Poor Takeshi Murata. According to this letter sent to Street Carnage, he developed the video recognition and compression technique used in both Kanye's "Welcome to Heartbreak" and Chairlift's "Evident Utensil", the latter which we and most other people said was Kanye's "inspiration." It turns out the true OG of fucked up video is, in fact, Murata who displayed said techniques in the Mailorder Monsters show at Deitch Projects in September 2007, a show Kanye apparently saw and loved. Conjecture, you say? Maybe not, as the letter was sent by Kathy Grayson, a gallery director at Deitch, who we're guessing is neither bowled over by celebrity visits nor has any interest in talking shit. Grayson also goes on to insinuate that the directors of both videos would be well-acquainted with Murata's work as he has given several seminars on the technique and been gracious with explaining his process. The cynical side of us would cite that "great artists steal" quote or say that if he didn't want to get jacked he shouldn't have thrown in his money in the sky, but neither of the music video directors appear to be great and Murata doesn't appear to have wanted anything other than a little credit. So, if you have a lot of money or need a crazy looking video or both, feel free to holler at Murata.
Takeshi Murata, Still from Untitled (Pink Dot), 2006
