For David, the sparse brief demonstrated trust and a “huge level of respect for the creative process”, and he spent the weekend after receiving it reading, listening to podcasts and watching lectures on YouTube. “It was a fantastic process where I wasn’t being asked to match a visual mood board, but instead lead from concept.” David eventually landed on trying to use the video to break down the Western representation of the female form through the ages, from adult magazines and art to film stars. Notable nods in the video include a riff on Playboy and Marilyn Monroe’s infamous subway-grate photo shoot.
It was important to “blow apart” these narratives, and use the video to “rewrite” them, says David. Through his research, David stumbled across an alternative theory to the story of Eve eating the apple, one that suggested that Eve in fact ate a psilocybin mushroom. Inspirations for the theory include a 13th-century fresco in Plaincourault Abbey in France, in which the tree of knowledge is depicted as a large mushroom.
In David’s research, this theory was linked to other concepts suggesting that Eve eating the mushroom was integral to the evolution and expansion of the human brain. “I loved that idea of re-writing the script on the origin of ‘sin’, and that we should all be thankful for Eve,” says David. Archetypal imagery referring to the Garden of Eden appears as a staged facade in the video, reminiscent of a school production (cardboard cutouts and all), with baroque, painterly frescoes and muted golden tones, before it all breaks apart and Shygirl is transported into a psychedelic garden.