Björk.fr – Site francophone dédié à Björk : musique, clips et actualités

Elle

aifol — 2026-03-20T10:26:39Z

Elle a toujours eu un temps d'avance.

Des musiques expérimentales aux clips déroutants, d'une robe cygne devenue culte aux scènes les plus prestigieuses du monde, Björk n'a jamais cherché à rassurer.

Tour à tour qualifiée d'elfe excentrique, de fée malicieuse, voire de sorcière, l'artiste islandaise dérange autant qu'elle fascine. Dans un monde qui tolère mal les personnalités hors normes, surtout quand elles sont féminines, Björk a choisi de transformer les étiquettes en manifeste.

À travers son parcours, se dessine le portrait d'une femme radicalement libre, qui a fait de son étrangeté une force et de sa créativité un acte de résistance.

Un récit sur l'audace, la marginalité et la puissance d'être soi, quoi qu'il en coûte.

https://podcasts.elle.fr/elle-il-etait-une-premiere-fois/202603191105-bjork-lovni-qui-manquait-la-terre

Écriture : Sophie Marchand

Forbes

sofftchevaliers — 2025-05-15T07:12:17Z

Forbes France en partenariat avec No More Plastic (Official) Foundation ont le plaisir de vous présenter le hors-série Sustainability avec Bjork en cover de ce numéro exceptionnel.

Ce hors-série, placé sous la rédaction en chef de Rosalie Mann met à l'honneur l'océan et les enjeux de notre planète, à l'approche de la Conférence des Nations Unies pour l'Océan (UNOC).

Autre Magazine

sofftchevaliers — 2025-04-14T08:02:15Z

Björk à l'honneur dans un numéro exceptionnel d'Autre Magazine

Clash Magazine

sofftchevaliers — 2025-04-02T12:24:00Z

A fusion-focussed avatar for cultural synthesis, Björk is a singular creative force. The past decade has really put her through it, but music and aesthetic experimentation remains at her core. Re-rooting herself in her native Reykjavik, Björk's work has broken fresh boundaries, blurring the lines between visual art, tech innovation, and her avant-pop streak.

Björk is a singular force in culture. A fusion-focussed avatar for cultural synthesis, her new live film shatters boundaries all over again.

Björk is having the time of her life. She's touched down in London to help launch her new concert film Björk : Cornucopia, and is clearly relishing catching up with old friends, and re-connecting with familiar sights. Seated across from CLASH on a plush leather sofa, her dark eyes as wide as can be, every question is greeted with deep thought, every answer launched with the flailing of arms and the gesticulation of absolute child-like enthusiasm. To Björk, creativity is her life force ; but it's also – to echo the most-used phrase in our conversation – “super fun !”

The film itself is vintage Björk. It captures a night in Lisbon on her Cornucopia tour, fusing aspects of the Icelandic artist's broader catalogue with her vital recent work ; blending her incredible, soul-encompassing approach to performance with technology so ground-breaking she's leaving tech giants in her wake. Truly, nothing is spared, nothing is left uncovered, and everything is left onstage.

“For me, it all had to be emotionally correct,” she notes. “That was a lot of work, just getting every animation made. For me, it had to be like synaesthesia, and it all had to be synchronised with the songs and whatever emotion you're trying to express. There's a million little details like that, because it's been our baby for five years.”

The tour itself taps into the energies of the pandemic, and the need to re-connect. For Björk, the experiences of lockdown were difficult, but also a blessing ; departing the United States, it was her first extended spell in Reykjavik in a long time, enabling her to go through a process of re-grounding. “Look, what happens when you have two homes ? You've two of everything ; two blenders, two ovens, two encyclopaedias. I went through all my stuff and gave half of it away to Ukrainian and Syrian refugees. It was quite therapeutic.”

“Our life in Iceland wasn't that changed,” she recalls. “And I loved the two years when I didn't have to go on an airplane ! For most people that isn't good news, but for me, a musician who tours a lot, it's a luxury. Always waking up in your own bed is such a privilege.” When the pandemic receded, Björk started making plans. Interrupted by COVID, her Cornucopia tour picked up where it left off – at the razor's edge of stylistic disruption and digital innovation. The set list was overhauled, with the singer labelling the setting, an ambitious fusion of digital animation and 19th century theatrics, as “a magic lantern show”. She adds : “the nature of ‘Cornucopia' was to take VR from the 21st century to the 19th century stage… take it out of the headset.”

The shows were also a means of catch-up. Since 2015's ‘Vulnicura' – her first with frequent studio partner Arca – Björk has moved in radically distinct directions. If ‘Vulnicura' was a work of heartbreak and loss, 2017's ‘Utopia' was playful, carnal. 2022's ‘Fossora' spun the dials once more, a work of potent emotion that dealt with grief, and found Björk collaborating with her children on record. She admits she was “quite protective” of ‘Vulnicura' because of its ties to her family. So, in lieu of a formal tour, she explored VR “because it was somehow secret, like a private opera for one. A really sad heartbreak album, but just for one ! And then ‘Utopia' was the opposite. It was : let's celebrate, let's put this on a stage ! I was really into play, y'know ? Like, this is fun ! I was having a lot of fun with Arca and James Merry, and we wanted to go into the world of 360 in both sound and visuals.”

The Cornucopia experience takes both of those instincts and extrapolates them outwards at astonishing speed. Björk once told the New York Times it was “a sci-fi pop concert” and you can see why ; stunningly ambitious, it truly transports you to another magical realm. During the technical process Björk aligned once more with James Merry, who attempted the work of following her quicksilver imagination for the jaw-dropping staging. The technology, meanwhile, saw the singer work with multiple future-facing companies, single-handedly rolling back what a pop concert can both look and sound like. “Sorry, I sound really embarrassed,” she laughs when discussing a few of the key players in the tech realm. “I'm a punk – I don't like money or logos ! It was more like… an exchange !”

“I just really love that energy when you're hanging out with people who are discovering new things nobody's done before,” she says. “The whole novelty of that, it's kind of cute – like a punk energy !” At the centre of the performances, though, lies the same instinct for communication which has propelled Björk through every iteration of her creative life. After all, it's worth recalling that she moved from indie fame in The Sugarcubes to actual fame in the ‘90s, with records like her aptly-titled ‘Debut' and the boundary-smashing ‘Homogenic' forging a sound that was both utterly new, and highly feminine.

Whether luxuriating in flute-enabled sonic balms or pirouetting in the maelstrom of sonic noise, the results of this new film are intended to engender aesthetic conversation with her audience. “I mean, I'm very blessed with fans,” she smiles, nodding furiously. “They're amazing, they're very nerdy and in a good way. And I'm very proud that they're all ages and all genders and queer and anti-racist. I feel quite proud of that.”

“I can't be interpreted all the time,” she continues, “when I'm at restaurants or doing something private. I just want to have good relationships with the people I love in my life ; like my kids, my family, my friends, my loved ones. I just need a certain level of privacy to be able to write more music and give more to my fans, and they've been really respectful of that.” Her previous work in VR hangs over the tour, acting as a reference point to these current endeavours. “It's quite niche,” she notes. “Like, the people who will go to put a headset on, and be able to see the exhibition. It's niche ! One of the reasons I did ‘Cornucopia' was to go old school, create a normal concert and get the physical, visceral experience. I love digital but I love physical even more.”

On the table in front of CLASH sits the proofs to a lavish new tome based on the tour : “a normal book that your grandparents can hold in their hands.” This tangible relationship to art is a hallmark of Björk's career. Her extraordinary 2011 release ‘Biophilia' may have been the world's first app album, but she's also a vinyl head. Days after our meeting CLASH catches Björk playing a rare DJ set for Apple Music, appearing on a line-up that also includes grime kingpin Skepta and the mighty Uncle Waffles, amongst others. The set is typically daring ; at times gleefully humorous, she cuts ‘n' shunts her way through the mixing, displaying a punk-like disregard for the norm.

Every full moon Björk DJs in Reykjavik. It's a way of re-centring herself, and reconnecting with the community that first bore her. Taking place at Smekkleysa – “it's like Rough Trade but a bit smaller” – she likens it more to visual art, the experience of being invited to wander through an exhibition of paintings or photography. As for the sets themselves, as her Apple Music broadcast displays, it's truly anything goes. “Listen, one minute it's an 80-year-old salsa singer, the next minute a Finnish techno teenager. That's always been my take on music. It's all styles, all genres, all ages, all races. All everything and I'm very happy !”

“In the ‘90s when we went out clubbing, you'd wait until 4am for your favourite DJ and by then you're either off your head – if you're even still awake – so you can't hear what they're doing, or you've fallen asleep,” she laughs. “I'm not knocking club culture, you know, that's amazing. But I also wanted this different kind of listening, the same energy you would get from visiting an art museum, right ? You go with your friends, and you have a coffee, you look at the art, you talk about whatever, maybe get one glass of wine. It's a daytime energy.”

