Music is a fluid, ineffable phenomenon, triggering everything from repressed emotions to unexplained reserves of energy in its listeners. Music is also a product of math and science, the thing that happens when a string is struck and the resulting sound waves find their way to our ears.
Björk’s Biophilia, which was released in the fall of 2011 and will be performed in-the-round in Richmond’s Craneway Pavilion on May 22, 25 and 28, 2013, explores the nexus of music and science as only the diminutive Icelandic artist can. While the mechanics of sound (the struck string, etc.) are definitely a part of Björk’s A/V-geek investigation, she’s more interested in what music can tell us about our DNA, the interaction between a virus and a cell, the growth of crystals, the structure of the Earth, indeed, the very order of the cosmos.
When Biophilia debuted in the United States in New York in 2012, more than half the performances in its 11-night run were held at the New York Hall of Science at the site of the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens. For her Northern California dates, the first stop on a six-city North America tour that ends at the Pitchfork Festival in Chicago, Björk has selected a similarly out-of-the-way space in the Craneway Pavilion. Designed by Albert Kahn, the building opened in 1931 as a Ford assembly plant and was retooled during World War II for tank and jeep production. Today, it’s part of a complex that includes the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historic Park.
The exterior of Craneway Pavilion, Richmond, California.
As in New York, the current tour will include educational programs for school kids (for the Richmond dates, these will occur at the Exploratorium), revolving around the enhanced, interactive versions of the album created for the iPad. San Francisco gets Björk’s music-education curriculum for three days; Reykjavík middle schools have made Biophilia a core part of their teaching materials for three years.
