Chris Milk
Chris Milk is an American entrepreneur, innovator, director, photographer, and immersive artist. He is co-founder and CEO of Within (Virtual Reality) (formerly Vrse),[4] a virtual reality technology company, and co-founder of Here Be Dragons (formerly Vrse.works), a virtual reality production company. Milk began his career directing music videos and commercials for leading artists and brands, and in subsequent years became best known for bridging the gap between emerging technologies and new mediums for storytelling.
Chris Milk
Within (formerly Vrse[3])
Virtual reality, immersive art, music videos
Milk's work has been exhibited in museums worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Barbican Centre in London, Cent Quatre in Paris, and the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. Milk has been honored twice with the Grand Prix Cannes Lions, the D&AD Black Pencil, the Grand Clio, and SXSW's 'Best of Show' alongside multiple Grammy nominations, MTV Moon Men, and the UK MVA Innovation Award.
Milk was named one of WIRED's 100 Most Influential People[5] in 2016, one of The Hollywood Reporter's L.A.'s 25 Most Powerful Digital Players[6] in 2016, Adweek's Creative 100 list in 2015,[7] as one of the 50 Most Creative People by Advertising Age in 2011 and 2015,[8][9] and one of the "100 Most Creative People in Business" by Fast Company in 2012.[10] Milk presented at TED in 2015 on the power of virtual reality as a medium to advance humanity, and again in 2016 on the birth of virtual reality as a new art form.[11]
Early life[edit]
Milk was born in Glen Cove, New York. After attending Friends Academy High School, Milk studied Music and Film at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and then earned a B.F.A. in Film, Photography and Computer Graphics at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, California.[12]
Career[edit]
Music videos, commercials, short films and interactive[edit]
Milk began his career directing music videos and commercials for artists and brands including Arcade Fire, U2, Kanye West, Green Day, Johnny Cash, Gnarls Barkley, The Chemical Brothers, John Mellencamp, Courtney Love, Modest Mouse, Nike, O2, Chevy and Nintendo.[13]
Milk's collaboration with Kanye West on the single "All Falls Down" was shot entirely in first person perspective, a technique he utilized again in a commercial for O2's "Can Do" campaign and his short film "The Last Day Dream",[14] signaling his future affinity for virtual reality and subjective storytelling. Milk collaborated again with Kanye West on the video for "Touch The Sky", which was in part an homage to Evel Knievel, a childhood hero of Milk's.[15]
Milk's collaboration with Arcade Fire, Aaron Koblin and Google Creative Lab on "The Wilderness Downtown" in 2010 was one of his first interactive videos that utilized emerging technologies to create new, more personal ways for viewers to connect with digital experiences.[16][17] The browser based video uses HTML5, satellite imagery and Google Street View to incorporate images from a viewer's childhood home mixed with digital footage and CGI elements.[18] At the end of the video, viewers are encouraged to write a postcard to their younger selves.[19] "The Wilderness Downtown" was named as one of Time's 30 Best Music Videos of all time,[20] saying, "It's the first video that truly harnesses the digital age — and one of the most personal you'll ever watch." It was also exhibited[21] at MoMA in New York in 2011.[22]
Personal life[edit]
Of his practice of Transcendental Meditation Milk said in 2016, "There's a really transcendental quality to virtual reality. ... TM is a really great portal into exploring those states within yourself. Virtual reality is basically an authored dream state."[62]
Chris Milk at TED