In Björk's world, energy is everything. An artist known for praising the exquisite minutia of mushrooms, for example, she's also tethered to the furthest-out reaches of computer programming. In every aspect of her life, you sense this longing to embrace the inter-connectedness of nature – lifeforms, biological and digital, mutating in and out of each other, amorphous identities running fluid through rivulets of imagination.

She's less an auteur and more a ‘conductor' bringing together creative systems, but also a conduit for energies, natural and otherwise. Kindred spirits are drawn into her orbit. One perennial collaborator over the past decade has been the boundary-less electronics of Arca. “She's a fully-fledged musician, y'know ?” the Icelandic voice exclaims. “She can be a producer, and do an amazing beat. But she can run vocal lines, and sing those. She's this incredible producer who can also do a crazy ass pop song. She can do the weirdest avant-garde experimental shit on Earth !”

“But also what I really appreciate is that she's also such a good friend, and very intellectual… like, in a good way,” she continues. “You could really talk about anything with her ; you could talk philosophy one minute, and comedy the next. When you're making a song, it's very ambiguous what you're trying to do, and she's the best collaborator in the sense that she really is borderline psychic in understanding what it is that you're after.”

You get the sense from chatting to Björk that hanging out in the studio would not only be an education, but also fun. Each day is another adventure. It's apt that she often DJs beneath a Reykjavik full moon, as this tethers her creativity to the natural world, and the endlessly moving environments we reside in. Björk's art changes because she does ; it's a perpetual act of re-discovery. “I just think I get bored very easily,” she says. “For real. That's probably the main driving force. But I think it's a combination of things. One is that I was very blessed that I spent ten years in bands with amazing people. We had a label and we were very safe. We didn't need anyone else. And I was the youngest, so I was kind of protected.”

“I don't know if you're into Chinese astrology – probably not ! – but they were all tigers,” she explains. “Tigers are very protective and I was the only snake, so I was very protected. In a way, it was a university for me. I thought I would be in bands forever. I loved it ! But then at the end of it I was like : oh damn, I need to do new music, I need growth. I need to get out of this box ! And my carrot was my own growth,” she says… “not in an egotistical or narcissistic way.”

Citing the seminal Hermann Hesse novel The Glass Bead Game as a reference point, Björk compares her own artistic output to the book's message of transcendental education. “Every time you get bored, you get another challenge. It's about providing yourself with a school for life. Except it's not like a building – the building is you !” The breadth of Björk's knowledge is staggering. To further her art she's learned software languages, and multiple aspects of musicology ; she's remained at the forefront of club culture, rooting herself into multiple creative lineages. She's a finely balanced creative cosmos forever expanding outwards. “That's the energy that drives me ; I feel like I'm growing. It's not fame, it's personal growth.”

We close by looking to the future. Björk works at her own pace, a steady but assured voyage of artistic attainment, grinding down challenges into dust. “I'm the sort of person who is always writing, but I'm super slow. It's not like I write in bursts and then don't write anything for three years,” she insists. “I'm the opposite. I write a song every two months. That's how you survive. That's the antidote. It's planting seeds inside of you that are desperate to get out.”

“It's too early days… ” she says. “Also, if I describe it, in my experience, I'll jinx it, y'know ? If I say it's green, then I'll go home and do everything except green. Because that's the way creativity works. It has to work in the dark. It's nothing stressful. It's part of my diary !”

Voir en ligne : clashmusic.com

Robin Murray

Vanity Fair italia

sofftchevaliers — 2025-03-21T12:31:15Z

In attesa del docu-film Cornucopia che racconta oltre dieci anni di musica e di vita, l'artista racconta come è passata dall'utopia al ritorno felice coi piedi per terra. Ma anche perché l'ottimismo è la risposta e per le donne le cose stanno cambiando davvero

Björk : « J'ai décidé de dénoncer le harcèlement sur le tournage de Dancer in the Dark pour aider les jeunes femmes. Le mouvement MeToo a permis de nombreuses avancées, mais il faudra du temps pour un véritable changement. »

Dans l'attente de la sortie du film Cornucopia, qui retrace plus de dix ans de musique, l'artiste islandaise revient sur son évolution : de l'utopie à un retour apaisé les pieds sur terre. Elle explique aussi pourquoi l'optimisme est une réponse essentielle, et en quoi les choses changent réellement pour les femmes.

Que ressent-on à condenser plus de dix ans de musique et de vie dans un film-concert ?
« D'un côté, c'est une belle sensation de pouvoir faire ses adieux à une partie de son parcours ; de l'autre, c'est un sentiment étrange », répond Björk. « Nous avons organisé une avant-première en Islande, à laquelle ont assisté mes amis et ma famille. Ils m'ont vue chanter des titres datant parfois de 12 ans, une période que je ressens aujourd'hui comme émotionnellement lointaine. »

Intitulé Cornucopia, le film-concert est déjà disponible en streaming sur Apple TV et sortira dans les salles en Italie le 7 mai. Il présente l'enregistrement d'un concert donné à Lisbonne : un live visuellement riche, mêlant performances scéniques de musiciens et de danseurs, ainsi que des projections vidéo.

Sur scène, Björk interprète principalement des chansons issues de trois albums : Vulnicura (2016), Utopia (2017) et Fossora (2022), tandis que défilent des visuels issus de Björk Digital, une exposition en réalité virtuelle ayant fait le tour du monde et devenue également un album virtuel (à vivre grâce à des casques VR). « Ces vidéos s'adressaient jusqu'ici à un public intéressé par le numérique et la technologie, mais grâce à ce film, ils peuvent désormais toucher un public bien plus large. »

Björk, 59 ans, originaire d'Islande, a commencé à chanter alors qu'elle était encore à l'école primaire. À 14 ans, elle se passionne pour le punk, et collabore ensuite avec plusieurs groupes avant de connaître un succès international en 1986 avec The Sugarcubes. En 1993, elle lance sa carrière solo avec l'album Debut. Depuis, elle ne cesse d'expérimenter et de se réinventer d'un album à l'autre, notamment grâce à l'utilisation de technologies avancées, y compris l'intelligence artificielle.

En revanche, ses incursions dans le monde du cinéma ont été rares. La plus marquante reste Dancer in the Dark de Lars von Trier, dont elle est à la fois l'actrice principale et l'autrice de la bande originale. Elle y a reçu le prix d'interprétation féminine au Festival de Cannes en 2000. Une expérience cependant traumatisante, en raison du harcèlement subi sur le tournage, qu'elle a dénoncé plusieurs années plus tard.

Discrète, Björk dévoile peu de choses sur sa vie privée. On sait qu'elle est mère de deux enfants : Sindri Eldon Þórsson, 38 ans, également musicien, né de son union avec Þór Eldon, guitariste des Sugarcubes ; et Ísadóra Bjarkardóttir Barney, 22 ans, actrice, née de sa relation avec l'artiste Matthew Barney.

En quoi Cornucopia reflète-t-il votre parcours, à la fois personnel et artistique ?

« Utopia représentait une phase d'extase qui faisait suite à une période très difficile que j'avais explorée dans Vulnicura. Une fois que tout a été réduit à néant, on commence à construire un espace parfait, idéal. Utopia était une sorte de fantasme qui se transformait en manifeste pour la création d'un nouveau monde. Fossora, en revanche, était un album moins utopique, dans le sens où il s'ancrait dans la vie quotidienne. D'une certaine manière, il portait sur la mise en pratique de la philosophie de Utopia. C'était un album sur le retour heureux à la réalité, les pieds sur terre. »

A-t-il été difficile de traduire cette courbe émotionnelle en un seul concert ?
« Je ne peux pas dire que cela a été facile. Mais concevoir des setlists, c'est quelque chose que je fais depuis l'âge de 14 ans. Je l'ai fait des milliers de fois. Et c'est très intéressant, car on peut choisir les mêmes chansons, mais en changeant leur ordre, le flux émotionnel se transforme radicalement. Cornucopia commence avec de l'optimisme, par la création d'une utopie : sur scène, il y a des femmes, des enfants, des flûtes. Une sorte de déclaration féministe contre la violence et l'agressivité. Puis viennent des morceaux plus introspectifs, comme Body Memory, qui parle de la vie et de la mort dans une perspective quelque peu bouddhiste. Ensuite arrive le moment de la catharsis, pour finir sur une note heureuse. Disons que Cornucopia suit une structure narrative classique : on part d'un espace mental rempli d'espoir et d'optimisme, on traverse ensuite les difficultés, les obstacles à surmonter, mais à la fin du parcours, on en ressort transformé, et l'issue est faite de bonheur, d'extase. »

Un "voyage" dans lequel chacun peut se reconnaître ?
« Les artistes expriment des émotions universelles, ou du moins, c'est ce qu'ils devraient faire. En 2016, il y a eu l'élection de Donald Trump à la présidence des États-Unis, le retour des mouvements de droite et du fascisme. D'une certaine manière, l'utopie à l'origine de Cornucopia était aussi une façon de fuir cette réalité. Un musical entre fantasy et science-fiction, mais profondément ancré dans le monde réel. Et il est, disons, curieux de voir que Trump a de nouveau été élu à la Maison-Blanche. Nous avions espéré que le monde apprendrait de ses erreurs et évoluerait vers le changement, mais il semble que la situation doive devenir encore plus extrême pour que le monde avance vraiment. »

Les thématiques environnementales sont très présentes dans Cornucopia. Vous avez expliqué que votre engagement écologique vient aussi de votre lien fort avec la nature, présent depuis l'enfance. Cela a-t-il beaucoup changé avec le temps ?

