[Exclusive] Icelandic Director Máni Sigfússon’s Dark, Eerie Visuals

A sneak peek of his collaboration with composer Ólafur Arnalds coming up at the Sydney Opera House.

September 30, 2015, 5:18am

Máni Sigfússon is a video maker and director who hails from Iceland. With a trademark dark aesthetic, he’s the go-to guy for creating film clips for independent Icelandic musicians who share a similar inkling towards the eerie and atmospheric; artists like Ãsgeir, Sóley, Hjaltalín, [Úlfur](http:// https://vimeo.com/74952128) and Bang Gang. One musician who Máni shares a particular affinity with is metal drummer turned composer/pianist Ólafur Arnalds, who has managed to straddle the boundary between classical and pop (you might recognise his work for The Hunger Games and Broadchurch). The two artists have been longtime collaborators, working together on over thirty live performances and also the video above, which was released last month.

Máni and Ólafur are touring the country, and next week will appear at the Sydney Opera House’s GRAPHIC festival. Ólafur will be staging an orchestral world premiere involving piano and electronics, backed by a 13-piece chamber orchestra—a performance which will be brought to life and made even richer with live visual accompaniments by Máni. Ahead of this, we caught up with Máni about his approach to collaboration and interest in dark art.

The Creators Project: When did you first get into video?

Máni Sigfússon: I can’t really remember; I think I was around 20. My interest in video started out as an art medium for making video works. I was in art school and two friends of mine were thinking about going to this digital film school in Amsterdam and I just thought it sounded fun and went with them. So it was kind of random. But after that I started getting requests to do music videos and really liked it, and I haven't stopped making them since.

A lot of your work has quite a dark, haunting aesthetic, in terms of the themes and even colour palette. Why do you think this is?

I’m not sure if I know why… It's just what I like. I’ve always been drawn to dark things. I collect a lot of reference photos for every project and they are usually pretty dark and most of them are in black and white. I never plan the colour palette in advance, I just experiment until I like it, and in I think every case that it is pretty dark. I’ve been asked if it’s because of the darkness here in Iceland during the winter. That's not something that I think about, but it might be a part of it.

What’s the best live show you’ve ever been to?

Sigur Rós shows. They are always crazy.

Are there any particular programs or technologies you especially like working with?

I use After Effects for everything. I use photographs a lot as well, I make them look 3D or use them in backgrounds or build ‘sets’ from a lot of different photos. I’m getting more into Cinema 4D now and I really like making 3D stuff, but everything ends up in After Effects for the final touches.

How did you start working with Ólafur Arnalds?

We started working together when he asked me to make live visuals for Kiasmos. And that went really well, and now this is the fourth project we've collaborated on in a year. I think I've made around 30 live visuals and one music video. I really like it, and I think it fits really well with my style of visuals.

What was the collaborative process like for GRAPHIC?

Óli asked me if I was up for it, and I was. We had a meeting and exchanged some broad ideas of how we saw it [the project]. Then he sent me the setlist and a month later I’m sending him the whole live show without him seeing one screenshot. We go back and forth from there if there’s something we want to change, but that rarely happens. It's great to have that trust. He has always been really cool about the creative control of the videos and lets me just do what I feel.

Any hints about what we can we expect to see at the performance?

I never really want to say too much about my videos. I think people should just take from it what they want. But they are pretty dark, but also really bright.

What are some of the challenges with creating live visuals?

Trying to capture the mood of each song, and then making the world that it should be in. It has to be a whole world, as well as individual worlds, but it is a good challenge.

Below, take an exclusive first look at some of the visuals that Máni has created for Ólafur's upcoming performance at the Sydney Opera House: