Enjoy the Silence: Anton Corbijn and the synesthetic representation of space. Readings on landscape aesthetic and staged atmospheres from selected music videos

The moving image has long established its exceptional ability to reflect upon the representation of space and its self-reflexive gaze, whether as a background or a narrative in itself. Focusing on the depiction of landscape, particularly, and on its cinematic aspects (embedded as spatial, visual, aural and narrative layers) allows us to explore it as a broader concept ever so interchangeable and transmedial, which ultimately pertains to an understanding of «space» as a document, a fabrication, a metaphor, a synesthetic rendering and/or an emotional projection.
In this sense, when considering the work of Anton Corbijn as a music video director, we regard his visual narratives as «staged atmospheres» derived from a photographic and cinematic experience, defined by a very particular vocabulary and aesthetic codes. Corbijn conceptualizes space through the notions of silence and the inhabited void, where the presence or absence of the human figure acts both as a mirror of intimacy and a scale that accentuates the dimension and bareness of the place.
This paper aims to exert an exploratory exercise focused on the staging and the perception of space through an audio-visual deconstruction and analysis of Corbijn’s videography. Moreover, it explores the symbiotic affinities established between music and the moving image, as well as the formal and iconographic references displayed throughout the music videos directed for the band Depeche Mode, more specifically.