Aphex Twin - Flex (by Chris Cunningham)

JUL 01 2000 · 12:00

Aphex Twin - Flex (by Chris Cunningham) (2000) Director: Chris Cunningham Era: Post-Rave Art-Electronica Crossover (2000–2001) - The moment when UK IDM/electronica aesthetics migrated from promotional music video into fine art gallery installation, epitomised by Cunningham's transition from Warp Records commissions to the international contemporary art circuit. Tier 1 archival priority. Flex is a singular artefact at the intersection of electronic music, fine art video installation, and late-1990s British visual culture. Confirmed exhibition at MoMA/PS1, the Royal Academy of Arts, and the Venice Biennale places it in the highest tier of culturally significant moving-image works. Its quantitative metrics, near-total darkness, warm single-source light, static motion against fast cutting, are analytically distinctive and reproducibly measurable, making it valuable for both qualitative cultural research and computational aesthetics studies. Context: Flex represents a precise cultural hinge point: the moment UK electronic music's most celebrated visual collaborator, Chris Cunningham, formally exited the MTV promotional economy and entered the international fine art circuit. Commissioned by the Anthony d'Offay Gallery for the Royal Academy's 'Apocalypse: Beauty & Horror in Contemporary Art' exhibition in 2000, it situates Aphex Twin's music within a lineage of transgressive body art rather than pop commerce. The work's preoccupation with anatomy, choreography, and the boundary between violence and intimacy positions it within broader late-1990s discourses on posthumanism, body horror (a critical parallel to Cronenberg's cinematic project), and the eroticisation of flesh divorced from identity. Its gallery-loop format and extreme chiaroscuro align it aesthetically with video art traditions (Bill Viola, Bruce Nauman) while its sonic grounding in IDM kept it tethered to subcultural electronica. The piece's presence at the 2001 Venice Biennale confirmed Cunningham's standing as a fine artist, not merely a music video director. Director notes: Flex (2000–2001) was Cunningham's first work as an independent fine art video artist, marking his transition from music video director to gallery practitioner. It was commissioned by the Anthony d'Offay Gallery for the 'Apocalypse: Beauty & Horror in Contemporary Art' exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2000. Produced with Aphex Twin's musical score, the work depicts two nude bodies engaged in physical violence and sexual intimacy under extreme low-light conditions. Although the imagery is abstract, the piece follows a structured sequence: from complete darkness, a light unfolds to reveal flesh and bone. Bodies obstructed by shadows twist in an amorphous milky light source. Flex subsequently exhibited at the Anthony d'Offay Gallery and other art galleries. It debuted as part of Cunningham's installation at the 49th International Exhibition of Art at the 2001 Venice Biennale, looped alongside Monkey Drummer and Björk's 'All Is Full of Love'. An excerpt was included on the Palm Pictures 'Directors Label: The Work of Director Chris Cunningham' DVD (2003/2004). The work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA/PS1), New York.