Bjork

As a category of fashion, masks have been worn in both secular and ritual circumstances across time and cultures. At the heart of masking is the concealment or obscuring of identity. Masks enable the wearer to occupy and enact alternative identities, perform without fear of reprisal and maintain anonymity. They are therefore useful tools to analyze human behavior. Yet while the mask is a pervasive feature within fashion and popular culture, it has, until recently, been largely unrecognised as an influence in fashioning identity today.

This paper will analyse the fashion mask, tracing its earliest uses in the sixteenth century through to its presence in contemporary fashion collections where its symbolic potential is embraced. A focus on specific examples will offer insight into fashion designers who have employed the mask as an instrument of fantasy and empowerment. Masking as seen in contexts such as in club culture and Mardi Gras will be evaluated to demonstrate how these grassroots activities have been adopted not only by fashion designers, but by popular culture icons such as Björk, Kanye West, and Lady Gaga within large-scale, mainstream performances. I conclude that the prevalence of the fashion mask is driven by contemporary shifts in identity politics, mirroring the motives of its earliest uses in fashion history.

A 2,500 word encyclopedia entry outlining the boundary crossing between art music with popular music in the work of a number of musical artists since the 1960s such as The Velvet Underground, Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, Kate Bush, Bjork, David Sylvian, Sonic Youth and Scott Walker whose work leaves them in a liminal space between avant-garde and popular music.

In Dancer in the Dark (2000), Icelandic popstar Björk portrays the main character of Selma. Lars von Trier, the director, described his film as an exercise in emotionally manipulating the audience. Drawing on Philip Auslander's concept of the "musical persona", this study argues that the decision to cast a popstar, in combination with the structure of the film, serves von Trier's purpose of intensifying the film's manipulative potential, by evoking an impression of shocking realism or authenticity. This study furthermore places the presentation of the filmic character in conversation with Björk's popstar status, critical reception of the film, as well as reception of her performance within it. Extending Auslander's concept of persona through a transmedial approach provides new perspectives on Björk's performance, Dancer's polarized reception, and analytical models for performers' public reception.

In 2004, Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk (b. 1965) released her fifth solo album Medúlla, made almost exclusively with human voices. After outlining what I have termed ‘the elastic self’, which recognises both personal and external agency, this dissertation first examines how Björk uses technologies of the studio, using Actor Network Theory. Often mechanical manipulation is an attempt to depict powerlessness, whilst her employment of beatboxers’ interplay with technology is to express the body. . I will explore how Björk conceptualised and conceived Medúlla (2004), an album made almost entirely from human voicesI then perform an organicist motivic analysis of the album, studying motives used in different songs and links made across the musical foreground and background and the resulting unity. Through the concept of the rhizome and Actor Network Theory, I expand my analysis of motivic unity outside of the album, suggesting that the album can also be read as a network or as ‘elastic’. This study will attempt to understand how Björk’s idea of the self and body were transferred to the musical work.

Faced with the technological, economic and cultural evolutions of the entertainment world, the music industry has to engage with new business models and consumption habits-suffice it to consider the drop in album sales and the rise of subscription streaming services, such as Spotify. In the meantime, industrial and cultural convergence has opened up new creative and commercial possibilities, allowing single industries to become part of larger networks of synergies that can create value from multiple businesses, outlets and audiences by spreading one core idea, or concept, across different media. This is most evident in franchises based on audiovisual products, where the characters, along with the storytelling they generate, are the foundation of a transmedia storyworld. However, the music industry too has embraced not only cross-media distribution principles, but also world-building and transmedia storytelling models, mixing and remediating itself with other media languages in order to produce narratives and experiences that are centered on music. Thus, this chapter explores the ways the music industry can generate cultural and economic value through transmedia projects, and seek to assess the role of music in the diverse transmedia storyworlds that these projects generate.