« Pas vraiment. Je pense que cela tient au mode de vie auquel nous sommes habitués en Islande. Il ne s'agit pas de choisir entre vivre en ville ou au vert : même en milieu urbain, le contact avec la nature est quotidien. J'ai grandi entourée de verdure, et je n'ai jamais cessé de passer beaucoup de temps dans la nature. »

À propos de la crise climatique, vous vous définissez comme “post-optimiste”. Qu'entendez-vous par là ?

« Quelqu'un a écrit que je pense que tout ira bien à la fin. C'est manifestement une incompréhension. Quand je parle de post-optimisme, je fais référence à une sorte de fétichisation de l'apocalypse. La fin du monde est souvent présentée comme inévitable, dans une narration patriarcale qu'on retrouve dans de nombreux films hollywoodiens. Mais ce n'est pas la seule façon de voir les choses. Dans d'autres régions du monde — en Asie, en Afrique, en Amérique du Sud — beaucoup considèrent que l'apocalypse a déjà eu lieu, dans les années 1950, et que nous vivons déjà dans un monde post-apocalyptique, dans lequel il faut apprendre à évoluer. »

Pouvez-vous préciser ?
« Dans les pays ou les villes où la révolution industrielle a eu lieu, il est impossible de revenir en arrière ou de s'en extraire : on se retrouve dans une impasse. Mais ailleurs, là où cette révolution n'a pas eu lieu, il est encore possible de démarrer autrement, en adoptant des technologies vertes — dont beaucoup existent déjà — et d'aborder le nouveau millénaire avec un respect accru pour l'environnement. Je pense qu'il faut accepter le fait que de nombreuses espèces animales ont disparu, et qu'il n'est pas possible de faire marche arrière. Il faut plutôt miser sur la collaboration entre la biologie et la technologie pour trouver des solutions durables pour la planète. »

La technologie joue également un rôle central dans votre musique depuis longtemps.
« Les gens me voient comme une passionnée de technologie, mais en réalité, je me considère comme très organique. Je suis chanteuse, donc je travaille avec mon corps, un instrument fait de chair, d'os, de sang. Ce que je veux dire, c'est que la technologie existe et progresse. C'est un fait, on ne peut pas l'ignorer. Tous les jours, j'utilise des ordinateurs, le wi-fi, je parle au téléphone, je conduis une voiture électrique… Il me semble plus honnête d'intégrer dans ma musique à la fois le vent, l'océan, tout ce qui appartient à la nature — une composante essentielle de ma vie — mais aussi tous les éléments technologiques dans lesquels je baigne au quotidien. Je pense que lorsque le premier violon a été inventé, on le considérait comme un instrument de haute technologie. Les premiers orgues à tuyaux étaient sans doute perçus comme des vaisseaux spatiaux, des OVNI. À chaque époque, on expérimente quelque chose de nouveau, et parfois cela fait peur. Pour moi, c'est une question d'imagination. Je me souviens du moment où j'ai commencé à envoyer des messages sur mon téléphone portable et je me suis dit : “Je veux composer le texte d'une chanson comme si j'écrivais un message.” Parce que le vocabulaire est différent de celui qu'on utilise à l'oral, dans une lettre ou un e-mail. Je ne place pas la technologie au centre, mais je me l'approprie, car c'est la seule option, sauf à s'isoler totalement et aller vivre dans une grotte. »

Lors du concert, vous portez un masque et, dans l'interview vidéo consacrée à Cornucopia diffusée sur Apple TV, votre visage est voilé. Pourquoi ce choix de ne pas vous montrer ?
« Quand j'étais jeune, il y avait les vinyles. Si, en Islande, on ne trouvait pas un disque qu'on voulait, on prenait l'avion pour aller l'acheter à Londres. On se prêtait un seul exemplaire entre amis. À cette époque, il n'y avait pas d'images, pas de YouTube. Aujourd'hui, avec les réseaux sociaux, TikTok, il y a une pression énorme sur les artistes pour qu'ils produisent aussi du contenu visuel. Parfois, tu participes à une séance photo et il y a toute une équipe sur le plateau uniquement pour capturer des images des coulisses. Si je pouvais choisir, je ne serais que son. Je suis musicienne, et c'est par le son que je m'exprime. »

Vous avez dit qu'alors que dans de nombreux pays vous êtes perçue comme une féministe, en Islande vous êtes simplement une femme comme les autres.
« Dans tous les groupes auxquels j'ai participé quand j'étais jeune, je n'ai jamais ressenti que j'étais moins importante que les hommes. Mais vers l'âge de 30 ans, quand je suis allée à l'étranger, j'ai reçu un choc : j'ai vu que les femmes occupaient toujours les postes les plus bas dans la hiérarchie, qu'elles avaient moins de poids. C'était totalement nouveau pour moi. Cela dit, je ne veux pas dire qu'il n'y a pas de problèmes en Islande — ici aussi, nous menons des combats similaires. »

Par exemple ?
« Les métiers traditionnellement féminins, ceux du soin et de l'accompagnement, sont moins bien rémunérés. C'est une question qui commence à être abordée, et lentement — trop lentement — les choses évoluent. Mais en même temps, nous avons une femme évêque, une femme à la tête de la police, une Première ministre et une présidente. Sur les 11 ministres du gouvernement actuel, 7 sont des femmes. Le paysage est donc très différent. Et ce n'est pas nouveau : la première femme présidente a été élue dans les années 1980. »

En 2017, vous avez rejoint le mouvement #MeToo en dénonçant les agressions subies sur le tournage de Dancer in the Dark. Moins de cinq ans plus tard, ce mouvement semble avoir perdu de son élan. Qu'en pensez-vous ?
« J'avais décidé de parler et de raconter mon histoire parce que je voulais faire quelque chose pour les filles de la génération de ma fille. Elle est actrice, et je peux dire qu'aujourd'hui, les choses ont beaucoup changé par rapport à il y a quelques années, et cela me rend heureuse. Sur les plateaux, il y a désormais des coordinateurs d'intimité, l'industrie du cinéma a évolué, elle a appris à ne pas reproduire les erreurs du passé. Il est vrai que, si l'on observe le dialogue en ligne, on voit des réactions de rejet, des tentatives de retour en arrière. Mais je pense que c'est normal face à une vague de changement aussi puissante. C'est comme un pendule qui va d'un côté à l'autre. Il faudra du temps, quelques années ne suffisent pas. »

Voir en ligne : https://www.vanityfair.it/article/b...

Enrica Brocardo

National Geographic

aifol — 2025-03-19T13:57:00Z

En 1888, la National Geographic Society a été fondée par 33 explorateurs et scientifiques visionnaires dans le but de promouvoir et diffuser les connaissances géographiques. Leur objectif était de transformer notre compréhension et notre exploration du monde. Aujourd'hui, 137 ans après sa création, le magazine National Geographic continue de célébrer les innovateurs contemporains.

La liste des 33 inclut des noms bien connus d'Hollywood, tels que les acteurs Don Cheadle, Jason Momoa, Michelle Yeoh, Edward Norton, Selena Gomez, les musiciennes Björk et Arlo Parks, ainsi que des scénaristes-producteurs comme Adam McKay et Sterlin Harjo, sans oublier quelques noms moins connus, tels que l'activiste climatique Jennifer Uchendu, le nageur de fond Lewis Pugh et le fondateur de Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard.

