Iamamiwhoami
iamamiwhoami is a Swedish electronic music and audiovisual project led by singer-songwriter Jonna Lee in collaboration with producer Claes Björklund. Since 2009, the project has released a series of audiovisual works on their YouTube channel, which has garnered an international following. Visual collaborators include Swedish director Robin Kempe-Bergman and the visual collective Wave, which comprises Lee and cinematographer John Strandh, along with former member Agustín Moreaux.
The project's videos have spread virally, leading to a significant cult following. iamamiwhoami is notable for its artistic multimedia output and the innovative use of YouTube and viral videos to disseminate music and visuals. In 2010, Lee founded a record label,, to manage the project's releases. One video, titled "y", gained over 68 million views by October 2023 due to its unique position as the first link returned by Google if the word "youtube" is not fully typed into the browser. This phenomenon contributed to its status as a viral internet meme.
Since December 2009, iamamiwhoami's music videos have been released in several series on the project's YouTube channel, while their music is available through digital music retailers. By March 2024, a total of 87 videos have been released on iamamiwhoami's YouTube channel. Running from an initial set of prelude videos to a series of full-length songs, the videos and songs form a continuous story featuring Lee as a protagonist. iamamiwhoami released their debut physical album, the audiovisual album Kin, in June 2012, while the initial full-length series, Bounty, was released physically in June 2013. A third album, Blue, was released in November 2014.
The project has also remixed songs for Moby and The Irrepressibles, as well as performing live in concert tours revolving around the releases of Kin, Bounty and Blue. An online performance art "concert" in support of the Bounty series was streamed online in 2010, taking place in a forest. On 29 April 2015, a second online performance art "concert" in support of the Blue series was streamed online; this "concert" was released physically and digitally in September 2015 as Concert in Blue, and includes the first new iamamiwhoami song since 2014.
In March 2017, Lee embarked on solo career as ionnalee, stating that it is continuation of iamamiwhoami, though "the two projects will not exist simultaneously".
In March 2022, Lee announced a new audiovisual album from iamamiwhoami, Be Here Soon, which was released on 3 June 2022.
Background
iamamiwhoami is a collaboration between Swedish singer-songwriter Jonna Lee and producer Claes Björklund. In an interview with Playgroundmag.net, Lee explained that iamamiwhoami was conceived as a response to "experiencing convention in its purest form," referencing her earlier solo work. The project's musical and visual style represents a significant shift from the guitar-driven alternative pop of her solo career, though Lee notes that "the change is probably more apparent from an external point of view."Lee began developing iamamiwhoami in 2009 and started creating the music together with Björklund in real time with their releases in 2009–2010. Lee has explained they wanted it to "grow freely and the formerly by its roots and start over", envisioning the ability to "physically visualize" their songs. Lee began collaborating with visual directors Robin Kempe-Bergman, Agustín Moreaux, still photographer John Strandh, and most recently, fashion and costume designer Mathieu Mirano, who are credited as part of the visual team of iamamiwhoami, and Lee has defined the collective as being herself in a "collaboration with amazing people" that she loves, also stating "iamamiwhoami is not something can shake off." The process of forming iamamiwhoami began with "a need of change" and the fact that there were songs already in development. Lee has acknowledged they are working with limited means independently through her label to maintain their creative freedom.
Since the upload of their first video to YouTube, the project's videos and music have been continuous and operate in "real time", and each song is completed just before being made available for viewing. The first upload, "Prelude 699130082.451322" surfaced on YouTube in December 2009 and was the beginning of a since abstract storyline. Lee has said of this process "every time a production starts, it's being released very soon after to keep the conversation with the audience in the present. It's a chronological storyline of an evolution, from the very beginning up to now. I think the Internet is the place where you can do that." Lee states that essentially, "the core of iamamiwhoami is our music, where the lyrics are the script for the story happening and being shared in real time. Then from that, it is expanded with imagery that reflects our development and current state as part of our chronological storyline." Lee has expressed desire to break "the wall" between viewers and listeners.
iamamiwhoami is widely known for its secrecy. As such, Lee's participation was not confirmed until August 2011, when she began giving her first interviews regarding the project. Lee has stated the project's name was inspired by the fact that she "didn't really know what she wanted iamamiwhoami to be." Lee finds that her "identity was not hidden but neither articulated by me because what is relevant is the work we have done and the audience reflection of my identity. " Although Lee acknowledges that secrecy is essential, she feels there is "a lot of communication from me all the time even though it's not literal." Although "people realised pretty quickly that was involved", she "chose not to comment on it, because just wanted people to focus on what were doing", and to speak about who she is "as an individual, doesn't feel relevant".