A cultura digital vem apresentando uma série de desafios para o formato cultural “álbum de música”. A introdução de suportes digitais como o CD e, principalmente, o MP3 abre caminhos para outras práticas de escuta e possibilidades de comunicar o produto musical, não mais centradas no álbum, entendido como um produto fechado, coerente temática e sonoramente, pré-estruturado através da disposição das faixas em ordem específica e consumido também em termos materiais, tácteis e visuais. Através de dados que apontam a queda na circulação dos formatos físicos e o crescimento do consumo de música de forma unitária, aposta-se no “fim” do álbum ou, pelo menos, em uma forte desvalorização. Em direção contrária, o argumento desta tese sustenta que, mesmo nesse cenário, o álbum de música não somente continua a estruturar grande parte da experiência musical em diferentes esferas – produção, circulação e consumo – como a cultura digital oferece possibilidades de ampliação de nosso entendimento do formato, onde a materialidade permanece cumprindo papel central. Pergunta-se, então: como as convenções simbólico-materiais do álbum são reorganizadas na cultura digital? O primeiro passo para construir o argumento é entender que o que se convencionou chamar de álbum é entendido através da articulação de três categorias: protocolo de escuta do álbum, que lida com questões relativas aos aspectos “artístico-culturais” e temáticos de determinada produção fonográfica registrada em um álbum; protocolo de escuta do suporte, que considera a materialidade do suporte como central nas práticas de escuta e entendimento do formato e o protocolo de usos dos paratextos, o qual diz respeito aos paratextos do álbum, tais como título do álbum, nomes das faixas, imagens, encarte, letras impressas, textos de apresentação, agradecimentos, ficha técnica etc. Na segunda parte, dois estudos de caso – o livro de partitura Song Reader, de Beck, e o álbum Biophilia, lançado por Björk como um aplicativo para dispositivos móveis – discutem as categorias problematizando as convenções do álbum na cultura digital.

This paper looks at Biophilia, created by Björk (2011), the Icelandic singer, musician and actress. This multidimensional project, comprising a music album, newly-designed instruments, an educational programme and digital interactive applications, is focused on its title theme, namely, the love of life, or correctly said, the love of zoe, which I will prove in the course of this article. Taking the project as my point of departure, I will present the basic structure of feminist new materialist ontology and methodology. In particular, I would like to investigate the problematic conceptual, as well as physical, relationship between the human (both andro-and anthropocentric) subject and his non-human other. I will try to locate my reflections within the feminist new materialist and posthumanist frameworks and analyse the way in which the anthropocentric and phallogocentric human has been trying to subordinate, symbolically and physically, the rest of the planet. My special focus here is the political foundations of the myth of human exceptionality, which has been utilised to subjugate, colonise and exploit what we tend to call 'nature'. This research draws mostly upon the work of Donna Haraway, Karen Barad and Rosi Braidotti. Following Haraway's plea to 'make kin, not babies' (Haraway, 2015), I will show how Björk has managed to create a plane whereon both human and non-human worlds may meet and participate in imagining new artistic, symbolic and physical assemblages.

In this research the main question is what of the quintessence (that which is on a metaphysical level) can be communicated through music? This paper presents music as a means and as mediation to approach to the question of what the music can bring from the quintessence. By means of the visions of eight musicians and an auto-ethnographic perspective, it answers to the core question of what music can (or cannot) communicate of the quintessence.

In Icelandic society, nature plays a dominant role; the natural landscape is both a symbol of national pride, as well as a resource that is harnessed for sources of renewable energy. Björkʼs artistic output has been influenced by her exposure to nature, and her music videos explore the importance of the natural world to mankind. This study deconstructs the varying representations of nature within Björkʼs music videos, and uses textual analysis to contend that Björk both celebrates the natural world, and explores the uncertain relationship between nature and technology. The impact of industrialisation on the landscape is investigated, particularly referencing recent developments in Iceland. Björkʼs sustained involvement in environmental activism is also considered, as well as her status as a female musician in a primarily male dominated industry, and the effects this has on the meanings of her work. A range of primary and secondary sources are consulted, in order to contextualise Björkʼs music videos within Icelandic culture, as well as within wider critical discourse on topics of nature, technology and femininity, and the relevance of this to modern society, both in Iceland and globally.

