With her latest #TheMarVids pick, Maria Dicieanu puts in the spotlight Tabula Rasa the exquisite music video Tobias Gremmler created for Björk.
An artist like no other, Björk is known for pushing boundaries, rethinking audio-visual synesthesia and constantly striving for innovative artistry in her music videos. For her promos she has collaborated with Andrew Thomas Huang, Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham among others.
For Tabula Rasa she chose to collaborate with Tobias Gremmler, a trailblazer in its own right, known for the spectacular ways in which he can make the invisible of motion, visible.
“It is actually this process of dissolving rather than merging that interests me.” Tobias says in an interview. “It unveils a certain structure that exist beyond the media that carries.” This perspective seems to be perfectly fitting with what Björk wanted to expose through her song:
“Clean plate
Tabula rasa for my children
Let’s clean up
Break the chain of the fuckups of the fathers
It is time
For us women to rise and not just take it lying down
It is time
The world is listening”
Hence old concepts dissolving and being transformed into other ones. A start-over. A reinvention of shapes, of structures, of reason. All these beautifully depicted in the ever changing visuals imagined by Gremmler.
“When creating the video, I was deeply inspired by the music and lyrics of Tabula Rasa.” Gremmler says. “The visual transformation of Björk into faun-like flowers and mountainous landscapes embodies the utopian concept of a harmonious coexistence between nature and human based on empathy.”