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go to videogallery! |
QUOTE |
Interview by David
Hemingway. Reprinted by kind permission of Record Collector. |
That song's from a
moment when I'd had a pretty rough winter and then it was a spring
morning and I walked outside and the birds were singing: Spring is
here! I wrote the song and recorded in half a day. It just clicked
- you know: you're being too stubborn, don't be so silly, there is
love everywhere. The feeling, the emotion of the song was like
completely melting and loving everything and feeling like everything
loved you, after a long time of not having that. The song, in essence,
is actually about believing in love. Love isn't just about two
persons, it's everywhere around you. Even if you're not getting love
from Person A, it doesn't mean there's not love there. Obviously, it's
taking the piss too - it's the most sugary song ever.
'All Is Full Of Love' was written after the rest of Homogenic,
which I'd wanted to be an aggressive, macho album. In Icelandic
mythology, you have this saga where the Gods get aggressive and the
world explodes and everything dies and then the sun comes up and
everything starts all over again. It's the last track on Homogenic
after 'Pluto' which stands for death. 'All Is Full Of Love' is like
the birds coming out after a thunderstorm.
In a way, in my head, 'All
Is Full Of Love' is the first song on Vespertine. |
|
QUOTE |
Bjork.com webchat,
22 june 2000
|
I guess waking up
after having been in Spain for six months in the mountains...with few
people. It was kind of solitary. And it was April, and I had to walk
in the morning...around the mountains. And spring just kicked in. It
was definitely nature-inspired. On a more personal level. It's about
when you have been too stubborn about giving love to one particular
direction... you expect it back ...like it's a bank or something. And
kind of realizing that it's up to you what you give, but it's not up
to you what you are given and where from. |
|
VIDEO |
outline treatment by Chris Cunningham
|
Against black we hear
the faint sound of electricity gently surging. All around us, banks of
fluorescent lights, behind Plexiglas flicker to life at random,
illuminating an elegant, pristine white environment. It has a Japanese
feel to it, a simplicity in its design.
As we track forwards we are dwarfed on either side by two enormous
medical/industrial robots. In unison they sweep around towards a
workspace littered with eggshell-white plastic parts. As we get closer
the parts become more visible and reveal an organic nature, their
shapes resemble humanoid forms. From above we see clearly a female
form in a fetal position completely abstracted and disassembled.
Although it is artificial it is beautiful and elegant.
The machines set to work in extreme slow motion. Their arms gracefully
engaging with the incomplete human form, removing and adding parts to
the partially hollow plastic shell and its matt black complex inner
workings. Although only the front portion is in place its features are
clearly those of Bjärk’s, albeit the smoothed panels of a Japanese
motorbike. The eyes open as the robotic arms construct consciousness. Warm orange
sparks fly against the cold blue white plastic. It feels like we are
watching the last stages of an artificial intelligence's birth.
As it starts to sing, the elegance of the song and the imagery is
contrasted by the abstractions caused by this incomplete form. It
never quite becomes whole. As the track unfolds so too does the
imagery developing in stages. The figure, still incomplete is upright
now. Its hand reaching up to touch its own face.
We reveal more of the scene. Gently white fluid, like milk starts to
wash over the forms and eventually engulfs it (this would be achieved
by submerging the forms in a vat of milk and draining it off, filmed
in reverse). When the form emerges from the vat we reveal that it is
number two in a series.
Still with Björk's features, the two ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCES begin to
engage with one another. Locked together in a surreal embrace, parts
intertwined and fused, we concentrate now on details, kissing, slow
motion white fluid, fluorescent light. The imagery is slowly becoming
more sexual but way too surreal and abstract to be offensive. We see
the plastic bodies begin to unfold like strange flowers. The last
sequence of shots as we pull back very wide reveal an indescribably
abstract life form made from the two unfolded, artificial, humanoid
forms.
It's like Kama Sutra meets Industrial Robotics .
The shots in this video will not be as difficult as you might imagine.
The main performance aspect of the video would involve attaching blue
panels to Björk's body and replacing these areas with model parts
filmed against the same background. This will give the illusion of her
being hollow, completely artificial. We would shoot everything as a
lock off.
As we approach the finale, the shots would possibly start to include a
mixture of computer graphics and live action, used seamlessly to
depict these robots unfolding. A lot of preparatory work would be
needed and some compositing but the shot would be very simple. I am
convinced that this would make an extroadinary surreal performance
video. The imagery would be majestic and we could be sexually
suggestive as we like and get away with it. |
|
QUOTE |
Promo, May 1999 |
"My initial idea was
to have a final stage where the two robots unfold like a flower as
they mate," says Chris Cunningham.
"We couldn’t manage it, but perhaps it’s
just as well, as the music doesn’t really allow for it." The robots
were built by Paul Catling, who also sculpted the masks for
Windowlicker. Catling, who taught Cunningham about model-making,
sculpted the full-sized robots in clay in two hours.Cunningham worked with Julian Caldow on the set design, and it was put
together by Chris Oddy. But the director says, "To be perfectly honest
I didn’t have time to make the set look exactly as I wanted it, so I
made it post heavy."
For example, on the shoot there were two main robot arms (operated
simply by rods), but in post production, a third and fourth robot arm
were created in CGI at Glassworks.
"I think I lost confidence that there was enough happening," admits
Cunningham, and this put pressure on an already six-figure budget. But
the results are amazing: it’s impossible to tell what is "real" and
what is not.
This also applies to the work on the Björk robot. First of all the
robot was shot in situ without its head, then Björk was put in the
same position to match her head with the robot body. But only her eyes
and mouth were actually used - the rest of the robot head is 3D,
tracked from her real one. |
|
|
you'll be given
love
you'll be taken care of
you'll be given love
you have to trust it
maybe not
from the sources
you've poured yours into
maybe not
from the directions
you are staring at
twist your head around
it's all around you
all is full of love
all around you
you just ain't receiving
all is full of love
your phone is off the hook
all is full of love
your doors are all shut
all is full of love
|
|
|
|
june 1999.
cd in jewelcase
01.
video edit
02.
funkstörung exclusive mix
03.
strings |
|
june 1999.
cd in jewelcase
01.
original
edit
02.
plaid mix
03.
guy sigsworth mix |
|
june 1999.
reg 0
dvd in jewelcase
01.
video
edit
02.
funkstörung exclusive mix
03.
strings |
|
QUOTE |
Dazed & Confused
#55, June 99 |
"When I first heard
the track I wrote down the words; "sexual", "milk", "white
porcelain", "surgery", recalls Chris Cunningham.
His immediate association with sex was vindicated when Björk arrived
at his London office with a book of Chinese Kama Sutra prints as her
only guiding reference.
"I knew them and liked them, but I couldn't figure out how to keep the
explicit sexuality and still make it broadcastable... It's a
combination of several fetishes: industrial robotics, female anatomy,
and flourescent light in that order. It was perfect, I got to play
around with the two things I was into as a teenager: robots and porn." |
|