The paper focuses on the music videos of three icons of contemporary pop music: Madonna, Björk and Lady Gaga. The area of interest is the transfiguration of the singers physicality in a mutant physicality, in which come the figurative and conceptual motifs elaborated in the system of visual arts, media and current biotechnologies. In different decades and according to alternative values and representative systems but complementary, the iconography of the pop stars goes through a post-human period, in which the visual image of the singer is re-read according to an horizon, from time to time, science fiction, cyberpunk and post-organic; and in which anachronistic references are merged with high-tech technological images.

Recently, the word feminism has circulated more frequently across digital media spaces, used in various contexts and meaning. Feminism, as an idea and word, has always been a versatile discourse in its ability to adapt its objective output in order to confront the issues of gender and equality operating within institutional and ideology practices. In the past, feminism's rollercoaster position in the political and social consciousness, described in waves, can be somewhat attributed to the discussive practices of academic and cultural studies, which seek to advance feminism's political objectives by constructing theoretical frameworks and methodologies that trace and challenge the many problematic conventions in social domains. Although such discussive practices have been insightful and inventive, establishing feminist discourse has proved to be an arduous task, as each corollary wave presents new problematic issues and modes of criticism surrounding gender and identity politics, that evitably constrain or undermine the ideology of inclusion that, paradoxically, was influenced by the demands from that period's feminist movement. Although the new challenges emerging against feminism ideology stems from deeply rooted powers regulated by hegemonic patriarchal domains, differentiated criticisms and practical inconsistencies have seeped down to public consciousness, led my dominant media, producing a hyperbolic stigma

Dans le vidéo-clip que Chris Cunningham a réalisé pour la chanson de Bjork « All is full of love » (1999), l’américain Steven Shaviro analyse la façon dont la chanteuse se transforme en cyborg et la façon dont ce fantasme se réplique dans un autre cyborg, jouant sur la puissance du dédoublement dans ces corps machiniques devenus corps désirants. Devant ces mutations post-organiques, Shaviro évoque « la vie érotique des machines »  supposant un nouveau mode d’existence qui postule l’idée d’une peau technologique (affectée et émotive). Il ne s’agit pourtant pas seulement de transformation dans ces images, mais bien d’une fusion entre l’humain et son devenir-machinique. Shaviro reprend à son compte la question du désir et de la machine évoquée par Deleuze et Guattari dans L’anti-oedipe (1972) où il y aurait autant d’êtres vivants dans la machine que de machines dans les êtres vivants. La projection d’un fonctionnement organique de la machine via l’image et son dispositif, propose une interaction avec le spectateur laquelle intéresse moins Shaviro qui pointe son regard sur la question du double et son devenir-mutant. En proposant une approche phénoménologique des notions de virtuel et de possible – et en poussant ma lecture de Bergson en ce sens – je souhaite questionner à nouveaux frais l’opposition du couple actuel/virtuel. On le sait, Deleuze emprunte les notions de virtuel et de possible à Bergson qu’il conceptualise en ces termes dans Le Bergsonisme (1966) : « Le virtuel se distingue du possible, au moins de deux points de vue. D’un certain point de vue, en effet, le possible est le contraire du réel ; mais ce qui est tout à fait différent, le virtuel s’oppose à l’actuel ». Par conséquent, le possible devient un acte de déréalisation – la transformation de la réalité en un ensemble de possibles, aussi limités soit-ils à leur non-réalisation – là où le virtuel s’apparente à la potentialité – la différence, la divergence – plutôt qu’au possible. La virtualisation représente donc le mouvement inverse de l’actualisation en tant que dynamique symbolisant le passage de l’actuel au virtuel. Mais n’y a-t-il pas une certaine propension à rendre inerte l’affect du spectateur devant la distinction opérée entre virtuel et actuel ? Comme le remarque Mark Hansen dans son essai intitulé New Philosophy for New Media (2004) : « Pour étendre notre compréhension de l’affect chez Bergson en tant que base théorique dans notre exploration des nouveaux médias, nous devons la ‘racheter’ de l’appropriation transformatrice opérée par Deleuze. D’un point de vue général, cela nous obligera à défendre la base sensorimotrice du corps humain contre laquelle s’oppose Deleuze ». Hansen reproche au philosophe d’avoir désincarné la base sensorimotrice de l’affect, ce qui l’amène à travailler une position critique. En rapprochant le virtuel deleuzien de l’imagerie virtuelle des nouveaux médias, il suggère que certains dispositifs artistiques où les images sont rendues étranges par diverses manipulations, conduisent à une « virtualisation affective du corps » qui caractérise notre ouverture à autrui sur un mode déceptif. L’indifférence des créatures virtuelles proposées dans certaines images numériques provoque une frustration pour le spectateur, lequel semble lâcher prise avec l’espace-vécu. Pourtant, et si Hansen donne à l’image virtuelle ainsi actualisée le rôle d’une interface entre le numérique et l’affectif qui le rapproche de Deleuze, c’est bien pour proposer une lecture phénoménologique du « virtuel ». Ainsi, l’affection sensorimotrice subie par le spectateur se retrouve au centre de ses préoccupations : comment l’être humain peut-il habiter ces nouvelles images qui désincarnent au lieu d’incarner ? Pouvons-nous postuler de nouveaux systèmes d’incarnations qui feraient du virtuel un nouveau « corps phénoménal » (Merleau-Ponty) ? Devant l’échec à pouvoir nouer des relations authentiquement humaines face aux corps virtuels, nous restons pourtant un corps tissé d’intentions. Dès lors, il conviendrait d’interroger le « possible » non plus comme un réel fantomatique mais bien comme une puissance qui construit l’espace. Notre perception du virtuel se doit d’être pensé à partir de notre corps en tant qu’espace expressif par excellence. Par conséquent, comment situer les notions de virtuel et d’actuel du point de vue de la phénoménologie ? De quelle façon le virtuel des images numériques peut-il être le vecteur d’intentions qui invite à reconsidérer la façon dont voyons le monde ? Il nous faudra considérer le virtuel comme une présence qui incite à voir selon et avec les images et montrer en quoi les notions de réciprocité peuvent se substituer aux oppositions ontologiques.

