Björk Biophilia Concert Graphics

Client: Björk
Agency: Snibbe Studios

Working with renowned interactive media designers, Snibbe Studios, I was part of the team that created video animations and supporting graphics for Björk’s Biophilia world tour.

Charged with creating animations for two songs, Moon, and Galaxy, my first step was to create a mockup of the stage’s unique 9 screen projection system. Given the unusual layout and screen orientations, it was a necessary step in realizing Scott Snibbe’s artistic vision.

With Moon, the direction was simple - create a clean and simple visual metaphor for the song using only the moon as an element. I created a 3D animation of the phases of the moon as my starting point. Then using key beats and phrasing in the song I could retime the animation to compress a month’s worth of time into seconds. The final step was add some randomized filters to simulate a stop-motion look.

In Galaxy, the direction was to create a reverse big-bang, where an expanded universe unwinds and collapses on itself, ending with a final “big-bang”. My solution was to build the animation in reverse, emulating the real-universe big-bang expansion. I created multiple animations of expanding spiral galaxies that I then loaded into a particle system to create a procedural approach to the flow of the animation. As with the Moon animation, key moments were closely tied to the audio to create a layer of visual resonance with the audio elements of the song. As the song draws to a close, so to does our universe… what lies beyond?