iamamiwhoami

Jutta and I have been making long term plans. She wants to explore the mechanics of making something go viral, and we were discussing possible starting points for turning this into a student project within a course. In circuitous way this led me to remember iamamiwhoami, whose YouTube channel I discovered sometime last year.

According to Wikipedia, iamamiwhoami are

the electronic music and multimedia project of Swedish singer-songwriter Jonna Lee. The project was conceived in collaboration with Lee’s long-time producer, Claes Björklund and the video director Robin Kempe-Bergman. Starting in December 2009, music videos have been released in four series from the project’s YouTube channel, with complementary digital downloads becoming available through online retailers.

Critically well-received, the project’s music and visuals contain elements of electronic music sub-genres such as ambient, synthpop, dream pop and trip hop. The videos in particular have spread virally and have garnered much attention, and the project is notable not only for its artistic multimedia output, but also the creators’ leveraging of YouTube and viral videos to disseminate their music and music videos. As of 2012, iamamiwhoami has its own label “To whom it may concern.”, which operates in conjunction with Cooperative Music and is founded by Jonna Lee.

The YouTube channel is one of their main focuses, and a good starting point for getting to grips with what they are up to.

They also perform live, although the few reviews that I have seen suggest that their performances are much more conventional than their online antics. The Residents they are not then!