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Chris Cunningham

January 31, 2023

Chris Cunningham (born 15 October 1970)[2] is a British video artist and music video director, best known for his music videos for electronic musicians such as Autechre, Squarepusher, and most notably Aphex Twin on videos for "Windowlicker" and "Come to Daddy", and Björk's "All is Full of Love". All were used in Chris' chapter in Director's Label. He has also created art installations and directed short movies. He was approached to direct a movie version of William Gibson's cyberpunk novel Neuromancer; the project has been in development hell for more than two decades. In the 2000s, Cunningham began doing music production work, and has also designed album artwork for a variety of musicians.

Chris Cunningham
Born (1970-10-15) 15 October 1970 (age 52)
Reading, Berkshire, England
Occupation(s)Filmmaker, video artist, photographer, music producer
Years active1995–present
Spouse
​
​
(m. 2010; div. 2016)​
[1]

Early work

After seeing Cunningham's work on the 1995 film version of Judge Dredd, Stanley Kubrick head-hunted Cunningham[3] to design and supervise animatronic tests of the central robot child character in his version of the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Cunningham worked for over a year on the film before leaving to pursue a career as a director.

Earlier work in film included model-making, prosthetic make-up and concept illustrations for Hardware and Dust Devil for director Richard Stanley, work on Nightbreed for Clive Barker, and on Alien3 for David Fincher. Between 1990 and 1992, he contributed the occasional cover painting and strip to Judge Dredd Megazine, working under the pseudonym "Chris Halls"; Halls is his stepfather's surname.[4]

Music videos

Cunningham has had close ties to Warp Records since his first video for Autechre, "Second Bad Vilbel", which received airplay on MTV's Amp. Videos for Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy" and "Windowlicker" are perhaps his best known. His video for Björk's "All Is Full of Love" won multiple awards, including an MTV music video award for Breakthrough Video and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video. It was also the first ever music video to win a Gold Pencil at the D&AD Awards. It can still be seen at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His video for Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker" was nominated for the "Best Video" award at the Brit Awards 2000. He also directed Madonna's "Frozen" video which became an international hit and won the award for Best Special Effects at the 1998 MTV Music Video Awards. Cunningham also came out of a seven-year hiatus from making music videos to direct the video for "Sheena Is a Parasite" by the Horrors.

Video art

His video installation Flex was first shown in 2000 at the Royal Academy of Arts, and subsequently at the Anthony d'Offay Gallery and other art galleries. Flex was commissioned by the Anthony d'Offay Gallery for the Apocalypse: Beauty & Horror in Contemporary Art exhibition curated by Norman Rosenthal and Max Wigram at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2000.

The Anthony d'Offay Gallery also commissioned Monkey Drummer, a 2½ minute piece intended for exhibition as a companion to Flex at the 2000 Apocalypse exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts: however, the piece was not finished in time. In it an automaton with nine appendages and the head of a monkey plays the drums to "Mt Saint Michel + Saint Michaels Mount", the 10th track on Aphex Twin's 2001 album drukqs. Monkey Drummer debuted as part of Cunningham's installation at the 49th International Exhibition of Art at the 2001 Venice Biennale, which consisted of a loop of Monkey Drummer, Flex, and his video for Björk's "All Is Full of Love". In 2002 both Flex and Monkey Drummer were exhibited by 5th Gallery in Dublin, Ireland, in an exhibition curated by Artist/Curator Paul Murnaghan,[5][6]

In 2007, an excerpt from Flex was shown in the Barbican's exhibition Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now curated by Martin Kemp, Marina Wallace and Joanne Bernstein. alongside other pieces by Bacon, Klimt, Rembrandt, Rodin and Picasso.

