Lynn Fox






Lynn Fox


Lynn Fox est un collectif de graphistes et de vidéastes basé à Londres composé de Christian McKenzie, Patrick Chen et Bastian Glassner. Les trois designers se sont rencontrés à l’école d’architecture Bartlett de Londres où ils ont commencé à appliquer des procédés architecturaux à leurs vidéos. Diplômés en 2000, ils ont travaillés dans une entreprise de design avant de se lancer à plein temps dans leurs propres projets en septembre 2002 : « Nous voulons faire des vidéos pour la musique que nous aimons écouter », explique McKenzie, « principalement des artistes d’avant- garde britanniques tels qu’ Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada et Radiohead ». Leur premier projet est une vidéo pour FC Kahuna créée en 4 semaines avec un budget de 7000 euros.

Le collectif a aussi travaillé sur la tournée 2004 du groupe Incubus et sur des clips pour Chris Clark et Dog. Lynn Fox a été sollicité pour plusieurs spots de pub pour Boss, Axe ou encore Audi. Bastian Glassner n’est plus dans le collectif depuis 2012.

Travail avec Björk

En 2003, Lynn Fox réalise une série de 5 visuels pour la tournée Greatest Hits et le clip pour Nature Is Ancient, récompensé à Monaco et à Copenhague. Cette collaboration se poursuit en 2004 avec la réalisation du clip pour Oceania.

Vsuels de la tournée 2003 :
- Desired Constellation
- It’s In Our Hands (SPT mix)
- Nameless
- Pluto
- Unravel

Propos issus du Live Book

Pluto :
According to Lynn Fox, the biggest challenge in making the entire series of films was findng the right man to star in the film "Pluto", a bizarre, disturbing piece. It features the jerking, violent body movements of a naked, masturbating man, whose shaved head, at the momet of climax, explodes into a myriad of indistinguishable body parts. The film is based on a previous Lynn Fox project that was never made . "When we had the first meeting in Iceland to talk about the concert, we had images in our portfolio from that treatment." .Björk saw the images and immediatey said "we have to do this, I’ve got a song that’s perfect for it". We thought it was too complex, and we were very reluctant, but every conversation we had with her she was like "what about the masturbating film ?" and in the end we just gave in."
The boys suspect the line "Excuse me, I have to explode" may have influenced Björks enthusiasm to use the idea for the song, which is often played at the end of concerts, along with fireworks display. Finding the man with the right physique, gravity and performing ability proved, however, to be elusive. The afternoon before the shoot Lynn Fox still handn’t found thier man. So they asked Björk if she had any ideas. "and she said yes, I know just the guy . So she gets out her mobile phone and says "let me call him"... it turns out he’s like iceland most famous actor." Ingvar Sigurdsson , star of features such as "angels of the universe" was not only willing to strip and simulate masturbation for the film, but also agreed to shave his head especially for the part.

Unravel :
For the track "Unravel", the idea came again from Björk . "The song is so beautiful, I think she always wanted to make a video for it, but it never got picked as a single. She always had this idea though, where she and the devil are in two rocking chairs sitting opposite each other and he is unraveling strings that come out of her heart.
Again, Lynn Fox added their own slant to the film, preferring to focus on the strings and their motion as they drift from Björk to a representaion of the devil (dressed in a semblance of Björk garments). "The unraveling is the narrative. It’s not the debil nor her, it’s the process, this constant interplay of the heartstrings... So there’s this constant state of flux between her and the devil, all kind of rocking gently in time of the music".
In case you’re wondering who made Björks dress for this promo, it’s actually two friends of hers, fashion duo (and sisters) Aftur who hail from Iceland and made the dress from pieces of lace taken from hundreds of discarded bridesmaid dresses.

Desired Constellation :
For Desired Constellation, Björk told them about an idea she’d had where her hands were able to grab the stars, roll them like dice, and toss them into new constellations ."We thought that was a very strong image to work with, but we weren’t too sure about just having these god-like hands... It always ended up beign a bit Michelangelo. We thought we could make it more playful, so we went back to her with the idea of making these hands into the tails of schools of sea creatures.
We took photographs of seals swimming through the sea, and then we chopped them up and photographed a couple of hands, and collaged them in, so you ended up with these kind of weird beings. You don’t really know wether they’re arms or seals, bit of hands or underarm or whatever.

It’s In Our hands :
In terms of storyline, Björk herself came up with a lot of ideas for the projections. She sent the team a pile of books about inuit people. "It was specificaly about seals, and their role in the lives of the Eskimos, but it also went into detail about their whole culture, their lives and their stories... Her music has a very Northern, Arctic feel about it. I think she wanted that to come through the film.
The end result is a crudely animated piece, a rough collage of Inuit, wild animals, and arctic scenery over which, in child-like scrawl, the three have scratched sharp fangs, scibbled lines and erectd penises ; it’s a far cry from the initially complex piece Lynn Fox orignially envisioned for her . "We finally got to the root of Björk’s vision for the film when we went out to Iceland to see her. She had a pile of photocopies of these inuit pictures and some black marker pens, and she started scrawling all over the pictures. Then she showed it to us saying "look, this is what I was talking about, this is how easy it is. Just animate this in the shittiest way you possibly can".
You can imagine us on the end of the telephone, trying to get our head round her ideas ? She’s saying : you know when you get those old sepia photographs of Inuit people... well I’d like you to get something like that, but then I want you to draw lots of erected penises and moustache all over them. We’re on the other side of the phone thinking... But this is the way Björk works, she has an idea or a sense of what she wants and then she’ll tell it to you, sort of give you a little start and then you’re away.


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