Using art to paint reality is not easy.

[plunged water]
Life, news, politics – it’s all contentious. To truly capture one narrative, you have to ignore the other.
Every scope is polarised; every opinion is bias. It’s a whirlwind of perspectives where you paint one
bit, but you forget something else.
And most directors, artmakers – they get it horribly wrong. Fuck, we don’t accurately represent
much.

Heroes, celebrities, people – they’re all just synthetic ideas in the news.

But in 2014, some indie pop band named “The Zolas” got it right. I’m Justin Waddy, and this is how
The Zola’s portrayed the humanity of 21-year-old Elisa Lam when no one else did.

2013 was a long time ago – like Ice Bucket challenge long time ago. We’re talking Harlem Shake,
Nelson Mande’s death, The Internship was fucking released. But amongst that, the world was
captured by the mysterious death of Elisa Lam.

Lam went missing on the 31st of January, 2019. On 14 February, the LAPD released a video showing
Lam exiting and re-entering the elevator, talking and gesturing in the hallway outside, and
sometimes hiding within the elevator, which itself appears to be malfunctioning. The internet went
crazy – people theorised she was hiding from someone, some thought she was on drugs – others
justified it as a psychotic episode owing to her having bipolar disorder. Amongst all the theories,
people forgot to have a little bit of humanity.

I mean, yeah, it was a bit of a peculiar death.

Death is
Elisa Lam was a Canadian student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. On February
19, 2013 she was recovered from a water tank atop the Cecil Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles. She’d
been reported missing at the beginning of the month. Maintenance workers at the hotel had found
her body after guest complaints of problems with the water supply and pressure.

Her disappearance was widely reported. The Los Angeles Police Department released a video of the
last time she was known to have been seen, on the day of her disappearance, by an elevator security
camera. In the footage, Lam is seen exiting and re-entering the elevator, talking and gesturing in the
hallway outside, and sometimes seeming to hide within the elevator, which itself appears to be
malfunctioning. The video went viral on the Internet, with many viewers reporting that they found it
unsettling. Explanations ranged from claims of paranormal involvement to bipolar disorder, which
Lam took medication for. It has also been argued that the video was altered prior to release.

The circumstances of Lam's death, once she was found, also raised questions, especially in light of
the hotel's history in relation to other notable deaths and murders. Her body was naked with most
of her clothes and personal effects floating in the water near her. It took the Los Angeles County
Coroner's office four months, after repeated delays, to release the autopsy report, which reports no
evidence of physical trauma and states that the manner of death was accidental. The case has since
been referenced in international popular culture.