Short films

In 2005, Cunningham released the short film Rubber Johnny as a DVD accompanied by a book of photographs and drawings. Rubber Johnny, a six-minute experimental short film cut to a soundtrack by Aphex Twin remixed by Cunningham, was shot between 2001 and 2004. Shot on DV night-vision, it was made in Cunningham's own time as a home movie of sorts, and took three and half years of weekends to complete. The Telegraph called it "like a Looney Tunes short for a generation raised on video nasties and rave music".[7]

During this period Cunningham also made another short film for Warp Films, Spectral Musicians, which remains unreleased. The short film was set to Squarepusher's "My Fucking Sound" from his album Go Plastic; and to a piece called "Mutilation Colony"[8] which was written especially for the short, and was released on the EP Do You Know Squarepusher.

Commercials

Cunningham has directed a handful of commercials for companies and brands, including Gucci, Sony (PlayStation), Levi's, Telecom Italia, Nissan, and Orange.

Music production

In 2004/2005, Cunningham took a sabbatical from filmmaking to learn about music production and recording and to develop his own music projects. In December 2007 Cunningham produced two tracks, "Three Decades" and "Primary Colours", for Primary Colours, the second album by the Horrors.[9] In the summer of 2008, due to scheduling conflicts with his feature film script writing he could not work on the rest of the album which was subsequently recorded by Geoff Barrow from Portishead.

In 2008, he produced and arranged a new version of 'I Feel Love' for the Gucci commercial that he also directed. He travelled to Nashville to work with Donna Summer to record a brand new vocal for it.[10]

Chris Cunningham Live

In 2005, Cunningham played a 45-minute audio visual piece performed live in Tokyo and Osaka in front of 30,000+ fans over the two nights at the Japanese electronic music festival Electraglide [ja]. These performances evolved into Chris Cunningham Live, a 55-minute long performance piece combining original and remixed music and film. It features remixed, unreleased and brand new videos and music dynamically edited together into a new live piece spread over three screens. The sound accompanying these images includes Cunningham's first publicly performed compositions interspersed with his remixes of other artist's work. Chris Cunningham Live debuted as one of the headline attractions at Warp 20 in Paris on 8 May 2009 with other performances scheduled at festivals in UK, and a number of European cities later in the year. Chris Cunningham Live continued in June 2011, with performances in London, Barcelona, and Sydney, Australia.

Photography

Cunningham has created photography and cover artwork for various people including Björk's "All Is Full of Love", Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker" and "Come to Daddy".

In 2008, Cunningham produced a fashion shoot for Dazed & Confused using Grace Jones as a model to create "Nubian versions" of Rubber Johnny.[11] In an interview for BBC's "The Culture Show", it was suggested that the collaboration may expand into a video project. In regards to the collaboration, Cunningham stated "For me, Grace has the strongest iconography of any artist in music. She’s definitely the most inspiring person I’ve worked with so far".

In November 2008, Cunningham followed on with another photoshoot for Vice Magazine.[12]

Neuromancer

In an August 1999 Spike Magazine interview, cyberpunk author William Gibson stated "He (Chris) was brought to my attention by someone else. We were told, third-hand, that he was extremely wary of the Hollywood process, and wouldn't return calls. But someone else told us that Neuromancer had been his Wind in the Willows, that he'd read it when he was a kid. I went to London and we met." Gibson is also quoted in the article as saying "Chris is my own 100 percent personal choice...My only choice. The only person I've met who I thought might have a hope in hell of doing it right. I went back to see him in London just after he'd finished the Bjork video, and I sat on a couch beside this dead sex little Bjork robot, except it was wearing Aphex Twin's head. We talked."[13]

In 2000, Cunningham and William Gibson began work on the script for Gibson's 1984 novel Neuromancer. However, because Neuromancer was due to be a big budget studio film, it is rumoured that Cunningham pulled out due to being a first time director without final cut approval.[14] He also felt that too much of the original book's ideas had been cannibalised by other recent films.[15]

On 18 November 2004, in the FAQ on the William Gibson Board, Gibson was asked:

Q: Is it true there's a movie of Neuromancer in the works?
A: Perpetually, it seems, and going on a quarter of a century now. The most recently rumoured version, to have been directed by Chris Cunningham, is now definitely not happening.[16]

Personal life

Cunningham was married to Warpaint's bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg. They are currently no longer together.[17]

Videography

The video collection The Work of Director Chris Cunningham was released in November 2004 as part of the Directors Label set. This DVD includes selected highlights from 1995 to 2000.

