Bon Iver’s recent output has been visual in nature, even when it comes to the song titles. On i,i, there are tracks with names like “iMi,” “Sh’Diah,” and “RABi,” which seem to be more focused on how the letters look than on their linguistic meaning. On that note, Bon Iver has partnered with Spotify to further explore the aesthetics of letters, or more specifically, just the lower case “i”: The two have launched the i,i “Viisualiizer” today, which uses the letter “i” to offer a visual and informative complement to the album.
Before entering the visualizer, the site reads, “i,i is infinitely growing, thanks to everyone who listens to it. this is a visualization of how the world is streaming the album, with every ‘i’ representing the ever-expanding Bon Iver collective.” Then users can check out the visualizer, which looks like animated “i”-only ASCII art, and as the intro pointed out, each “i” represents each individual stream of the album. The site also includes fascinating trivia about the album, including the fact that it has been streamed for over 3.5 million total hours.
'i,i' is an infinite, growing collective. See how the world is listening to our new album with this living, breathing visualizer, made only of i's, created by our friends at @Spotify.
Connect: https://t.co/pOc2gAUkuf pic.twitter.com/rZFxbjcFkd
— Bon Iver (@boniver) August 29, 2019
Vernon says of the visualizer, “it’s important to look outside yourself for the answers you seek. Even though distilling my mind and heading to the cabin 12 years ago was vital, SHARING is the thing now. Sharing and building things without holding on to the concept of authorship is the way. Our music is not ‘my’ music. In fact it never is, for anyone, and that is what i,i represents and how we worked to craft the ‘Viisualiizer’ experience with Spotify.”
Check out the “Viisualiizer” here.