A study of the visual content of album covers of four singers: Madonna and Beyoncé (popular music artists) and PJ Harvey and Björk (alternative/indie music artists). Cover photography of music albums has been an important element of artists’ representation and a medium to grab listeners’ attention. The album cover has become an art form to reflect musicians’ styles, expressing their identities and ideas. This chapter discusses these singers’ musical styles, considering the visual representation of their hair on select album cover photos. It reveals the relations between two different art forms – music and photography – in terms of the meaning of hair as a visual element that conveys ideas about identity and ideology.

This thesis investigates the oeuvre of the Icelandic musician and lyricist Björk from the feminist theory perspective. I focus here on four major aspects: the question of nomadism and sexual differing, the feminist new materialist approach, and utopianism. Firstly, I to present the persona of Björk, to briefly describe her biography, achievements and major works. Secondly, I analyse the connections between her oeuvre (with a special emphasis on her Volta [2007] and Vulnicura [2015] albums) and the feminist theories regarding nomadism and the concept of sexual differing.

The conclusions lead me to the second chapter of my thesis devoted to feminist new materialism and its application in artistic practice. I base my analysis on Björk’s Biophilia album from 2011. I describe here the general concept of the album, which is a multidimensional and intersectional musical project, wherein nature, technology, and music work together to imagine new artistic and conceptual assemblages. Furthermore, I elaborate on the ontological realm and methodology of feminist new materialism. In particular, I  problematise the relationship between subject and object within a situation of scientific and artistic inquiry.