References

  1. ^ "Chris Cunningham". Genius.com. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
  2. ^ "I Will Eat Your Soul – The Making of Aphex Twin's Come to Daddy". Love-it-loud.co.uk. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  3. ^ . 23 June 2011. Archived from the original on 23 June 2011. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
  4. ^ "droid zone". 2000AD Online. Retrieved 30 August 2009.
  5. ^ "Chris Cunningham : flex". 5thgalleryarchive.com. Archived from the original on 16 January 2013. Retrieved 9 August 2014.
  6. ^ . 14 December 2021. Archived from the original on 23 June 2011.
  7. ^ Campion, Chris (28 May 2005). "Cheap but never cheerful". The Daily Telegraph.
  8. ^ . nofuture. 3 March 2004. Archived from the original on 3 December 2007. Retrieved 6 September 2009.
  9. ^ Kharas, Kev (14 March 2008). . Drowned in Sound. Archived from the original on 3 May 2009. Retrieved 16 April 2009.
  10. ^ . 20 December 2009. Archived from the original on 20 December 2009. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
  11. ^ "Grace Jones photoshoot for Dazed and Confused". Dazeddigital.com. 16 October 2008. Retrieved 30 August 2009.
  12. ^ . Viceland.com. Archived from the original on 21 November 2008. Retrieved 30 August 2009.
  13. ^ "William Gibson : All Tomorrow's Parties : Waiting for the Man". Spikemagazine.com. 22 February 1999. Retrieved 30 August 2009.
  14. ^ "Celebrity Grave | Chris Cunningham's Neuromancer". JESSE YULES FILM. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  15. ^ Leggott, James (1 April 2016). "Come to Daddy? Claiming Chris Cunningham for British Art Cinema". Journal of British Cinema and Television. 13 (2): 243–261. doi:10.3366/jbctv.2016.0311. ISSN 1743-4521.
  16. ^ . Williamgibsonboard.com. Archived from the original on 23 February 2009. Retrieved 30 August 2009.
  17. ^ "War Games | Dazed". Dazeddigital.com. 23 January 2008. Retrieved 9 August 2014.

External links

  • Chris Cunningham – official site
  • Chris Cunningham at IMDb
  • Chris Cunningham at the Music Video Database
  • Chris Cunningham profile at 2000 AD
  • Chris Cunningham interview at Pitchfork, 2005

