their sponsorship is silent. It is seen as an opportunity to experiment in internet video, something MTV has previously faltered with, and they have placed Academy Award-nominated Spike Jonze (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich) as the creative director. The site’s success includes its videos being aired on international MTV channels, whilst Heavy Metal in Baghdad , a look at an Iraqi band who lost their practice hall to a bomb, reached acclaim in numerous film festivals and now is available on a collector’s edition DVD.
If you have only a few minutes to spare to open your mind to a few new images, it should be spent watching VBS, but be prepared to be drawn in for a lot longer.
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