Björk : The artist fighting for our planet

Björk always seems to inhabit an alternate universe—a dreamlike space of the highest creative ambition, free from the constraints that govern mere mortals. Which makes it all the more jarring when she injects her work with a dose of cold reality. In January she released a concert film shot during her recent Cornucopia tour. The show featured signature Björk flourishes, including expansive arrangements of Iceland's Hamrahlíð Choir ; giant, psychedelic projections of fungi ; and the flashing of an environmental manifesto making an explicit appeal to the most urgent issue of our time : “The Paris climate accord is a modern utopia impossible to imagine, but overcoming our environmental challenges is the only way we can survive.”

Over Zoom one day last winter, she explained what she was getting at—namely a reframing of what's possible. “When we look at the list of [goals in the Paris climate accord], it looks absolutely unreachable,” she says. “I think what we have to do is set different goals that are reachable.” 

Björk is calling in from Paris, where she recently installed another manifesto in the escalators at the iconic Centre Pompidou. And while her artistic aims have consistently been lofty, her environmentalism is grounded in practical concerns. She exists on the most rarefied plane that a pop star can reach but keeps a careful eye on the scale of her chosen causes. “Every other year I try to pick one thing that I will fight quite hard for,” she says. “But I try to pick something where it's actually possible to overturn. It's big enough that it can matter but small enough that you can make a change.” 

For the past two years, Björk, 59, has poured herself into the fight against commercial salmon farms in her native Iceland. After a hole in one farm's pens allowed thousands of salmon to escape, there's now concern that those fish may breed with native species or pass along diseases and parasites, creating a potential ecological nightmare. “Sometimes it's been difficult to bridge a gap between Gen Z vegans and, like, farmers who kill sheep every autumn to eat,” she says. “But on this fish-farming project, everyone is united.” To bring global awareness to the issue, she took an unreleased song out of her archive and recruited Rosalía, the Spanish pop star, to record vocals for it. Proceeds from the song, titled “Oral,” are now supporting several ongoing lawsuits against the commercial fisheries. “It's a marathon,” Björk says of the litigation. “And we are hoping that we will win the cases, and we can put them online for other countries to use.”

Björk still counts the island nation of her birth (population 383,000) as her home base. She grew up with a fiercely principled, antiestablishment mother who, in 2002, went on an 18-day hunger strike to protest plans to build an aluminum smelting operation and a power plant in the Icelandic highlands. Björk's heritage is central to her environmental concerns, which have been increasingly enmeshed with her broader artistic project. “Every time I do something in Iceland, I always reach out to the environmental groups. We meet in my living room for coffee,” she says. 

For decades, she's been a globally beloved visionary who can sell out arenas, but she still operates with the spirit and principles of an indie act from the nineties : “I'm like an old punk, so I never receive money from anyone,” she tells me. This constitutional independence means that she usually rejects requests for commissioned works. But when the curators at the Pompidou asked her, last year, to create a version of her environmental manifesto for the museum, she recognized an opportunity to bridge the pillars of her creative, political, and technological sensibilities. Along with her own vocals, and with the help of AI software, the piece featured snippets of sound from endangered or extinct animals. “I give them the microphone. They repeat all the words with me,” she explains. She immersed herself in field recordings with animals. “At first, I cast the net quite wide. But then I ended up choosing animals that are most similar to the human voice, that are endangered or extinct,” she says. This list included the Hawaiian crow, the orangutan, and rare species of dolphins. At one point, she spent a full week listening to flocks of birds taking off in different parts of the world to figure out “which was the most ecstatic.” 

As part of the Pompidou commission, Björk asked the museum's curators to gather young environmental activists to pursue another “reachable” cause : She wants them to petition French president Emmanuel Macron to ban bottom trawling in the country's protected waters. It's another seemingly modest goal with the potential to make a tangible impact. “I try to make the best of the fact that I come from a very small country that is very untouched,” she says. “Instead of doing 10 things, [I try to] do one thing properly and follow it all the way to the end … not just be a face on some campaign and show up at a cocktail party and go home and not know what's going to happen.”

Voir en ligne : https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...

Carrie Battan

Les Inrockuptibles

sofftchevaliers — 2025-02-26T10:45:00Z

À l'issue de sa tournée “Cornucopia”, Björk publie un livre et un film sur Apple Music pour retracer ces quatre années mémorables. Rencontre avec la géniale musicienne islandaise, qui a accepté de répondre aux questions de notre rédaction et de quelques artistes-ami·es.

Chez Björk, la musique est devenue image et l'image, musique il y a un bon moment maintenant. Celle qui débuta avec le bien nommé Debut (1993) ne cesse de renforcer les liens entre les sons et les visuels. Lorsque nous l'avions vue à l'Accor Arena, à Paris, en 2023, avait explosé un spectacle facétieux et foisonnant, qui convoquait une sarabande féerique, une robe peu pratique de laquelle sortait un anthurium au pistil rappelant tour à tour une verge et une épée, et un masque-bijou hanté signé James Merry… Un monde onirique, mi-organique, mi-digital, où les lutins auraient eu des jambes bioniques. Le vaste show 3D était cocréé avec la cinéaste argentine Lucrecia Martel et la scénographe Chiara Stephenson, et faisait dire aux puristes que les visuels commençaient fort à bouffer tout le son. Alors même qu'il était indéniable qu'un show pareil ne pouvait qu'émaner de l'esprit pluridisciplinaire et ô combien attachant de Björk. La musicienne islandaise publie un livre et un film sur cette tournée qui alertait sur l'urgence climatique, et a accepté de répondre à quelques questions de notre rédaction et d'artistes-ami·es.

Les Inrockuptibles — Vous sortez un livre et un film sur votre tournée Cornucopia qui était visuellement très intense. Les images ont-elles toujours eu cette importance prépondérante pour vous ?

Björk — Ça m'a moi-même surprise. Il s'agit d'un long voyage. J'ai commencé, adolescente, dans des groupes punk où nous étions profondément anti-images, persuadés que le visuel était un artifice. Puis nous nous sommes laissé photographier, et avons été mal perçus, visuellement parlant. Nous avons donc voulu corriger le tir afin de ressembler à notre musique. Depuis, j'ai cherché sur chaque album à traduire visuellement les timbres, les couleurs et les textures des morceaux afin que l'image devienne un raccourci pour la compréhension de la musique. J'appelle mes pochettes d'albums “des cartes de tarot sonores” sur lesquelles des personnages expriment l'émotion contenue dans les paroles des morceaux, et leurs points de vue sur le monde. J'ai senti qu'il était important de produire ce livre de photos Cornucopia pour accompagner le film, dans la mesure où il n'est projeté qu'à Lisbonne. Mais le livre rassemble nos 43 concerts et 100 costumes. On y retrouve nos invités comme Kas de Gabber Modus Operandi, Serpentwithfeet et les chorales locales mexicaines, japonaises, australiennes, californiennes…

La première image qui vous a marquée ?

Hmmm… Une statue de cheval ? Mon grand-père me conduisait à l'école maternelle et nous pointions systématiquement du doigt une statue de cheval que nous croisions sur la route.

Avez-vous peur de l'IA ?

Oui et non. Je pense que lorsqu'une révolution technologique de cette ampleur survient, il est urgent de l'humaniser. Trouver de l'espace pour les sentiments et la spiritualité. Les musiciens sont bons pour ça.

Quand avez-vous pris conscience de la crise climatique et de l'urgence à vous impliquer dans le combat écologique ?

J'ai été impliquée dans différents combats en Islande depuis vingt-cinq ans. J'ai commencé à pratiquer la philosophie consistant à dire “pense global, agis local”. L'Islande est le plus grand territoire préservé en Europe et mérite d'être protégé.

Comment convaincre un·e climatosceptique de la catastrophe en cours ?

Je suis musicienne. Ça dépasse le champ de mes compétences. Ou peut-être n'est-ce pas l'angle que j'adopte. J'essaie de me concentrer sur des choses faisables.

Y a-t-il un album que vous souhaiteriez nous inviter à écouter ?

À Noël, j'ai beaucoup écouté le nouvel album de Clarissa Connelly. Il se mariait parfaitement bien à la neige.

David Lynch est décédé. Quelle relation entretenez-vous avec son œuvre ? L'aviez-vous rencontré ?

Je l'ai un peu raté… entre deux générations. Mon groupe d'amis était beaucoup plus obsédé par Jane Campion, Jeanette Winterson, Kate Bush, Anaïs Nin… Et non, je ne l'ai jamais rencontré.

Que pensez-vous de cette nouvelle ère Trump ?

Je n'ai jamais été aussi heureuse et à l'abri que dans ma maison en Islande.

Où trouvez-vous de l'espoir, de la joie aujourd'hui ?

