When an artist whose work often has the acute quality of digging deeper into a wound comes out with an album literally titled “cure for wounds,” the English translation of Björk’s latest Vulnicura, the pitch of intensity makes for an even steeper immersion into the Icelandic artist’s sonic landscape. But Björk has never been someone who settles for an effect before reaching its peak, especially when it comes to closing the distance between sound and audience; this autumn, it is a venture in the private theatrical experience offered by virtual reality technology that will invite visitors to truly inhabit Björk’s enhanced world.
Making its European premiere in Somerset House, Björk Digital will include digital and video works, including some of the artist’s collaborations with Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Nick Knight and Stephane Sedanaoui, and will coincide with a special performance at the Royal Albert Hall on September 21st. As one of the prime crossover artists transgressing medium boundaries, Björk’s artistic repertoire includes a rare mix of performance, exhibition, film and digital enhancement; something best exemplified by the her custom-made app, which accompanied the release of her 2011 album Biophilia, which built a three-dimensional galaxy around the songs and featured interactive custom-made instruments, visuals, games and essays.
The exhibition will feature VR experiences based on Vulnicura tracks like ‘Stonemilker’ and ‘Black Lake’ (shot respectively on a cold beach and in the Icelandic highlands) both made with filmmaker Andrew Thomas Huang and originally shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Things will get stranger in ‘Notget’ VR, directed by Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones, which presents Björk as a ‘digital moth giantess’ with the help of lepidoptery-inspired masks created by artist James Merry, and in ‘Mouth Mantra’, shot inside the Björk’s mouth and showing the movement of her tongue and teeth in 360 degrees, reminiscent of the most memorable scene of Gaspar Noe’s Enter the Void.
In Björk’s own words, quoted on Somerset House’s website:
‘i feel the chronological narrative of the album is ideal for the private circus virtual reality is. a theatre able to capture the emotional landscape of it […]
hope you come
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Björk Digital is at Somerset House from September 1 to October 23.