Meet Berit Gilma - Creative Director Behind Danny Elfman's Wild Revival
Photo by Sven Gutjahr
Berit Gilma is making herself known as one of the most exciting creative directors in music and the woman behind the visuals of the creative renaissance of musician Danny Elfman.
The young Austrian-born artist based between Los Angeles and Berlin used her expertise in digital art and new technologies working with Elfman, plotting a return to his artistic roots in alternative music while collaborating with underground and established artists alike. Best known for the new wave band Oingo Boingo and his TV and movie scoring work, Elfman's uproarious, career-spanning set at Coachella, went viral earlier this year.
Elfman's 2021 album Big Mess, his first non-classical record under his own name since 1984, was creative directed by Gilma, who lead all visual elements of the release, and its upcoming follow-up, the remix album Bigger. Messier. Gilma also co-curated the lineup of remixers that would transform Elfman's tracks on Bigger. Messier., including industrial legend Blixa Bargeld (Einstürzende Neubauten) and noise-rapper GHOSTEMANE. Other remixers and collaborators include Iggy Pop, Trent Reznor, Squarepusher, Zach Hill (Death Grips), Boy Harsher, HEALTH, and many more.
Gilma thoroughly defined the aesthetic direction of Big Mess – her vision brought together a curated list of artists, who worked with cutting-edge technology such as 3D scanning, CGI, and artificial intelligence to digitally manipulate Danny’s body. Warping and twisting his form into something grotesque and sinister, the visuals are perfectly complimenting the rocker's dark musical vision. These artworks were used on album covers, packaging, and as backing visuals during Elfman's live performances.
Bigger. Messier. releases August 12. Preview the just-released GHOSTEMANE remix of "Native Intelligence" here.
Berit Gilma and Danny Elfman. Photo by David Tamargo
About Berit Gilma
Berit Gwendolyn Gilma has made a career out of chasing what lurks in the shadows. Born and raised in Austria, at 21 she moved to Berlin and quickly fell into the city’s underground scene. While exploring the German capital’s pulsating music and arts scene she befriended hacktivists and artists working on the bleeding edge of tech, criticizing pervasive global surveillance systems. She holds a BA degree from the University of the Arts Berlin, where she studied New Media Arts under celebrated Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei.
Her path diverged in 2016 when she met world-famous Hollywood composer and musician Danny Elfman. They bonded over a shared interest in the weirder side of pop culture, and after earning a Fulbright Scholarship and moving to Los Angeles to pursue an MFA at the UCLA Design Media Arts Department, she became Elfman’s creative director. As he prepared to re-enter the music industry after a long hiatus as a solo artist, Elfman turned to Gilma as a collaborator. She provided creative and art direction for Elfman’s album Big Mess, introducing him to contemporary digital artists and new technologies such as 3D scanning and artificial intelligence to produce cutting edge visuals that were used throughout the album art and music videos. Her latest project with Elfman is the remix album Bigger. Messier., for which she co-curated a lineup of legendary collaborators including Iggy Pop, Trent Reznor, Blixa Bargeld and exciting young talents like Ghostemane, HEALTH, Boy Harsher and many others.
In her artistic work Gilma has explored the aesthetics of secrecy. Her MFA degree examined the intersection of art and science, and she has also studied at the New School in New York and RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. She often returns home to Graz as the art curator of the city’s Elevate Festival, a destination for contemporary art and electronic music. What unites all of Berit Gilma’s activities is a sensitivity for the dark arts, carving for herself a unique niche where sound and vision merge at the forefront of technology.
Learn more about Berit Gilma at her website.