Eco-Visionary Media: Art as Activism in Björk’s Audiovisual Production Open Access
Hunt, Laura (Spring 2020)
Published
Abstract
Icelandic artist Björk conceived of her Biophilia project, which included an album, accompanying videos, a three-year world tour, interactive musical apps, and educational software, as a means of encouraging an intimate relationship with sound, increasing public receptivity to music, and triggering a corresponding desire to care for the natural world. Believing that nature is the ultimate source of all music, Björk hoped her musical endeavors would result in a renewed love for, and more intimate relationship with, the vast spectrum of life as we know it. If successful, Björk's visionary project would radically alter the sensory perception of her audience, and in so doing, reawaken the human sensitivity to the natural world.
Nearly the entirety of Björk‘s career as a popular musician has been punctuated by environmental activism in one form or another, making her an excellent subject through which to examine questions pertaining to the function of popular media generally, as well as their potential as technologies of environmental activism. The variety and scope of her work invites analysis from diverse aesthetic and philosophical positions. I draw on Arthur Schopenhauer and Wassily Kandinsky's framing of art as a revelatory device, while exploring parallels between Henry Thoreau's insistent materialism and the literary device of estrangement. Jane Bennet's vitalist treatment of matter informs my approach to Björk's music videos, a format often overlooked, but one ideally suited to her activist intent. Björk's audiovisual production may thus contribute to scholarship in the emerging field of ecomusicology.
Released in 2017, Björk offers her latest album Utopia as a proposal to unite technology and nature through the creation of a utopian model accessed through the vivid audiovisual spaces she has created. Ernst Bloch's work on the subject of utopian envisioning is therefore of particular interest for this study. This dissertation asks whether Björk's music, particularly when coupled with visual technologies, imagines a future that might come into being though this same act of imagining.
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................... 1
1. Avant-Gardes and Activism................................................................................................... 16
2. The Ubiquity of Music: Practices of Listening in the Absence of Silence...................... 38
3. Sonic Culture and the Function of Music in a Visual Age................................................ 66
4. Ecomusicking.......................................................................................................................... 92
5. Forward to Nature................................................................................................................ 118
Conclusion................................................................................................................................. 142
Bibliography............................................................................................................................. 158
About this Dissertation
| School | |
|---|---|
| Department | |
| Degree | |
| Submission | |
| Language |
|
| Research Field | |
| Keyword | |
| Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor | |
| Committee Members |
Primary PDF
| Thumbnail | Title | Date Uploaded | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Eco-Visionary Media: Art as Activism in Björk’s Audiovisual Production () | 2020-04-13 10:20:41 -0400 |
|
Supplemental Files
| Thumbnail | Title | Date Uploaded | Actions |
|---|