For many years, Björk has been one of the most innovative artists on the planet when it comes to music videos and live performance, so it’s no surprise she was early to the VR movement.
Now she has just release the trailer for her collections of songs available in VR called Vulnicura. The collection will be available on Friday, Sept. 6, but you can see a preview in the video below.
Björk’s artist statement: “i am so happy to share finally the complete version of vulnicura VR with all the songs now available in one place – it is a digital home for all the virtual reality videos we made , and will be released this friday 6th september
the VR videos have been touring museums around the world as part of the Björk Digital exhibition , but now that it is possible to put them all out on an accessible gaming platform available to everyone , i am thrilled for people to be able to download them in their own home
vulnicura VR has been a long journey which started when me and andy thomas huang started talking about how we wanted to document “stonemilker”
we then filmed it on a 360 camera on a beach in iceland in november 2014 . we werent sure how to share it because of how few owned VR headsets . we started by putting a dozen of headsets in Rough trade record shops in brooklyn and bethnal green and got really good reactions . i then got offered to do an exhibition in sydney and by june 2016 we brought headsets there with “stonemilker” , “notget” and “mouth mantra” and then adding live performance of “quicksand” with AR for tokyo july 2016 . the exhibition then travelled to london , montreal and reykjavík in the autumn where we added “black lake” and “family” . it has also been to los angeles , mexico city , houston , barcelona , moscow , poznan , buenos aires , bogota and it is currently travelling between 4 cities in brazil
the whole process has been an improvisation , trying to keep faith in formats . it is too easy for musicians to turn pessimistic after cds have evaporated but i wanted to try to have courage to grow along with how 360 sound and vision tech was growing . with every challenge try to turn it into an additional gift for the ideology in the music . these 7 VR videos are done with 6 different companies , 4 softwares 6 different directors . early in this journey it became obvious that the process for great 360 sound mastering did not exist so we had to invent our own on the way …. there were dozens of other similar challenges ……
i am someone who absolutely loves music and gets so moved by the sensation of it . when andy proposed filming stonemilker on the beach it was perhaps him tapping into how spatial and connected to nature my songs are . i wrote that song , walking on the same beach and filming it in 360 and sharing it in surround sound seems the most natural way to invite my listeners humbly into my music .
the themes for the digital animations were a collaborations of mine with james merry and i would like to thank him for being my co-pilot for the visual art direction for this whole thing . he is so enormously talented and has had the patience to listen to my endless tales about the psychology and the sensation of healing through my most difficult album to write to date : my heartbreak album . it came to my surprise how metaphysical and “selfhelpy” heartbreak-healing really is . there is a reason why mankind has talked about broken hearts for aeons . you physically feel as a part of your body has fallen apart , has been torn off . there literally is a chestwound that is sown together and healed . when i first was watching VR in 2014 , the way i recognized it´s strengths and weaknesses seem to match the album i had in my hands perfectly . when you put the headset on , it is very isolating . heartbreak is . it also gives an escapist relief . which heartbreak needs . but there is also a hidden quality i personally think is going to be the most unexplored in the future , the healing potential of VR . the amount of crying that was done into the headsets in sydney convinced me and james that we were on the right track , this was something people were experiencing on a visceral level .
i would like to thank andrew melchior for setting up teams and introducing us to a plethora of tech
and all the directors to be up for this experiment , andy thomas huang , jesse kanda , nick thornton jones and warren du preez , inez & vinoodh, our japanese collaborators : dentsu and rhizomatiks . and stephen malinowski for his wonderful 3d notation animations
also mandy parnell and martin korth who pioneered our own take on the 360 mixing and mastering with me, solving and programming endless solutions
chris pike and chris elms were divine engineers on this
profound thanks to analog studios for going above and beyond in building this umbrella app to house everyone’s work
and also to protools and audiokinetic
i hope you enjoy this ……
as always i am grateful for your interest warmthness”
-björk
Cover image via BjörkYouTube
