The Life of Chris Cunningham

By Chloe Bullen

Why I Chose Chris Cunningham

I chose to research Chris Cunningham because I love his videos for Aphex Twin! I love the fact that all his videos are so controversial and out there. They’re definitely more underground music with the exception of Madonna’s frozen. Cunningham never uses live action which I think says a lot about him because he lets the music justify itself with the images he creates. I also like the fact that he’s very private and professional and will get on with a job without disappointing the artist.

Early Work

Chris Cunningham was head hunted in 1994 by Stanley Kubrick after he had seen his filmography on Cunningham’s film version of Judge Dredd. Kubrick wanted him 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, 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.

Music VideosCunningham is best known for his

music videos for Aphex Twin’s Windowlicker and also Come To Daddy. His video for Windowlicker was nominated for the "Best Video" award at the Brit Awards 2000.

He also directed Madonna's Frozen video which became an international hit and won the award for Best Special Effect sat the 1998 MTV Music Video Awards.

Video ArtHis 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 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 2½ 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 , which consisted of a loop of Monkey Drummer, Flex, and his video for Björk's All Is Full of Love.

In 2007, an excerpt from Flex was shown in the Barbican's exhibition curated by Martin Kemp, and . alongside other pieces by Bacon, Klimt, Rembrandt, Rodin and Picasso

Short Films and Commercials

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, from the album Go Plastic and a piece called , which was written especially for the short and was released on the EP Do You Know Squarepusher.

Cunningham has directed a handful of commercials for companies including Gucci, PlayStation, Levis, Telecom Italia, Nissan and Orange.