January 31, 2023
chris, cunningham, born, october, 1970, british, video, artist, music, video, director, best, known, music, videos, electronic, musicians, such, autechre, squarepusher, most, notably, aphex, twin, videos, windowlicker, come, daddy, björk, full, love, were, use. Chris Cunningham born 15 October 1970 2 is a British video artist and music video director best known for his music videos for electronic musicians such as Autechre Squarepusher and most notably Aphex Twin on videos for Windowlicker and Come to Daddy and Bjork s All is Full of Love All were used in Chris chapter in Director s Label He has also created art installations and directed short movies He was approached to direct a movie version of William Gibson s cyberpunk novel Neuromancer the project has been in development hell for more than two decades In the 2000s Cunningham began doing music production work and has also designed album artwork for a variety of musicians Chris CunninghamBorn 1970 10 15 15 October 1970 age 52 Reading Berkshire EnglandOccupation s Filmmaker video artist photographer music producerYears active1995 presentSpouseJenny Lee Lindberg m 2010 div 2016 wbr 1 Contents 1 Early work 2 Music videos 3 Video art 4 Short films 5 Commercials 6 Music production 7 Chris Cunningham Live 8 Photography 9 Neuromancer 10 Personal life 11 Videography 12 References 13 External linksEarly work EditAfter seeing Cunningham s work on the 1995 film version of Judge Dredd Stanley Kubrick head hunted Cunningham 3 to design and supervise animatronic tests of the central robot child character in his version of the film A I Artificial Intelligence Cunningham worked for over a year on the film before leaving to pursue a career as a director Earlier work in film included model making prosthetic make up and concept illustrations for Hardware and Dust Devil for director Richard Stanley work on Nightbreed for Clive Barker and on Alien3 for David Fincher Between 1990 and 1992 he contributed the occasional cover painting and strip to Judge Dredd Megazine working under the pseudonym Chris Halls Halls is his stepfather s surname 4 Music videos EditCunningham has had close ties to Warp Records since his first video for Autechre Second Bad Vilbel which received airplay on MTV s Amp Videos for Aphex Twin s Come to Daddy and Windowlicker are perhaps his best known His video for Bjork s All Is Full of Love won multiple awards including an MTV music video award for Breakthrough Video and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video It was also the first ever music video to win a Gold Pencil at the D amp AD Awards It can still be seen at the Museum of Modern Art in New York His video for Aphex Twin s Windowlicker was nominated for the Best Video award at the Brit Awards 2000 He also directed Madonna s Frozen video which became an international hit and won the award for Best Special Effects at the 1998 MTV Music Video Awards Cunningham also came out of a seven year hiatus from making music videos to direct the video for Sheena Is a Parasite by the Horrors Video art EditHis video installation Flex was first shown in 2000 at the Royal Academy of Arts and subsequently at the Anthony d Offay Gallery and other art galleries Flex was commissioned by the Anthony d Offay Gallery for the Apocalypse Beauty amp Horror in Contemporary Art exhibition curated by Norman Rosenthal and Max Wigram at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2000 The Anthony d Offay Gallery also commissioned Monkey Drummer a 2 minute piece intended for exhibition as a companion to Flex at the 2000 Apocalypse exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts however the piece was not finished in time In it an automaton with nine appendages and the head of a monkey plays the drums to Mt Saint Michel Saint Michaels Mount the 10th track on Aphex Twin s 2001 album drukqs Monkey Drummer debuted as part of Cunningham s installation at the 49th International Exhibition of Art at the 2001 Venice Biennale which consisted of a loop of Monkey Drummer Flex and his video for Bjork s All Is Full of Love In 2002 both Flex and Monkey Drummer were exhibited by 5th Gallery in Dublin Ireland in an exhibition curated by Artist Curator Paul Murnaghan 5 6 In 2007 an excerpt from Flex was shown in the Barbican s exhibition Seduced Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now curated by Martin Kemp Marina Wallace and Joanne Bernstein alongside other pieces by Bacon Klimt Rembrandt Rodin and Picasso Short films EditIn 2005 Cunningham released the short film Rubber Johnny as a DVD accompanied by a book of photographs