Björk is no stranger to innovation but her newest venture into VR gives an insight into a whole new realm of technology - as well as the singer's incredible mind.
From ‘giant moth giantesses’ to videos inside her mouth, WIRED got a first-hand look behind the scenes of one of the most innovative exhibitions of the year.
Using both the Samsung Gear and the HTC Vive, along with Bowers & Wilkins P5 and P7 headphones, the exhibition sees five music videos from Björk's most recent album Vulnicura, four of those being in VR, exploring recurring themes of the wounds, the body, loss and transformation.
The videos explore both potential ends of the spectrum when it comes to VR, depicting real-life scenes with immersive video elements, as well as creating fantastical digital creations that are about as far away from ‘the real’ as possible.
Stonemilker sits comfortably within the former, realism sphere. The 360-degree VR experience with ambisonic audio sees Björk, who filmed the piece alone on a Grótta Beach in Iceland, singing and moving around the focal point of the viewer, requiring you to constantly twist and turn with her.
“The performance is so personal,” Sol Rogers, CEO and founder REWIND:VR explained. “In VR you can be transported somewhere else. You feel like she’s four foot away from you. Using the Binaural audio, she’s placed within the space. She’s a pioneer in this way. She’s trailblazing a way forward where a whole bunch of people will follow.”
Other projects from the album veer towards the alternate end of the spectrum. In Mouth Mantra, a dizzying film set inside Björk's mouth, users are pushed to the extremes of VR, provoking a visceral experience, while Quicksand depicts an almost pixelated blueprint of Björk singing live, growing larger and more abstract as the video goes on.
Audio plays a huge part in the exhibition. Black Lake, an art installation commissioned by MoMA, uses two screens and numerous Bowers & Wilkins speakers including CT800s, AM1s and subwoofers, spaced around a room to create a spatial audio system. If you’re a music fan, you’ll appreciate the incredible quality of the sound as well as the listening experience as a whole.
In true Björk style, appearing at a live Q&A at Somerset House as an avatar, Björk spoke of her vision for the visuals. “When the album leaked in January a year and a half ago, me and my team just surrendered. We decided to release all of it then improvise. With Vulnicura, the visual side of it has been: the plan is that there is not plan. It is the oldest story of all – heartbreak. It could take this experimentation.”
She also acknowledged that when it comes to VR, the story is still a “work in progress".
“The story is me moaning, for a whole album. I wanted to get different points of view and different director and a different technology, because there’s a big difference between 360 and VR, and they have different technology and craft, but also a different entry point emotionally. This is all an experimentation.
“There’s something about when you put those [VR] goggles on your face that you are just immediately in this theatrical world. I am not saying we have succeeded yet – we still have three or four videos left to go – but every video we learn more.”
The 50-year-old also spoke of the sheer newness of the technology. “The last two weeks I have been locked in a room with sound people having to write different programmes – it’s almost a different software and different headsets. The audio side of it didn’t even exist, so we had to sit down, not sleep very much, and write the audio.”
The exhibition is running for eight weeks. The project, however, is not without controversy. By allegedly using volunteers and unpaid interns to man the exhibition, Somerset House has been criticised for exploiting fans and perpetuating unpaid labour when it comes to the exhibition.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Seeking all Björk fans, music & video lovers: volunteer now for <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BjorkDigital?src=hash">#BjorkDigital</a> - more info: <a href="https://t.co/Utg7DBGEVT">https://t.co/Utg7DBGEVT</a> <a href="https://t.co/VvxCnXSxpD">pic.twitter.com/VvxCnXSxpD</a></p>— Somerset House (@SomersetHouse) <a href="https://twitter.com/SomersetHouse/status/767673675579428865">August 22, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Bjork fans of the world - demand a wage! <a href="https://twitter.com/SomersetHouse">@SomersetHouse</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/bjork">@bjork</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/unpaid_labour_isn?src=hash">#unpaid_labour_isn</a>'t_working <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/bjork?src=hash">#bjork</a> <a href="https://t.co/wt1OWA9zLy">https://t.co/wt1OWA9zLy</a></p>— PWB (@PWB_Carrots) <a href="https://twitter.com/PWB_Carrots/status/768031771342635008">August 23, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Whether it’s hearing her music rendered in such high quality or visually experiencing something that takes you outside yourself, the project is ambitious. Yet even in this technologically challenging project, it’s clear she still maintains a huge amount of artistic control and autonomy, and technology has only helped this.
“For a woman, it’s really empowering because I didn’t need the whole patriarchy of the studio and that universe to make my music. Instead of doing a small proportion of it myself, I could go all the way up to doing 90 per cent of it myself.”
And when it comes to her music, she’s no pushover. “With the visuals, it’s more a collaboration but when I make my music I’m a bit of a tyrant. It’s my world, and people follow my mission.”
The Björk Digital exhibition runs from September 1 to October 23 at Somerset House, with tickets available at £15 (£12.50 concessions).
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