Hmm… Dans différentes choses selon les jours… l'humour ? J'ai toujours regardé beaucoup de comédies, et le duo Trixie et Katya [deux drag-queens ayant participé au show RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars] est mon préféré en ce moment. Je passe beaucoup de temps dehors, dans la nature. Deux à trois heures chaque jour… À Reykjavík c'est très simple, même s'il s'agit d'une capitale européenne. Je vis sur une plage entourée de montagnes. Je passe mon temps à chercher de nouvelles musiques, de nouveaux films et de nouveaux livres à découvrir. Et je passe du temps avec ceux que j'aime, mes amis, ma famille.

Sega Bodega (producteur de musique) — Blissing Me est l'un de mes morceaux préférés, et j'ai le sentiment que partager de la musique est un langage d'amour pour vous. Avez-vous déjà ou pourriez-vous tomber amoureuse d'une personne qui aime de la très mauvaise musique, ou qui s'en fout ? La musique est-elle essentielle pour se connecter à quelqu'un ?

Hmmm… C'est un peu crucial… Ou peut-être qu'il suffit que les goûts se chevauchent… ? Par exemple, vous partagez le folk ensemble, mais l'un écoute du death metal et l'autre du R&B ? Je peux trouver exotique que quelqu'un que j'aime énormément et qui me comprend aime un morceau que je n'aime absolument pas… Donc cela varie… Je pense que j'ai une capacité de compréhension assez large en ce qui concerne la musique, peut-être moins avec certaines choses comme l'homophobie, le racisme ou la misogynie, qui sont des tue-l'amour complets.

Kasimyn (moitié du duo Gabber Modus Operandi) — Dans un monde imaginaire où la colonisation n'aurait pas eu lieu, où l'Occident ne serait pas le seul curateur musical, sur quels types de musiques danserions-nous ?

Je suis d'accord avec vous, je trouve absolument épuisant que le seul point de vue soit celui de l'Occident blanc, non-stop ! Il y a un aveuglement au génie, au talent, au savoir-faire dans la dénommée “world music”, où le musicien n'est pas considéré comme un auteur au même titre que Debussy ou Bach, mais plutôt comme une créature sauvage et inconnue qui serait en transe. C'est très condescendant. J'adorerais danser sur des milliers de genres musicaux dans le futur… À la pleine lune, nous organisons des DJ-sets chez notre disquaire en Islande [Smekkleysa, à Reykjavík], et le mot d'ordre est “tous genres et toutes générations confondus”. Ce sont des raves de journée !

Kasimyn — Si vous pouviez être un personnage de fiction, lequel seriez-vous, et pourquoi ?

Hmm… bonne question… difficile d'y répondre. Peut-être Anaïs Nin dans ses journaux, mais il ne s'agit pas de fiction… Ou le loup, ou la forêt enchantée dans Princesse Mononoké [Hayao Miyazaki], ou bien la créature océanique extraterrestre dans Les Enfants de la mer [Daisuke Igarashi].

Marina Herlop (musicienne) — Est-ce que le fait que votre matière de travail – la musique – soit infinie, alors que vous, en tant qu'être humain, ne l'êtes pas, vous a déjà accablée ou gênée ? Par exemple, ressentez-vous parfois la tension qu'il y a à chercher la parfaite combinaison d'éléments avec des possibilités infinies dans une durée de temps impartie ?

Oui !!! Comme vous le dites bien ! Je ressens ça tout le temps, je suis avide de la somme d'albums que je pourrais faire, mais il me faudrait cinq Moi pour les réaliser. Mais je contiens également l'opposé : je pense que l'humilité est essentielle pour un musicien et je cherche à la manifester lorsque je choisis un morceau à enregistrer ou quels musiciens ou concerts prioriser… Donc, quand je découvre que je ne peux faire qu'une petite partie des choses et que je dois choisir avec sagesse, ça les rend d'autant plus précieuses. D'une certaine façon, la limitation nous rabaisse nous-mêmes, de façon positive.

Marina Herlop — Au cours de votre processus créatif, le quotidien vous paraît-il futile ? Par exemple, est-ce que les activités sociales, ou le fait de s'intéresser à celles et ceux que vous aimez, ou réaliser des tâches du quotidien vous semblent être des interférences, incompatibles avec l'état d'esprit ascétique et contemplatif que requiert la créativité ? Pouvez-vous combiner ces rôles, ou devez-vous faire des compromis ?

Peut-être parce que je suis l'aînée d'une fratrie et que j'ai eu mon premier enfant jeune, j'ai toujours insisté sur le fait de faire coexister les mondes de la musique et de la famille sans heurts. J'essaie de regrouper ceux que j'aime, l'écriture musicale et la paperasse dans une seule et même grappe. Et je n'y pense même plus. C'est devenu un mix naturel. Je me rends beaucoup dans la nature afin de nourrir ma solitude. Je l'ai toujours fait depuis que je suis enfant. Les tournées exigent cela de vous, d'être un ermite. Ce qui est le plus éprouvant, c'est de décider où mettre son énergie. Peut-être car mon corps est mon instrument et que je dois donc en avoir conscience. Je l'ai beaucoup protégé, ce qui m'a donné une bonne santé…

Aleph Molinari (écrivain, directeur artistique et corédacteur en chef de Purple Magazine) — Quel paysage trouvez-vous le plus musical et vous inspire pour fredonner, inspirer, ouvrir grand vos poumons et chanter ?

Les vallées me semblent se prêter facilement à la progression d'une chanson… Les parcourir comme s'il s'agissait d'un tunnel est similaire à la manière dont le temps s'écoule dans la musique… Mais je dois dire que la quantité d'oxygène dans les forêts tropicales est toujours très stimulante.

James Merry (collaborateur artistique de Björk) — Si vous étiez invitée à vivre dans un tableau pour un an (accompagnée de votre famille et d'ami·es), quel tableau choisiriez-vous et qu'y feriez-vous ?

Wow, bonne question… En ce moment, les univers de Leonora Carrington et Remedios Varos me semblent très habitables… Ithell Colquhoun, également… Cela me semble si délicieux que je refuse de m'engager dans un seul. Je pense que nous devrions faire différentes choses dans différentes peintures.

Catherine Deneuve (actrice) — Chère Björk, est-ce que vous mangeriez de nouveau le chemisier que vous ne vouliez plus porter sur le tournage [de Dancer in the Dark de Lars von Trier] ?

Barbant de ressortir une fois de plus cet été 1999, mais comme vous le savez, je n'ai jamais mangé de chemisier. Ce n'est pas possible de manger un chemisier. C'était une campagne de dénigrement orchestrée par Peter Aalbæk Jensen, le producteur. Il propageait régulièrement des mensonges auprès d'un média scandinave afin de s'assurer une couverture médiatique supplémentaire et de faire du chantage à ses actrices. Il gérait la presse de la même façon que Harvey Weinstein. Il a par la suite été poursuivi pour de multiples accusations suite à MeToo, au Danemark.

Serpentwithfeet (musicien) — Vous avez créé tellement de choses qui ont changé le paysage artistique et scientifique international. C'est toujours merveilleux d'être le témoin de votre génie. Pourriez-vous nous raconter un moment où vous vous êtes étonnée, un moment où votre idée de vous-même a augmenté (cela peut être un moment créatif ou non) ?

Merci pour le compliment… Une joie humble a explosé en moi lorsque nous enseignions la biophilie et la musicologie à l'aide d'applications sur des écrans tactiles 3D plus vite qu'en classe de musicologie traditionnelle à l'école.

Rick Owens (designer) — Chère Björk, merci pour ce que vous nous offrez ! Quelle est la situation dans laquelle vous préférez vous trouver, et pourquoi ?

Dans la nature… Allumer un feu avec ceux que j'aime, mettre de la bonne musique. Dur à expliquer… L'odeur du feu, l'atmosphère d'intimité avec ses amis, le champagne qui coule dans les veines… absolument irrésistibles !!

Iris van Herpen (designer) — Chère Björk, j'ai vu votre Nature Manifesto, et j'ai adoré. Voici ma question : dans la mesure où nature et technologie continuent de s'entrecroiser et de se rapprocher, imaginez-vous de nouveaux écosystèmes pouvant en sortir, qui seraient créés par les humains et les machines ? À quoi ressembleraient-ils ?

Je peux imaginer des combinaisons infinies !!! La biomorphie est en route, la biologie nous permettra de gérer les changements. Cette possibilité donne un espoir extrême !

LES INROCKUPTIBLES N°38 / Mars 2025

Voir en ligne : https://www.lesinrocks.com/musique/...

Art and object

sofftchevaliers — 2025-02-17T07:43:00Z

Björk's critically acclaimed world tour commissioned by The Shed in 2019 is now a book and a concert film on Apple. Cornucopia was filmed in Lisbon and features media artist Tobias Gremmler's ethereal digital designs— alien aqua-flora imagery projections. Olivier Rousteing's otherworldly sculptural costumes and designer Chiara Stephenson's fungi-inspired props complete the picture.