The last chapter of my thesis is devoted to Björk’s Utopia (2017) album. In this chapter, I describe the main themes of both so-called male and female utopianism and demonstrate the main differences between them. These elaborations take me to Björk’s utopia, which, similarly to other feminist anti-representationalist concepts, as I prove, might be compared to the fluidity of nomadism and the indeterminacy of queer. Finally, I express and explain my confidence that both the artist’s works and feminist theories may benefit from such academic investigations.

Museums offer significant learning experiences that contribute to sustainable societies and lifelong learning. However, museum education has historically been a field in flux, and a constant revitalization is needed. This paper examines Biophilia, created by artist and musician Björk, as a case-study to illustrate the potential of its pedagogical approach to affect sustainable museum learning practices. Biophilia inspires children to learn about sound, science, and nature through technology; it is an app-album that manifested itself in a museum context both as a concert venue and a multidisciplinary experimental educational platform—ideal for museum learning. While the project was formally implemented in Iceland through high levels of inter-institutional collaboration, its theoretical relationship to museum education and critical pedagogy of place was overlooked. Using Biophilia's analogy of an 'infectious virus' and a futurist's framework of creativity and play, I ask: what can the field of museum education learn from Biophilia?

Este artigo aborda o processo de reestruturação da indústria fonográfica, com foco no formato “álbum de música”. Adotando uma perspectiva que considera a importância das materialidades dos suportes de reprodução musical, analisa o álbum‑aplicativo “Biophilia”, lançado por Björk em 2011, guiado por questões sobre a materialidade da música e a remediação do álbum musical através de novos protocolos de escuta. Argumentamos que o formato álbum – supostamente ameaçado pelas novas práticas de consumo nas tecnologias digitais – mostra sinais de que pode ser repensado para acompanhar o processo de reestruturação da indústria musical, incentivando novas maneiras de os consumidores e os próprios artistas lidarem com a música.

À l’image des carrières d’artistes majeurs de la fin du XXe siècle comme David Bowie, Kate Bush ou Prince, le parcours musical et artistique de Björk (née en 1965) se distingue par un renouvellement constant de sa production, un naturel expérimental souvent inscrit dans un format de chanson aux émotions directes et un désir de l’inconnu, de l’aventure, de la recherche continue. Chanteuse d’exception, Björk occupe également dans sa création des rôles variés et tient à y mêler les outils du passé et du présent en écrivant sur partition tout en expérimentant les dernières applications musicales sur ordinateur et tablette. Les quelques qualités qui viennent d’être rapidement énoncées semblent montrer que son œuvre représente d’ores et déjà une contribution majeure à l’évolution de la musique (tous genres confondus) du début du XXIe siècle.

Rodeados de cuerpos, cuerpos remix, cuerpos no humanos, que celebran el entre, el entre yo y el otro diluidos. Se deslizan en una realidad ficcional fusionada, donde lo sensorial aparece con cuerpos descentrados. Son los cyborgs de Donna Haraway los que nos explicaron cómo transitamos siendo nuevos seres: ni humanos ni completamente máquinas, sino escapando a esas nociones. Desplazándose en espacios virtuales, que no son espacios físicos, sino que no tienen lugares fijos, van moviéndose con un click. Encuentros de sentires desbordados, donde podemos experimentar al mismo tiempo sin tiempo. Fluctuamos al seguir pensando modernamente .

In this report, we will be detailing my time spent at Butser Ancient Farm from the 25th July 2016 until the 23rd August 2016. This report will also highlight the aims and objectives of the primary experiment undertaken throughout the placement, together with those of a secondary, personal project.  Furthermore, the processes that took place and methods utilised throughout the experiment will be discussed, alongside its results and problems and faced throughout, with possible solutions.

An article which reflects on how pop music could be finally overcoming the retromania described by Simon Reynolds and Mark Fisher. The article focuses first on trap music in Italy and its deconstruction of capitalist society. Secondly, it focuses on the sex positive and gender fluid wave of anglo-american pop. Eventually, the article focuses on the artistic world of Billie Eilish, full of sleep, dreams and nightmares.
https://www.menelique.com/2020/05/15/pop-loop-achille-lauro-billie-eilish-anna-calvi/