Jesse Kanda directs Björk inside a giant silicon slug for Arisen My Senses video (NSFW)

Jesse Kanda has returned to working with longtime collaborator Björk, directing the video for her track Arisen My Senses. The bizarre and grotesque film features a moving sculpture by special effects artist Tristan Schoonraad, a pearlescent white, organic form akin to an amniotic sack, containing Björk as a kind-of alien butterfly in its fleshy cocoon.

During the video, the camera slowly pans across the silicon and europhane sculpture, showing the singer beneath its translucent skin, and revealing its valves, innards, mouth and wiggling red tongue. Later, the video features Jesse and Björk’s other regular collaborator Arca writhing in bondage on a bed of velvet and flowers, and Björk singing in a white facial sculpture. At the end, Björk emerges complete with white scaly wings, jolting and adjusting to her new body against the backdrop of a misty sunset.

This aims to “depict birth, death and mating at the same time,” says Jesse, and is apparently visually inspired by slugs.

The video is released exclusively on WeTransfer’s editorial platform This Works, alongside an article exploring how it was made. In an interview, Jesse explains the visual influences: “A couple of years ago, this giant unidentified creature washed up in Indonesia,” Jesse explains. “It was this gorgeous mound of white skin and fat and flesh in a pool of blood on a sunny beach. That really moved me – like total awe. It was the combination of something so catastrophic being so beautiful at the same time, the mystery and fantasy of what it actually was, and the connection to the grander ecological context.”

Watch the video and see behind the scenes here.