The pop star's 2017 Utopia album, with Venezuelan musician Arca, makes up most of the setlist, including “Body Memory" on which she's joined by the Hamrahlid Choir, with whom she sang as a child. Accompanying her through most of the show is Viibra, a seven-member women's flute ensemble that plays multiple variations of the instrument.

Here, Björk talks about assembling the biggest show of her career, while discussing current topics like AI and climate change.

Jordan Riefe : You took a hands-on approach with Cornucopia that you don't normally take.

Björk : To be creative director and set designer was to be there through every stage of it. For this project, we needed to take the VR of the 21st century out of the headset and put it on a nineteenth century stage, and then make it a 360 experience, like in The Shed. We had a film director to shoot the show, but she wasn't really involved after that.

A couple of times, I hired people to help me out who were actually directors, and they only worked for a little time. So, basically it's been seven years of me following this baby. It was scary to be creative director and set designer, the one who was there through it all, every stage of everything.

JR : Why does each album seem to have a different roll out ?

B : With different albums you feel like you're a comet orbiting a planet and you're expressing that planet to someone. You try to express different perspectives so it's less boring for yourself and less boring for other people. My albums go through different genres.

And there have been albums that were very raw and more visceral and there were others that were more playful. In ‘Cornucopia' you hear a choir, organspiels, it's a miniature cosmos. I think that my role in it, if there's such a thing as protagonist, is more like a peacemaker.

JR : Are you concerned about the rise of AI and its impact not just on you as an artist but on humanity ?

B : When you discover the atom bomb should we destroy or create it ? We have to go through every level– the morality, the values, human values – the same with AI. As a community, the human race will figure it out but it will take a while. We don't even know what it is yet.

Obviously it would be best to ask Chat GPT what could be the cheapest and most effective way for us to react to climate change. For the arts, I think it varies from artist to artist. I can imagine for people who work on a soundtrack for Netflix it's scary as fuck. For somebody like me, I think what AI does is it's quick with structures. That's the one thing I don't want. I want to write my song structures, I enjoy that. I don't want to press a button and get that.

JR : You used it in Nature Manifesto at Pompidou in Paris. What can you tell us about that installation ?

B : We wrote a philosophical statement that holds its own with the ‘Cornucopia' show. The optimistic angle is more about acceptance, like the apocalypse has already happened and how are we going to make do in the remains ? The biology can handle it, it is strong enough.

It's accepting we will lose half of our species – and we will – but there will be different mutants and toxicities that, with mycelium, we might learn how to digest. And I think it's important to also have hope or a way of accepting what has happened and move forward to a new take on biodiversity for the children, the future.

It's about evolving and how we grow with our discoveries. I think in this way we can dream. And I think it's important to not be paralyzed with guilt over what we've done to the planet. We have to stand up and act.

JR : What form does that action take ?

B : We need to push our imagination as far as it can go. In that state of mind it's going to feel very far-fetched, but it is the way to go. When you read the Climate Accord, it feels like a fantasy. So, we have to change it and rewrite it so it is reachable. We have to negotiate it until we find a way to pull us into the future.

What comes first is the idea. It's a way of saying we are fucked but this is the way where we can proceed. That's what music is about, and writing the anthem to that, and writing the soundtrack to that, and standing up and doing something about it.

JR : Seems like solutions are elusive.

B : It's about aligning ourselves to certain energies. If we do, it might help us survive. It's about evolving and how we grow with what we discover. The new technology we have, it's not just evil, it's also good. And hopefully we know how to use it to grow in a good way.

Voir en ligne : https://www.artandobject.com/news/c...

Jordan Riefe

Resident Advisor

sofftchevaliers — 2025-01-29T10:18:13Z

Björk has one of the most recognisable faces in entertainment—perhaps even the world. For nearly 40 years, her features have been snapped, filmed, digested, debated, distorted and memed, malleable iconography that has helped shift an unquantifiable number of records, tickets, official paraphernalia, bootleg merch and, for a while, gossip magazines. Over time, that face has been adorned with crowns, pearls, miniature pigtails, digital tears, stunningly creative headpieces, and, latterly, ornate veils and masks.

But at 3 PM on a late October day in East London, it's almost completely bare, save for some thick charcoal smeared under her waterline. As Björk sat underneath a ceiling-high window, framed by a gauzy fold of white curtains, her jittery fingers rotated between a routine of clasping a cappuccino, resetting the skirt of her dress over Maison Margiela knee-highs, and tugging at the outer corners of her eyes while talking—as if they needed to be stretched to release her ideas. "Sorry, I've been out of practice," she muttered. "I've been giving really long answers."

These days, generally, Björk spends more time in her hometown of Reykjavík than she does courting the press. The Icelandic capital, violently formed by earthquakes and volcanoes, is the fertile seedbed for her avant-pop excursions—and has been ever since she started singing at the top of her lungs during long hikes to school, a natural defense against fierce blizzards whipping around her.

On most full moons, Björk still slips into Smekkleysa, a small record shop not far from her house that she's volunteered at since the age of 14, well before she shed her Guðmundsdóttir surname. Located in the graffiti-scrawled city centre Hjartatorg, the young and eager flock there, spilling out into the streets to watch her and the growing crew of electronic auteurs in her orbit (such as Arca, Mica Levi and MUN SING) perform.

The sets typically start at 5 PM, "with classical or some atonal stuff," she said, insouciantly. "And then, with the last DJ," she continued, growing more animated, "you get a couple of glasses of champagne, play very upbeat dance music and it's done at 9 PM." Miming someone celebrating a toast, her hands clasped imaginary champagne flutes as she demonstrated the vibe with a shoulder shimmy.

It's rare to meet Björk in a period of downtime. Intermittent reminders from her reps to stay on schedule—first hesitantly, then urgently—spoke to the fact that the Icelandic icon is still waking out of the slumber of being off-cycle. She gestured toward the outlines of new music she's working on, but any signs of what the next Björk album will be remain abstract. "I learned quite a long time ago that when I share what album I'm going to do, I just go home and do the opposite," she smirked.

The last four years have been consumed by presenting her elaborate biophilic vision through Cornucopia, a theatrical production that doubled as a ten-year career retrospective and the largest tour of her career. It was so laborious, in fact, that she told her manager she'd only ever do it once. In December 2023, that crowning achievement came to an end.

The Cornucopia chapter closed with a film documenting the whimsy and spectacle of the show's Lisbon stop in 2023. Copies of her recently published 480-page book of the same name, composed of flyers and stills from the shows, sat on the coffee table between us. For Björk, these two Cornucopia releases democratise access to her ideas. "I would talk to people in my friend group," she told me about the inspiration behind the book. "Some of them follow what's going on, but they didn't know any of my digital work from the last 12 years."

Flipping through the book's glossy pages, you're transported directly into the show's trippy digital foliage with projections of massive flowers, Björk avatars shrouded in bioluminescent light and vibrant colours that range from lava red to jungle green. When she spoke about the process of putting it all together, her lips curved into a slight, weary smile. "I'm a little bit exhausted, I can't pretend," she said, tilting her head.

When you're writing about Björk in 2025, people are likely to pepper your DMs with clips of her DJ sets. A rave with Arca at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris. A party in Brooklyn, with Shygirl and Jlin, set against the gnarly backdrop of Newtown Creek. Björk, now 59, has history with dance music stretching back to 1989, when she'd run away to raves in Manchester to escape the stuffiness of the rock venues she was playing with her band, The Sugarcubes. By the time she'd shifted into a solo career shortly after, the love affair was in full bloom.

On MTV's House of Style in 1997, Björk defended dance music with the shimmery optimism of a music teacher. "If people are complaining it hasn't got soul in it," she said, "the only reason is because no one put it there !" Even her early, much-publicised personal life could fill an electronic music novella. In the early '90s, she had a brief and troubled relationship with trip-hop pioneer Tricky, with whom she collaborated with on 1996's "Keep Your Mouth Shut." That same year, she became engaged to drum & bass legend Goldie, a partnership that triggered an obsessed stalker to send a letter bomb to her house.

It's safe to say that Björk's days are lighter now. In a recent TikTok, she unfolded "Macarena" hands over her laptop as choral music filled Smekkleysa. The caption reads : "POV : You're in Reykjavík and stumble into a Björk Christmas DJ set in a tiny store." Dressed in a festive red suit with a face-obscuring metallic mask, she waved her hands to a rendition of "Jingle Bells," swayed to gqom and, to what sounds like video game music, mouthed, "Pow !" She pointed her fingers to the energetic crowd in time with the erratic synths, as if she was shooting lasers throughout the room. She's been DJing since she was a teenager, but, she said with a grin, "it was never my ambition to become a DJ. It was the last thing on my list. But it ended up being this thing where, when I'm with friends or family, I'll be the one who puts on a playlist."

