Monkey Drummer

United Kingdom

2000

2 Min

Color

None

Currently 3.2/5 Stars.
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MUSIC Aphex Twin

Synopsis

Monkey Drummer is a 2.5 minute piece commissioned by the Anthony d’Offay Gallery. It was meant to be a companion piece to flex, but wasn’t finished in time for the September 2000 exhibition.

Completed in 2001, the short is a humorous, kinetic study of a mechanical being with nine appendages—six arms, two legs, and one, ahem, drumstick—all seemingly controlled by the head of a monkey, though it’s unclear what’s in control here. Each flesh-and-blood body part, jutting from a black steel appendage, plays an instrument in Aphex Twin’s hyperactive, dense Mt Saint Michel + Saint Michaels Mount, the 10th track on his 2001 album druqks.

The overall effect is somewhat off-putting. Each body part acts authentically human, while being controlled so mechanically. Indeed each limb belongs to drummer Sigtryggur “Siggi” Baldursson, founding member of the Sugarcubes, who was shot multiple times in these various positions, and whose torso was chopped off in post. —director-file.com

Director

Chris Cunningham

In 1989, Cunningham worked at Spitting Image, building animatronic robot arms and sculpting caricatures for the TV series. In 1990 he worked on sculpture and animatronics for the film Alien 3.

After seeing Cunningham’s work on the 1994 film version Judge Dredd, Stanley Kubrick head hunted Cunningham to design and supervise animatronic tests of the central robot child character in his version of the film A.I. Cunningham worked for over a year on the film A.I., 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 with director Richard Stanley, as well as Nightbreed. In 1990–1992 he contributed the occasional cover painting and strip for Judge Dredd Megazine, working under the pseudonym Chris Halls, the surname of his stepfather.

Cunningham has had close ties to Warp Records since his first production for Autechre. Videos… read more

In 1989, Cunningham worked at Spitting Image, building animatronic robot arms and sculpting caricatures for the TV series. In 1990 he worked on sculpture and animatronics for the film Alien 3.

After seeing Cunningham’s work on the 1994 film version Judge Dredd, Stanley Kubrick head hunted Cunningham to design and supervise animatronic tests of the central robot child character in his version of the film A.I. Cunningham worked for over a year on the film A.I., 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 with director Richard Stanley, as well as Nightbreed. In 1990–1992 he contributed the occasional cover painting and strip for Judge Dredd Megazine, working under the pseudonym Chris Halls, the surname of his stepfather.

Cunningham has had close ties to Warp Records since his first production for Autechre. 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.

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 2 1/2 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 Bienalle, which consisted of a loop of Monkey Drummer, Flex, and his video for Björk’s “All Is Full of Love”.

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”.

During this period Cunningham also made another short film for Warp Films, Spectral Musicians, which remains unreleased. The short film was edited to music by Squarepusher, My Fucking Sound, from the album Go Plastic and a piece called Mutilation Colony, which was written especially for the short and was released on the EP Do You Know Squarepusher.

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