Björk – Tabula Rasa
2019 · Directed by Tobias Gremmler
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Best comments
1.“The video looks like a jellyfish mated with a live-action Georgia O'Keeffe painting.”
More comments
- 2.“I'm quite certain he simply filmed Björk as she is, without the human filter. Beautiful.”
- 3.“'What genre of music do you listen to?' '...Björk.'”
The story
Björk doesn't so much appear in this video as grow. Digital artist Tobias Gremmler set her face on a figure that never holds still: it sprouts petals and fronds, billows like a sea anemone, splits into several Björks at once and melts into flowers and mountains. Gremmler said he was chasing a utopian idea, people and nature living side by side on a base of empathy. It plays like a nature documentary filmed inside a dream.
The song comes from Utopia, her 2017 album made with Venezuelan producer Arca, and Björk wrote it herself. Tabula rasa means blank slate, and that's the whole idea – start clean, change shape, and stop handing the last generation's failures down to the next one.
The video landed in May 2019, right as she opened Cornucopia, her multimedia stage show at The Shed in New York. Gremmler was one of the visual artists on that show and made the digital backdrops for her 2019 tour. A singer who has never once looked like anyone else, rendered as a shape-shifting flower. Makes sense.
