Monkoora

Artist: Monkoora

Monkoora is the pseudonym of recording and visual artist Julie Crawford from Helensburgh, Scotland. Since she taught herself piano at 15 and experimented with music software, she has been developing her song craft and her skills as a producer, learning instruments such as rusty saws, whistles, autoharp, toy instruments structured by electronic beats, synths, piano and guitar then characterised by her soaring vocal harmonies.

At 22, Julie Crawford is known for her varied talents and influences. The wall between Monkoora’s visual and audio work has been disappearing as she, as a visual artist has turned to working in video, installation and any medium that could incorporate her sound and vision. This includes otherworldly stop-motions with strange characters, music videos and atmospheric dioramas with zen-like musical accompaniment.

In 2015 she worked alongside multimedia artist Sven Werner in producing live visuals for “Solomon’s Knot: Pour un tombeau d’Anatole” at Aldeburgh Music Festival. This was a performance by baroque musicians (Solomon’s Knot), aided by the dark and enchanting visuals of Werner developed side by side with Crawford. She was also in charge of the live projections which included following a large helium balloon with a projector, led by a dancer.

This year, she composed all the music for four short “Survivor” films for Rape Crisis. A story about a girl in South London finding strength and coming forward about what happened to her, realising that she was a survivor rather than a victim. With her love for creating drama and atmosphere in her work, scoring films seems like a natural progression for Crawford.

Julie recently completed her own part stop-motion, part-live action existentialist short film that conceptualises fruit as an analogy for smartphones. Written, shot, directed, edited and soundtrack composed by herself for her Contemporary Art final degree show in June 2016.

Audio