and drawings Rubber Johnny a six minute experimental short film cut to a soundtrack by Aphex Twin remixed by Cunningham was shot between 2001 and 2004 Shot on DV night vision it was made in Cunningham s own time as a home movie of sorts and took three and half years of weekends to complete The Telegraph called it like a Looney Tunes short for a generation raised on video nasties and rave music 7 During this period Cunningham also made another short film for Warp Films Spectral Musicians which remains unreleased The short film was set to Squarepusher s My Fucking Sound from his album Go Plastic and to a piece called Mutilation Colony 8 which was written especially for the short and was released on the EP Do You Know Squarepusher Commercials EditCunningham has directed a handful of commercials for companies and brands including Gucci Sony PlayStation Levi s Telecom Italia Nissan and Orange Music production EditIn 2004 2005 Cunningham took a sabbatical from filmmaking to learn about music production and recording and to develop his own music projects In December 2007 Cunningham produced two tracks Three Decades and Primary Colours for Primary Colours the second album by the Horrors 9 In the summer of 2008 due to scheduling conflicts with his feature film script writing he could not work on the rest of the album which was subsequently recorded by Geoff Barrow from Portishead In 2008 he produced and arranged a new version of I Feel Love for the Gucci commercial that he also directed He travelled to Nashville to work with Donna Summer to record a brand new vocal for it 10 Chris Cunningham Live EditIn 2005 Cunningham played a 45 minute audio visual piece performed live in Tokyo and Osaka in front of 30 000 fans over the two nights at the Japanese electronic music festival Electraglide ja These performances evolved into Chris Cunningham Live a 55 minute long performance piece combining original and remixed music and film It features remixed unreleased and brand new videos and music dynamically edited together into a new live piece spread over three screens The sound accompanying these images includes Cunningham s first publicly performed compositions interspersed with his remixes of other artist s work Chris Cunningham Live debuted as one of the headline attractions at Warp 20 in Paris on 8 May 2009 with other performances scheduled at festivals in UK and a number of European cities later in the year Chris Cunningham Live continued in June 2011 with performances in London Barcelona and Sydney Australia Photography EditCunningham has created photography and cover artwork for various people including Bjork s All Is Full of Love Aphex Twin s Windowlicker and Come to Daddy In 2008 Cunningham produced a fashion shoot for Dazed amp Confused using Grace Jones as a model to create Nubian versions of Rubber Johnny 11 In an interview for BBC s The Culture Show it was suggested that the collaboration may expand into a video project In regards to the collaboration Cunningham stated For me Grace has the strongest iconography of any artist in music She s definitely the most inspiring person I ve worked with so far In November 2008 Cunningham followed on with another photoshoot for Vice Magazine 12 Neuromancer EditIn an August 1999 Spike Magazine interview cyberpunk author William Gibson stated He Chris was brought to my attention by someone else We were told third hand that he was extremely wary of the Hollywood process and wouldn t return calls But someone else told us that Neuromancer had been his Wind in the Willows that he d read it when he was a kid I went to London and we met Gibson is also quoted in the article as saying Chris is my own 100 percent personal choice My only choice The only person I ve met who I thought might have a hope in hell of doing it right I went back to see him in London just after he d finished the Bjork video and I sat on a couch beside this dead sex little Bjork robot except it was wearing Aphex Twin s head We talked 13 In 2000 Cunningham and William Gibson began work on the script for Gibson s 1984 novel Neuromancer However because Neuromancer was due to be a big budget studio film it is rumoured that Cunningham pulled out due to being a first time director without final cut approval 14 He also felt that too much of the original book s ideas had been cannibalised by other recent films 15 On 18 November 2004 in the FAQ on the William Gibson Board Gibson was asked Q Is it true there s a movie of Neuromancer in the works A Perpetually it seems and going on a quarter of a century now The most recently rumoured version to have been directed