Björk's fan base spans at least three generations. Her devotees include Gen-Z Björk scholars who post uncanny imitations of her Icelandic inflection via songs about dishwashers, all manner of breathless fans who party with her under Brooklyn's Kosciuszko Bridge and millennials who purr "that's motheerr" over the chorus of Homogenic's "Hunter." On the appeal of her music, Wu-Tang Clan's RZA, whose recordings with Björk have been lost to time, might have said it best to Paper Magazine in 1997 : "You can rock it inside a techno club or on the radio," he enthused. "A lot of people, they scared to be around us sometimes, but Björk just runs around goin,' 'Ark ark ark !'"

Björk's world has always been coloured by extremes. In the '70s, she grew up with her mother in a hippie community, the only child among adults who loved Jimi Hendrix and wholesome food. A lifelong introvert, her habit of singing as a self-soothing activity ultimately led to her first record deal at the age of 11. The album, a children's record that translated songs from The Beatles and Stevie Wonder into Icelandic, made it to local radio, but didn't travel much further.

On her 1993 breakout, Debut, she turned pop—a genre maligned at the time as an anti-intellectual cash grab—into a coming-of-age jaunt through ecstatic house, and ran with this alchemical formula through her imperial '90s phase. Although this launched Björk the popstar, it trapped her in a cycle : make an album, talk about it to the press, go on tour and then return to the studio. In a chat with Vox that same year, she revealed this punishing schedule to be one of her biggest gripes with success.

"It's crazy," she told the journalist. "If you make a good album, you get to make another one. But if it's successful, you have to spend a whole year doing interviews." The interviewers, many of them men, were often openly sexist, throwing around invasive questions about her sex life while cooing, "Isn't she so cute ?. During this time, Björk would find herself peeping into people's homes and fantasising about the cosiness of domestic life. The simple act of cooking a family meal felt like a distant paradise.

Björk's dreams of domesticity came to life later in her career. 2001's Vespertine was written as she was falling in love with Matthew Barney, soon to be her husband of 14 years. While pregnant with her second child, Ísadóra, she wrote Medulla, an album made almost entirely with the human voice—even the skittering beats were spat by beatbox legend Rahzel.

While these records followed her as she built her family life, the Björk of the last decade explored the profound loss, and subsequent freedom, she experienced in her 40s and 50s. In the mid-2010s, while in the throes of her divorce with Barney, she surprised herself with a break-up album. The broken-hearted woman ? What a tired trope ! Not quite. The result, 2015's Vulnicura, saw Venezuelan producer Arca's jagged beats soundtrack soliloquies of emotional undoing across a record Resident Advisor called "Björk's best album in years."

It was a fine exposition of what drives the decades-long fascination with her art : the way she bends basic form to her will. Utopia, the follow-up to Vulnicura, conjured magical visions of healing over baroque synths and mutant birdsong. Her most recent "mushroom album," 2022's Fossora, dealt with the painful death of her mother over bleating clarinet and ferocious gabber.

While Björk can transform everyday emotions into something poetic and groundbreaking, she can also present complex ideas in an approachable way. Her inner circle paints her as someone who can talk about Kehlani and boys before sinking into a conversation about object-oriented ontology. (She's also researched astrophysics, string theory and Jungian psychology.) "There's never any pretentiousness or stuffiness," gospel experimentalist serpentwithfeet said over the phone. "I always leave her gatherings feeling like, 'OK, this is how you take up space as an icon.'"

Andrew Thomas Huang, the award-winning film director and Björk's frequent visual collaborator, agreed, reflecting on the power of her universal curiosity : "To me, the wisest artists are people who can bridge high and low culture," he told me. "Being not deep is kind of a wisdom in itself, right ? We still need fine art, we still need academic discourse, but Björk's generosity makes these big ideas accessible."

The natural wistfulness and openness with which Björk communicates her ideas has made her an easy target for the media. In a 2002 SNL skit, Winona Ryder seemed to parody an interview in which Björk fiddled with her Yamaha sampler, describing it as a device so portable that you could "write on the airplane, your gran's house, at the top of the volcano or in a club." Ryder, performing as a Jeopardy ! contestant, brought her raspy voice to a cartoonishly high pitch, attempting Björk's Icelandic accent as she waved a buzzer around and squeaked : "This buzzer is musical ! Everything is musical !"

A less awkward modern-day version of this sketch circulated in meme form in 2021, featuring an image of Beyoncé greeting Björk at an afterparty in London. The caption reads : "Bey : Björk, it's so nice to see yo—. Björk : I have riddle. What can pass through trees without making rustle of the leaf ?"

By nature, Björk is silly. She giggles often. She throws obscure references at you, then before you can wallow in your ignorance, dismisses herself as "nerdy." She even shares certain Björk memes on her Instagram story—or at least I thought she did until we met. When I asked about the memes, she gave me a blank stare, before asking me to explain what I meant. Despite having an Instagram presence for years, she actually only started using the app in October 2024. Before that, "I had people running it for me," she said. Now, she admitted, she checks the app everyday. "I'm actually really enjoying it," she smiled. "I'm kind of getting into the Instagram." I asked what her Instagram Explore page looks like, and after another puzzled look, spent several minutes demonstrating how to use it.

She snapped back into work mode when the conversation turned to Cornucopia, which premiered at The Shed in Manhattan in May 2019. After a two-year interruption due to the pandemic, the tour resumed in 2022, eventually visiting over 40 cities by its close in 2023. Learning from the woes of her earlier years, she held short residencies at each stop so she could enjoy more flexible work days and spend less taxi journeys dreaming of homemaking. Today, her personal life is just as important as her work life, if not more so. "When I was maybe your age, I'd feel the weight on my back." she said, flashing me—27, the same age Björk was when she released Debut—a knowing smile. "And that actually makes it all worse, instead of just being reasonable."

Featuring primarily songs from Vulnicura, Utopia and Fossora, Cornucopia was equipped with 360-degree sound, 27 moving curtains, a flute septet and a 50-person Icelandic choir. Across 33-foot screens, alien blossoms were projected above a stage that resembled tectonic plates and streams of molten rock. Several bespoke instruments were made for the show, including a circular flute that descended from the ceiling and a three-and-a-half-tonne echo chamber that Björk could disappear into.

Around the time Björk started her Vulnicura tour in 2015, something seemed different. Once known for her strong features—hooded eyes and small lips turned into a mischievous grin or a wide, elated "O"—she began to cover her face. During the first act of the show, she wore a "moth mask" crafted out of pearls, wire and ultra-fine lace. After that, you'd seldom see her without a mask. In 2016, for a performance at Tokyo's Miraikan museum, she wore a 3D-printed mask based on her musculoskeletal system. That same year, she arrived at her Royal Albert Hall show in a mask made up of dainty tendrils that squiggled around her face.

For years, James Merry, Björk's assistant, creative director and mask maker, has worked closely with her to create disguises that give the illusion of something less human. When she and Merry first met in upstate New York a decade ago, they drank coffee and shared YouTube videos of weird animals. At the time, she was playing with the gamelan and a 20-foot gravity harp she helped design with Massachusetts Institute of Technology for Biophilia, her GRAMMY-winning seventh album that connected the unrestrained forces of nature to the calculated matrices of technology. Her brain was full of "science and nature and the universe and atoms and galaxies," Merry told me from his home in Iceland, where he now lives close to Björk. "That slotted in with my interests as well."

Many people have wondered : why the mask ? A quick scan of the Björk subreddit reveals regular speculation about the reason behind the cover-ups, alongside users posting that they miss seeing her naked, unembellished face. Some commenters even pose far-reaching theories that Björk prefers to cover her face because she's uncomfortable with the aging process. On occasion, Merry receives angry comments about this on his Instagram. "I think it's a funny demand, like, I have to see your face. You're talking about someone whose gift to you is aural. Actually, you're supposed to absorb her through the ears," he retorted. "If you think anyone is telling Björk what to wear, then you're very naive."

Björk's transformative fashion choices are, at their root, mostly artistic. "It's not that I think everything has to be crazy theatrical. That's not what I'm trying to do with this kind of cosplay, almost like…" She paused, struggling to land on a word. "Drag ?" I suggested. "Yes, you got it, probably better than me," she continued. "Hopefully it gives me a more versatile image of who I am. If I were doing the same things I was doing on my first album, I would be bored shitless." I posited that perhaps, at first, during the deeply painful time around Vulnicura, the mask offered a protective barrier while performing her most vulnerable songs. "That's a really good read on it," she said. "It was a bit like a widow's veil. I just wanted to hide—it was private. You have your creative process and then you have how you experience life."

