When she began crafting her 2015 album Vulnicura, Björk envisioned it as an immersive audiovisual record. Since its release, the Icelandic artist has released a bevy of album-related VR experiences, including the Björk Digital exhibition, and teased an even more ambitious project—a real-time VR music video for the single “NotGet.” Björk Digital debuts in the United States at the Day for Night Festival in Houston with eight VR experiences that insert you into the singer’s personal volcanic rock landscape and place you at her feet as she bellows from her core.
Longtime Björk collaborators and photographers Warren du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones directed NotGet VR, which puts viewers inside the world of Vulnicura, a spellbinding musical galaxy. Within the experience, Björk’s VR avatar disassembles and mutates within a dark, towering, and surreal landscape. To create the real-time, morphing environment, du Preez and Jones brought in Matt Chandler and Arvid Niklasson, from London-based VFX studio Analog.
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Earlier this year, Analog got their hands on an HTC Vive and began dabbling with the medium, but NotGet VR is their first foray into immersive VR. Chandler and Niklasson had previously worked with Du Preez and Jones on Aleph, an atmospheric CGI piece for the 2015 Creative Review Annual, which explored nature, birth, death, and rebirth. Since “NotGet” features similar themes, Du Preez and Jones wanted to inject a similar aesthetic into the project.
After the directors shared artwork, sketches, references, costume designs, and distinctive masks created by James Merry, Chandler and Niklasson got to work crafting the visuals. Chandler explains that the track “NotGet” chronicles very personal events in Björk’s life, including surviving the disintegration of a relationship and coming out stronger on the other side.
“Bone-like structures were grown inside of the body volume to create an intricate and delicate looking anatomy representing decay, death, and vulnerability,” Chandler explains. “We wanted the surfaces to alter materials, emit light and look interesting throughout the entire piece as it was driven by the underlying motion-capture performance. The dark, ominous atmosphere is dissolved as she literally grows into a light-charged entity surrounded by hypnotic fluid motions.”
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Source: Vice