Chris Cunningham
Since his directorial debut in 1995, Chris Cunningham has made quite the name for himself. Mr. Cunningham first shocked the world with the intense six-minutes of Aphex Twin's Come To Daddy. The video was voted into #16 on MTV's line-up by its 12 Angry Viewers for the week ending Nov 8, 1997. Accolades, awards, and bans soon came his way. As for his current status as creative mastermind: "These days I feel like I have come full circle. I do exactly what I want, like when I was a kid and could sit in my room and draw all day." (London Times) Cunningham grew up in Lakenheath, an American air base with a small Suffolk town attached. In his own words...
I was a hyperactive kid: I worked on comics, I've worked as a sculptor, made films, robots; I work seven days a week but I still go to sleep worrying that I haven't done enough. ... [While living at Lakenheath,] my stepdad ... was really into Vangelis and Tangerine Dream, and all the Americans were into hip-hop, so that was my musical background. I've loved music all my life and yet it's the art form I haven't worked in. (New Musical Express)
When asked in a 1998 Jockey Slut article what attracted him to Squarepusher and Aphex Twin, Cunningham remarked:
Because they're two of the best musicians around. I was brought up around jazz, classical, and electronic music and their music reminds me of all these things. Also I've spent too much time on projects I'm not interested in musically. . . I'm aware that anything that people are into is fleeting which is why Madonna is a one-off for me. Ideally I want to carry on making videos at a lower profile for people like Tom and Richard whose music I love. I feel spoiled doing stuff with them because it's such a thrill.
"I'm basically the most squeamish person in the world," offers Chris when asked if anything dampens his own bedsheets. A confession that seems a little strange after starting out by designing monsters for Clive Barker's Nightbreed and the acid-drenched Alien3. "Yeah, but that's just fake though, isn't it? That's bits of rubber and plastic and stuff. I'm scared of needles. I'm scared of doctors. I'm scared of being injured. The last time I had an injection I fainted! . . .
"I've definitely got a total obsession with anatomy, but it's very specific. When people are scared of needles, they're scared of the pain, which is pretty insignificant. They have a vivid imagination, and when the needle goes in, they're picturing a macro close-up of it ripping muscle tissue apart and pushing through the body. Even when I'm having a shit sometimes I feel a bit faint, thinking about what's going on inside. I don't even want to know, I want to pretend it doesn't exist. I'm just interested in the way it looks from the outside." (Flux, #14)
Ten years before Come To Daddy, Cunningham, age 16, designed monsters for Clive Barker's Nightbreed. He also worked with David Fincher on Alien3, illustrated at British comic 2000 AD (under the name Chris Halls), sculpted Sylvester Stallone's Judge Dredd costume in 1995, and worked for 1.5 years with the late Stanley Kubrick on his on-off sci-fi project A.I.
In NME, Cunningham remarks, "The weird thing was, I realized I was working with Stanley Kubrick and not enjoying it. What I was into was music, and at the time it was really electronic music so I did a music video for Autechre and realized that's what I wanted to do." However, it seems the process of creating one of his videos is wearing thin: "I actively hate every aspect of the project but the editing. I'm surprised I keep managing to do it. Every time I start a new video I say, 'This is the last time I'm going to do a video. I can't stand this.'" (Merge #4, Spring 99) Cunningham often cites George Lucas's Star Wars as influential: "It's all white costumes against black walls - everything's very classy."
Excerption from www.director-file.com/cunningham