History
2009–2011: First uploads and ''Bounty''
The first two iamamiwhoami videos were uploaded to YouTube on 4 December 2009, and were forwarded from an anonymous email account to a number of music journalists and blogs. These videos continued and featured an unknown blonde woman whose face had been distorted, and displayed themes such as birthing and growth. Imagery associated with the folklore of the mandragora recurs throughout iamamiwhoami's videos. Each of the first six clips end with a drawing of a different animal. Having blogged about the videos, MTV journalist James Montgomery received a package by a messenger, which included a lock of blond hair, a piece of bark, and a pictogram of the six animals with the question "Says what?" Furthering the mystery; the sixth video ends with the woman whispering "Why" or "Y." Each video displayed a numerical code as part of its title. When indexed into the alphabet, these spell out words such as "educational", "I am", "its me", "mandragora", "officinarum", and "welcome home". Mandragora officinarum refers to the mandrake root, which when fresh or dry may cause hallucination and grows from a hanged man's sperm. In 2012, Lee revealed their aim is to "let the work be in focus and push the boundaries of convention in different forms." This initial stage of the project received positive, if sceptical reviews and many websites found themselves asking readers to guess the identity of the blonde woman within the clips. iamamiwhoami was speculated to be a project of many artists, including Lady Gaga, Goldfrapp, Björk, The Knife, Trent Reznor and Christina Aguilera. The number series which were highly stylized teaser videos setting the tone of the project, established several mysteries, and served to foreshadow the projects' complete songs. For instance, "23.5.12.3.15.13.5–8.15.13.5.3383" contained vocally distorted lyrics that later appeared in the later song "o". On 25 November 2017, a full version of "13.1.14.4.18.1.7.15.18.1.1110" was released under the side project ionnalee, featuring the distorted full verse as the main chorus of the song "GONE"The second "series" of the iamamiwhoami project began with the upload of a full song and music video titled "b", one month following the final prelude video. Garnering positive reviews for its dramatic change in style and heavy use of a piano as well as vocal distortion techniques, the song was the first to be uploaded to the iTunes Store, being offered as a paid digital download on 15 March 2010. Although a "reveal" of the artist behind the moniker was anticipated, the videos showed a clearer view of Jonna Lee's face. Swedish media recognized Lee. However, Lee's previous North American management team Philadelphonic commented "If Jonna is involved in this, we have no knowledge of such." Despite this, her involvement in the project was eventually thought to be confirmed with the release of the video for "t", in which her face was fully revealed without any makeup or distortion to conceal her identity. According to rraurl.com and MTV Brasil, "o" was directed by Viktor Kumlin, who is also the director of Lee's music video for "Something So Quiet". This proved to be false. As the seven videos with letter titles were slowly released, fans gathered that the videos were likely to spell the word "Bounty". Each of the seven videos begins with the corresponding sound of the animal, however, the animal sounds are not present in the released tracks. The conclusion of the live performance art event IN CONCERT of 2010 reveals that the onomatopoeia used to represent the animals' calls can be made to approximate the pronunciation of the English word "Bounty". On 7 February 2011, several registered songs on ISWC were discovered to be closely related to iamamiwhoami. For example, songs titled, "Up!/Higher", "The Sound of Letting Go/Love", and "Little Hope/Sing a Song of Fire" all pertain to lyrics in iamamiwhoami's songs, "b", "o", and "y", respectively. The works were registered by Lee and Claes Björklund. These songs were registered around the same time as several songs from Lee's This Is Jonna Lee 2009 album.
In October 2010, iamamiwhoami requested a volunteer from the audience to be presented to them with their full name through a message video; no instructions followed. Fans of the project set up voting polls and presented a volunteer from the YouTube community with the YouTube username of ShootUpTheStation. One month later, on 16 November 2010, a live online concert was streamed on To whom it may concern's website where ShootUpTheStation was led through the forests of iamamiwhoami by Lee and brought to be buried and burned inside a paper box. In Concert featured performances of both the preludes, Bounty and a new song titled "." and ran at one hour and four minutes.
In August 2011, iamamiwhoami played their first live show at the annual Way Out West Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden. After a long absence, they released the songs "; John" and "Clump" which was revealed to be an epilogue to Bounty. As a conclusion to Bounty, Bullett Media posted an interview article with iamamiwhoami for their Winter 2011 'Secrets' Issue. Questions were answered strictly with sampled lyrics from the current repertoire of songs, with some additional and unknown phrases purported to be lyrics for future musical releases. The article also included promotional images of iamamiwhoami, nude in the forest and posed among similar elements from "; John" and "T". The article is referenced to be written and photographed by iamamiwhoami. Following their performance at Way Out West, iamamiwhoami began recording and preparing their debut studio album.
Bounty was critically well received, with Kathy Iandoli of MTV describing Bounty as having "portrayed a flaxen, ethereal goddess twisting her way throughout nature, while other included distorted imagery that housed industrial, synthy soundscapes set on fire. The combination was mysterious, yet alluring, representing a combination of horror film imagery with new age sensibilities. The titles to the songs were equally vague,... numbers and clusters of words.... The videos never fell short of several hundred thousand views – and even much greater... people obviously took notice."
At the Swedish Grammis held in January 2011, iamamiwhoami won their first award in the category of "Innovator of the Year", which had been newly inaugurated. An anonymous woman, later confirmed to be Nina Fors, the mother of Emil Fors, a Swedish musician who worked as production manager for the videos, received the award on their behalf and handed to the speaker an envelope with the words "To whom it may concern." taped in front. The content is revealed to be an empty piece of white paper. Before leaving, the woman acknowledged by saying, "Thank you. That's all I can say". iamamiwhoami won an MTV O Music award in 2012 in the "Digital Genius" category.