Brooklyn-based filmmaker and documentary photographer Landon Yost directs this incendiary music video for New York punk trio Show Me The Body, who also co-directed this project. Yost, whose portfolio of work is usually concerned with making tangible art of ephemeral feelings, takes a sharp U-turn as he goes about destroying the physical footage that makes up the band’s music video. 

“The piece was very collaborative,” says Yost, who started experimenting with the film burning process three years ago. “The band and I fleshed out the moments and tableaux we felt were emblematic of what Arcanum stands for.”

The music video meditates on themes of pain and death with scorched vignettes of graveyards at dusk, harrowing taxidermy, scarification and religion. Through its self-destruction, the project also brings into question society’s obsession with savoring transient moments through photography, painting or film. 

“The burning process was the most challenging component—a complicated 12-hour, four-person endeavor,” the director says. “It felt like the right step; take everything we'd done and set it on fire.”

"Arcanum" is taken from Show Me The Body's latest album, Dog Whistle