by Chris Cunningham is now definitely not happening 16 Personal life EditCunningham was married to Warpaint s bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg They are currently no longer together 17 Videography Edit Second Bad Vilbel 1996 video for Autechre Back with the Killer Again 1996 video for the Auteurs Light Aircraft on Fire 1996 video for the Auteurs Fighting Fit 1996 video for Gene Another Day 1996 video for Lodestar Space Junkie 1996 video for Holy Barbarians 36 Degrees 1996 video for Placebo Personally 1997 video for 12 Rounds Jesus Coming in for the Kill 1997 video for Life s Addiction The Next Big Thing 1997 video for Jesus Jones Tranquillizer 1997 video for Geneva No More Talk 1997 video for Dubstar Something to Say 1997 video for Jocasta Come to Daddy 1997 video for Aphex Twin Sport is Free 1997 commercial for ITV Fetish 1998 commercial for NUS Clip Clop 1998 commercial for XFM London Only You 1998 video for Portishead Frozen 1998 video for Madonna Come on My Selector 1998 video for Squarepusher Engine 1999 commercial for Nissan Featuring music by Boards of Canada All Is Full of Love 1999 video for Bjork Windowlicker 1999 video for Aphex Twin Afrika Shox 1999 video for Leftfield and Afrika Bambaataa Mental Wealth 1999 commercial for Sony PlayStation Photocopier unreleased commercial for Levi s Flex 2000 video installation Featuring music by Aphex Twin Quiet 2000 commercial for Telecom Italia Featuring music by Boards of Canada Monkey Drummer 2001 video installation Featuring Mt Saint Michel Saint Michaels mount from Aphex Twin s album Drukqs Up and Down 2002 commercial for Levi s Photo Messaging 2003 commercial for Orange Featuring music from Add N To X Rubber Johnny 2005 featuring Afx237 V7 from Aphex Twin s album Drukqs Sheena Is a Parasite 2006 video for the Horrors Gucci Flora 2009 commercial for Gucci Perfume New York Is Killing Me Chris Cunningham Remix 2010 video for Gil Scott Heron Jaqapparatus 1 2012 robotic art installation performance for Audi City London Love Is To Die Multimedia documentary for the album release of Warpaint 2014 The video collection The Work of Director Chris Cunningham was released in November 2004 as part of the Directors Label set This DVD includes selected highlights from 1995 to 2000 References Edit Chris Cunningham Genius com Retrieved 14 December 2021 I Will Eat Your Soul The Making of Aphex Twin s Come to Daddy Love it loud co uk Retrieved 20 May 2019 Chris Cunningham Press 23 June 2011 Archived from the original on 23 June 2011 Retrieved 14 December 2021 droid zone 2000AD Online Retrieved 30 August 2009 Chris Cunningham flex 5thgalleryarchive com Archived from the original on 16 January 2013 Retrieved 9 August 2014 Monkey Drummer is a 2 5 minute piece commissioned again by the Anthony d Offay Gallery 14 December 2021 Archived from the original on 23 June 2011 Campion Chris 28 May 2005 Cheap but never cheerful The Daily Telegraph Squarepusher interview erutufon nofuture 3 March 2004 Archived from the original on 3 December 2007 Retrieved 6 September 2009 Kharas Kev 14 March 2008 Chris Cunningham to make production debut on new Horrors album Drowned in Sound Archived from the original on 3 May 2009 Retrieved 16 April 2009 Dazed Digital Chris Cunningham Feels Love for Gucci s Flora 20 December 2009 Archived from the original on 20 December 2009 Retrieved 14 December 2021 Grace Jones photoshoot for Dazed and Confused Dazeddigital com 16 October 2008 Retrieved 30 August 2009 Chris Cunningham Photoshoot for Vice Magazine Viceland com Archived from the original on 21 November 2008 Retrieved 30 August 2009 William Gibson All Tomorrow s Parties Waiting for the Man Spikemagazine com 22 February 1999 Retrieved 30 August 2009 Celebrity Grave Chris Cunningham s Neuromancer JESSE YULES FILM Retrieved 7 April 2020 Leggott James 1 April 2016 Come to Daddy Claiming Chris Cunningham for British Art Cinema Journal of British Cinema and Television 13 2 243 261 doi 10 3366 jbctv 2016 0311 ISSN 1743 4521 Here s the FAQ Topic Powered by Eve Community Williamgibsonboard com Archived from the original on 23 February 2009 Retrieved 30 August 2009 War Games Dazed Dazeddigital com 23 January 2008 Retrieved 9 August 2014 External links EditChris Cunningham official site Chris Cunningham at IMDb Chris Cunningham at the Music Video Database Chris Cunningham profile at 2000 AD Chris Cunningham interview at Pitchfork 2005 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Chris Cunningham amp oldid 1130389738, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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