Contact is the ground-breaking project from a unique artist with a universal message – ‘disconnect to reconnect’. And in a world of instant access and information overload, SOKOL has done something truly revolutionary: he's crowd-funded the video for the soundtrack of Contact entirely offline; not even a whiff of the Internet!
Wearing a t-shirt proclaiming, 'Fight the disconnect: Every Dollar Counts!', he took to the streets and individually approached 300 people armed with a piggy bank. Then, fuelled by the kindness of strangers, embarked on a four-day trek to Mongolia’s Altai Mountains to film.
Planes, trains, clapped-out automobiles and more planes were needed to reach this epic and remote location for the Contact video, where SOKOL and his tiny production team lived with a nomadic tribe of eagle hunters. The enigmatic songwriter collaborated with director, Garrick J. Lauterbach, who chose to shoot in a documentary film style to reflect the central ethos of SOKOL’s vision to ‘disconnect to reconnect’. Check out the video below:
But why Mongolia? SOKOL wanted to find a place on this planet so different and unfamiliar to our everyday lives, yet utterly authentic.
"It’s a retour à la nature!" he tells Headliner. "In a fast-paced world like the one we live in, where technology is controlling our lives, it is easy to get out of touch with yourself and everything and everybody around you. I strongly believe that we have to preserve the human elements in meeting face to face, and not get lost in the virtual world."