Björk has revealed plans for a three-year educational tour, inspired by her upcoming "multimedia" project, Biophilia. Not only will the album with that name be accompanied by 10 iPad apps designed by some of the world's top software designers, the Icelandic singer is mapping out a string of eight six-week residencies, comprising live performances, scientific expositions, and children's courses on nature and music. Growing up, she explained, "my rock star was David Attenborough".
Biophilia just keeps getting bigger. "It felt like the music industry was off the grid, and I wanted to solve the riddle," Björk said in one of two new interviews, with Rolling Stone and Pitchfork. With Thursday night's debut of Biophilia at the Manchester international festival, the singer will be doing more than introducing her eighth studio album: she will be offering a taste of a project which incorporates vinyl records, children's education, concerts, video games, a full-length documentary and two musical Tesla coils. Returning home from her 2008 world tour, Björk had neither a record deal nor a plan. "I could do whatever I wanted," she recalled.
It took a little while to figure out what to do. Originally, Biophilia was envisioned as an Icelandic school/art installation, dedicated to music and nature. "I would just be there and people would come to me," she proposed. Instead she began to develop the idea of an educational curriculum, and even began working with Michel Gondry on a 3D science film for National Geographic. That movie has since been scrapped – the meetings and budgets were "suffocating," Björk said, and Gondry got too busy with The Green Hornet.
Gradually, however, the current notion of Biophilia took shape: an album whose songs interweave natural and musicological themes, interpreted in lectures, software and performance. This September, Björk will reportedly release the 10-song album called Biophilia, in traditional physical and digital formats. She will also issue 10 separate iPad apps, one for each song, created by top app developers including Soundrop's Max Weisel and Theodore Gray, who designed The Elements: The Visual Exploration. These apps integrate interactive games, musical animations, animated scores, lyrics and academic essays.
From there, Björk will hit the road. Through 2014, she hopes to visit eight cities around the world, spending a month and a half in each. On top of twice-weekly performances of the album, Björk will host scientific exhibitions and classes for schoolchildren. Kids will be able to "try out the instruments on the iPad and write songs and take them home," Björk said. "And they'll be teachers showing them the basics of musicology and showing them how, for instance, the viruses on the Virus app move in similar ways as the music."
As for Björk's gigs, she has lots more planned than just some feathers and a barrel of sparkle-paint. The singer will be using custom-build musical instruments, including Björgvin Tómasson's digital gamelan-celeste, four 10-foot "pendulum harps", which use gravity to strum their strings, and two Tesla coils. She is also employing "an award-winning 24-piece Icelandic female choir". The goal, Björk said in a press release, is to evoke "an atmosphere similar to being inside the app itself".
Naturally, the whole thing will be documented. Pulse Films are working on a 90-minute Biophilia documentary, and there are music videos underway — including a clip for Crystalline, directed by Gondry. "I really had to break out of old habits," Björk said. "The way we're doing it, it'll be lucky if we earn zero."
