Chris Cunningham - ＂jaqapparatus 1＂

What this video is

Released in September 2012, jaqapparatus 1 arrives at a pivotal inflection point in visual music culture: the generation of 1990s auteur directors (Cunningham, Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Jonathan Glazer) had largely migrated away from broadcast music video toward feature film, gallery art, or live performance. Cunningham specifically had spent nearly a decade underground exploring audio-visual performance at…

Why it matters

jaqapparatus 1 occupies a unique generic intersection: it is simultaneously an art-installation document, an artist interview profile, and an authored short film. As a cultural artefact it marks the formal dissolution of the 'music video' as Cunningham's primary medium and its replacement by the…

The director

Born October 15, 1970, Reading, Berkshire, England. Early career in creature effects (Alien3, Alien Resurrection) and animatronic design for Stanley Kubrick's A.I. project. Pivoted to music video direction from 1995, producing landmark videos for Aphex Twin,…