As an artist devoted to novelty, Björk's face coverings allow her to embody the themes of her albums entirely, making the emotions within them even more inclusive and less centred on her. The Björk of Vulnicura has less in common with the Björk of today, but the album's themes of betrayal and decoupling will extend into the aching hearts of listeners for years to come. "That's why I arranged Vulnicura for strings, because the album is a super human-scale, psychological kind of drama," she explained. "But I think for me, actually, what's relatable is Cornucopia. It's about hope, and about creating a new world after a personal apocalypse."

Björk noted a conversation she had with Professor Timothy Morton, whose philosophy suggests "all objects must be given equal attention, whether they be human, non-human, natural, cultural, real or fictional." Morton's theories resonated while she worked out how to present Utopia on-stage. "He says the apocalypse has already happened, right ? It's not in the future." In that case, what will happen then ? "In Cornucopia, I was like, 'OK, I'm a human, becoming a plant, becoming a fruit, becoming a human,'" she explained. "It's a mutant energy, which for me is optimistic, because we will lose half our species. But the other half that are left, we will mutate in different ways.

Even though Björk was a late bloomer in the digital sphere, she took the reins with gusto as soon as she entered. She came into possession of her first laptop at 35, which, as a woman producer, felt revolutionary—no more dealing with sexist engineers or producers. Finally, she was the band. A decade later, 2011's Biophilia, an album produced partly on an iPad, was released with an app that allowed listeners to immerse themselves in a galaxy of musicology, including Biophilia sheet music, options to modify songs and a suite of interactive games.

Biophilia was met with mixed reviews. Critics argued that the ambitious (and poorly designed) ecosystem she built around the album got in the way of her best skills. When it came to the actual music, there was a palpable absence of her incisive, guttural songwriting and melodies that sounded like frequencies from another planet. However, Björk's allegiance to digital futurism in her music and visuals has spawned a generation of electronic artists building on her aesthetic movement. Collaborators like Arca and Sega Bodega rose to prominence in the mid-'10s with artificial imagery, while their music married glitchy, industrial beats with uncanny pitched-up vocals—a lineage Björk has continued to build on in her own DJing practice.

In the first week of 2025, I listened to a recording of Björk's DJ set at East London club The Cause. Tracks end abruptly. There are several cases of out-of-key mixing. In one section, a loop of FKA twigs' "Eusexua" clumsily makes its way across the polyrhythms of Japanese drummer mineo kawasaki's "Rob." Björk commits to the bit. Later on, Charles Penrose's "The Laughing Policeman" layers unhinged cackling over "Gliding," a hiccuping industrial track from her current muse, Planet Mu affiliate and formerly one half of Giant Swan, MUN SING. An uproar of "woo !"'s and laughter can be heard through the recording. The 59 minutes sound more like listening to Björk's at-home playlist splintered into short, sharp snippets than a set you'd expect to hear on a dance floor.

Björk is well aware of her technical limitations. "I can't mix to save my life," she said, grinning. "For me, DJing is a celebration of all genres, for all genders, races and generations. DJing is a break from myself. It's got nothing to do with me, so I like to throw the net as wide and far as possible."

Her DJing has also elevated her to another echelon of online relatability. In a year that included Grimes's Coachella fail and Charli xcx's ten-minute laptop set at The Lot Radio, this new Björk era takes us back to the subculture that shaped her in the first place—without the distance you might expect. After her performance at Under The K Bridge, MUN SING, who opened the show, received a Björk tweet… from Björk. "That was the nearest meta experience I've had with her," he said. Rumours were flying around that the Northern Lights were visible in certain parts of the city that night—and K Bridge ravers were certain that Björk had brought them with her. "It was actually just the clouds reflecting the lights at her show," he laughed.

During the set in Bourse de Commerce last year, Björk, covered in what looked like a patchwork of alien tentacles, played several tracks from MUN SING's debut album, Inflatable Gravestone. "That was very surreal," he said. "I've been a fan for years." He reached out, not expecting much, but Björk responded quickly. She asked him to fly to Reykjavík to play her full moon party.

In her hometown, he had dinner with Björk and her friends, who kindly translated jokes into English. What surprised him most was how often she pointed out new artists. "It's nice seeing loads of younger people and people my age hang out with her," he said. "She was really gassed on loads of the music there. She was like, 'You have to check out these artists. Oh, this DJ is amazing. You have to check out this project.' She's still got this real enthusiasm and curiosity about new music."

Björk's DJing has connected her to another recent muse, the avant-pop diva Shygirl. The pair played an impromptu set after they met at a dinner with Sega Bodega, an event replete with live performers and sword-swallowers. ("I've been proudly calling myself the David Attenborough of DJs, Björk said in an interview they did together. I'm more like a musicologist—I want to show you the little ant over here.") In 2022, Sega Bodega and Shygirl worked on a remix of Fossora's "Ovule." Writing in her idiosyncratic internet speak, Björk raved about the song on Instagram : "it has been so nourishing sharing music with shy and sega …. Soooo honoured to be in their hands !! and in this remix admiring sega exploring chill-bassdrum-gabba."

Björk attributes her consistent interest in younger talent in part to her Icelandic origins, a nation of less than 400,000 people. For 1,000 years, Iceland underwent a period of isolation, persevering with just sheep and wild fish. Being so far removed from mainland Europe, she said, Icelanders learned that "we have to share stuff just to survive, and mostly just not die from boredom." Cliques might function temporarily, she added, but at the end of the day, you always have to face the community. "You can isolate for one week, but then you're gonna meet everybody in the supermarket. You just have to work together, right ?"

Her friends, family and birthplace are sources from which she pulls a quiet strength, one hand always stretched toward those unwavering roots. Now that her kids are grown up and out of the house, the self-proclaimed matriarch mothers most in musical settings. On Fossora, she included the voices of her children, Ísadóra and Sindri. She also works with emerging artists that share her vision for sinuous, cutting-edge sounds, such as serpentwithfeet, who sang a remixed version of "Blissing Me" on the Cornucopia tour.

For her most recent single, "Oral," she teamed up with Catalan superstar Rosalía for a charity single (later remixed by Olof Dreijer) that raised awareness about open-net fish farming in Iceland. Some people close loops by chance, but Björk makes sure that she remains open to the promise of what's to come as much as she honours her venerable past. She called this "teacher-pupil" exchange a vital part of her musical identity. "The older I get, the more I understand that's what I'm made of," she told me, her voice swelling with purpose.

Her words reminded me of a Chinese legend she said she heard 20 years ago, which would later inspire Cornucopia. After a war, a group of women fled to a valley, where they defended their land by forbidding men to enter. In their new woman-led village, they healed their children, they healed society and started all over again. "Then they let the men in, one after the other, and found a new balance that was more from their perspective," she continued.

It's impossible not to draw parallels between Björk and those fabled women. She's a nurturer, a worldbuilder, an architect of the future. When her fans feverishly call her "mother," "queen," "mama," it's true : Björk is the blueprint. Her reign may have begun in her feted '90s to '00s run, but she's continued to lead in a mainstream cultural landscape that typically doesn't reward innovation and openness—much less so when it's a global superstar practicing intention and reciprocity in the music industry. Björk's cross-generational impact across music, art and technology has established a creative torch many now carry—and it's a dialogue she wants to keep engaging with.

"It's important to interact with 2025, not because I'm desperate to be cool," Björk asserted. "If it comes from a place like that, it will fail." She compared this cultural exchange to a Christmas party ; a place where teenagers, millennials and grandparents all congregate. Ignoring any of these guests would be rude—you have to talk to everyone. If you're Björk, that means you must also deal with "Joni Mitchell"—and she meant that in a good way. Before I could ask her what exactly dealing with Joni Mitchell entailed, a knock on the door signalled that our time was finally up—in fact, it was up more than an hour ago. My time with her, I realised, had been overwhelmingly generous. Björk offered a curtsy, then dashed out of sight.

Voir en ligne : https://fr.ra.co/features/4420

Kiana Mickles

Noir Magazine

sofftchevaliers — 2025-01-28T07:48:29Z

Énigmatique, éthérée et unique en son genre. Avec cette voix aussi innocente que féroce, Björk s'est imposée comme la révolutionnaire la plus marquante de l'art sonore.

Une artiste — en constante métamorphose — dont l'univers onirique a transformé notre manière de consommer la musique. L'écouter, c'est s'engager dans une exploration sensorielle au sein d'un écosystème complet où les émotions, la nature et la technologie sont des éléments essentiels du jeu.

Voir en ligne : https://noirmagazine.mx/noir-cover/...

Isamar Escobar