Taking place at the end of this month is the biennial Manchester International Festival in Manchester, UK. It’s relatively new in terms of festivals, kicking off in 2007, and features a mix of performing and visual arts, with some popular culture thrown in for good measure. This mixing of pop and art creates a strange brew. This year you can see Marina Abramovic opposite William Defoe in The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic, then spark up a blunt, drink some gin and juice and go watch Snoop Dogg performing Doggystyle, perhaps finishing off with an opera about Elizabethan occultist and Renaissance man Dr. John Dee, with music composed by Damon Albarn from Blur and Gorillaz.But perhaps most interesting of all is Bjork, who’ll be coming back to the live stage and starting her Biophilia show, performing work from her new album Biophilia (the word means the affinity between human beings and other living organisms) along with her back catalogue. Never one to shy away from an elaborate stage getup, her new show aims to merge the natural with the technological in a multimedia extravaganza. The press release states that it’ll celebrate “how sound works in nature, exploring the infinite expanse of the universe, from planetary systems to atomic structure.” Hmm… So what strange vessels will she be using for journeying on this sonic adventure? Nothing less than a series of custom-built instruments such as “a bespoke digitally-controlled pipe organ; a 30 foot pendulum that harnesses the earth's gravitational pull to create musical patterns, creating a unique bridge between the ancient and the modern; a bespoke gamelan-celeste hybrid; and a one-off extraordinary pin barrel harp.”Björk – Biophilia
Image © Inez van Lambsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin shot for AnOther MagazineSounds intriguing. In addition this bizarre-sounding live performance, the album will be released in a more conventional sense and as a series of interactive apps that will explore the various song’s themes. We’re not sure exactly how these will function, but sounds fascinating nonetheless, and it’s nice to see a project where the app isn’t just an afterthought for promotional purposes, but is instead an integral part of the album. Saying that, we’ll have to wait and see whether it’s just a self-indulgent gimmick for hardcore fans or if it does add real cross-media depth to the experience.After Björk premiers the show at the Manchester International Festival, she’ll be taking it on a world tour. So we await with bated breath, but for now you can listen to the grandly-garnished above song from the album, which was released as part of the Solar System iPad app.
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Image © Inez van Lambsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin shot for AnOther MagazineSounds intriguing. In addition this bizarre-sounding live performance, the album will be released in a more conventional sense and as a series of interactive apps that will explore the various song’s themes. We’re not sure exactly how these will function, but sounds fascinating nonetheless, and it’s nice to see a project where the app isn’t just an afterthought for promotional purposes, but is instead an integral part of the album. Saying that, we’ll have to wait and see whether it’s just a self-indulgent gimmick for hardcore fans or if it does add real cross-media depth to the experience.After Björk premiers the show at the Manchester International Festival, she’ll be taking it on a world tour. So we await with bated breath, but for now you can listen to the grandly-garnished above song from the album, which was released as part of the Solar System iPad app.