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For Bj\u00f6rk, now 60 years old and ten albums deep into her career, these titles capture something fundamental about how musicians create. \u201cAll my albums have super strict…\u201d she trails off, grasping for words once more. \u201cFor example, my last album, Fossora<\/em>, was dark green, dark red mushrooms, nocturnal winter, you know? Each album has a list of references. On a podcast in Covid I called it \u2018sonic symbolism\u2019, which sounds kind of pretentious, but it basically means how musicians work. All the visuals come from a sound first.\u201d Elsewhere in the exhibition, the scores for Fossora<\/em> tracks \u201cAncestress\u201d and \u201cSorrowful Soil\u201d have been translated into knitted textiles stretching more than 40 metres in length.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nOutside of this vital misconception, though, how has the exhibition been received? \u201cTo be honest, I haven\u2019t been!\u201d Bj\u00f6rk answers with a mischievous, fae-like giggle. \u201cI just moved on. I was so excited to get back to making music again that I just went straight to that.\u201d She is referring to her currently unnamed 11th album set to release next year \u2013 she isn\u2019t ready to speak about it just yet, but it\u2019s around halfway complete.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve become a digital craftswoman, more and more elaborate in my idiosyncrasies\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nStill, one small window into Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s new musical direction can be found in the <\/span>Echolalia<\/span><\/em> exhibition. There, \u201cNerve Bloom\u201d \u2013 a so-called \u201cremix\u201d of the version set to appear on the album \u2013 plays alongside spectral, horse-like figures grazing on digital screens. In fan-recorded videos of the installation shared online, Bj\u00f6rk repeats the refrain \u201cI bow<\/em>\u201d, the words stretched through her signature idiosyncratic delivery. \u201cI\u2019m as idiosyncratic as they come, I like irregular things and prime numbers,\u201d Bj\u00f6rk says when I bring up the track. \u201cI was in a pretty merciless band when I was 16 here in Iceland. It was part of the jazz-punk movement and we never did anything in 4\/4 [time signature] \u2013 everything was prime numbers. I think I was baptised for life then. Now, with computers, you can go into even more elaborate irregularities. I\u2019ve used [music software] Sibelius for 26 years, which is insane; it\u2019s like second nature to me. I spend weeks on each arrangement making it as irregular as I can. I\u2019ve become a digital craftswoman, more and more elaborate in my idiosyncrasies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nBj\u00f6rk views these idiosyncrasies as a more accurate reflection of the natural world, which rarely flows in straight lines and at right angles. \u201cI was brought up in Reykjavik and walked a long distance to school in the mornings,\u201d she recalls. \u201cThere was a lot of nature and crazy weather so, for me, that\u2019s normal. To be put in a four-four box, like a city, is abnormal \u2013 but that\u2019s just me, thank God we\u2019re all allowed to be different!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
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Our conversation is aptly timed. In recent years, technology and nature have seemed more incompatible than ever, their relationship strained by an age in which AI is increasingly scrutinised for its environmental costs and tech CEOs fantasise about transcending the natural world instead of existing within it. Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s work, however, offers a parallel future: one in which music software like Sibelius can help express the beautiful irregularities of nature, and computer-generated artwork can invite reflection on the human experience.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWith humans and tools, the original purpose was to be an extension of themselves, to express themselves,\u201d says Bj\u00f6rk. \u201cIn the beginning, it was always clumsy \u2013 you had a knife, the wheel, fire, whatever it was \u2013 and then it got more refined and complex. That\u2019s technology, too \u2013 they\u2019re clumsy at first and you have to go through the moral question, the justice question, the \u2018does-it-have-a-soul\u2019 question, and figure out a way to put meaning into it. We always go through the, \u2018Oh there will never be a soul again!\u2019 doom-and-gloom-style prophecy, but I think we all have to figure that out as we go.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nBj\u00f6rk uses \u201cNerve Bloom\u201d as an example, which appears in the exhibition alongside AI-powered visuals created with painter Natalia Kleszczewska and computer programmer Natalie Liu. \u201cWe could have just pressed a button with AI and created it in one minute, but we decided not to do that,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt took us eight months to do and every little scene was really worked on and bespoke, like moulding. Now, I\u2019m not saying that the solution to everything about AI is to make sure you\u2019ve spent eight months and then it\u2019s OK! What I mean is that you have to put meaning into it. Overall, AI isn\u2019t that good, you have to look at it and change it and move it to get something interesting.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/p>\n
![\"Echolalia,](\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1600\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/8\/1448514.jpg\")
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