The first items from ‘SYMPHONYINACID’ went on sale on Tuesday 31 May via Mesh Lab on the objkt.com marketplace on Tezos, known as the energy efficient blockchain. The ‘genesis’ piece – a full length AV artwork and downloadable music video – hit pole position for the week’s Top Sales with Mesh Lab also reaching No 1 in Top Sellers.
‘SYMPHONYINACID’ digital art collection is part of Max Cooper’s ‘Symphony In Acid’ collab with multi-media artist Ksawery Komputery, which comprises a music video, interactive website, public art project, NFT collection and content for Cooper’s acclaimed live show.
Ksawery Komputery is an award-winning graphic designer, animator and programmer based in Gdańsk, Poland. His latest installation will be part of the new exhibition at Nxt in Amsterdam, UFO – Unidentified Fluid Other, which opens later in June.
The collection includes:
- the full video ‘Symphony In Acid’ as a 1 of 1 edition, which will come with a high quality download of the full video.
- 56 unique single edition audio-visual pieces
- 199 unique single edition still images.
All current holders of EVERYTHING or VRYTHNG NFTs, from the previous Unspoken Words digital art drop, will be airdropped a free NFT.
They’re also giving 5 NFTs to members of the Mesh Discord community.
The audio-visual pieces and images were generated by Ksawery and are timestamped with the frame number of their corresponding section in the original music video.
The ‘Symphony in Acid’ project comes from Cooper’s album ‘Unspoken Words’ where he was trying to create audio-visual pieces about, and containing, communication outside of language.
“I turned to the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein, who tackled this issue of the problems with words and their inability to capture every aspect of our lives,” said Cooper of his influence. Wittgenstein’s writing tackles the issues of human expression and the links between our symbolism and existence, but also does so in an incomprehensibly dense way, which for me lent itself to presentation as art rather than a technical reading challenge.
“Ksawery did an amazing and painstaking job mapping every sound of the 303 and orchestrally inspired audio track (the acid symphony) to text, using only audio reactive HTML and Wittgenstein’s writing to create an emergent barrage of ideas.” – Max Cooper
Readers can also experience the project as an interactive website, www.symphonyinacid.net, seeing your own face in the words, and also submit your own words to be part of the ‘Selfie’ section.
Cooper’s said of the team’s intentions, “We started Mesh Lab to delve into new forms of digital art, part of which involves NFT collections, but also AR projects, installations and new collaborations stemming from the Mesh Discord server.”
The final thing to note is that Max and Ksawery added a couple of words at the start of the ‘Symphony In Acid’ video to refute Wittgenstein’s statement that „The limits of my language mean the limits of my world“. Max’s work is an example in case that “The limits of my language do not mean the limits of my world” – as experienced throughout the wider ‘Unspoken Words’ album project.
In other news this week, Max Cooper also released the latest video in the major audio-visual project ‘Unspoken Words’ – ‘Solace In Structure’ a collab with Italian artist Donato Sansone.
Cooper said, “I find that abstract structures can be a beautiful place to escape to. That’s why I put a lot of binaural elements in my stereo mixes, and pursue Atmos and full spatial mixes whenever I can. I want to create a surreal space that surrounds you as the listener, and takes you away from everyday experience.”
‘Solace In Structure’ is the latest visual project from Cooper’s album ‘Unspoken Words’ where he was trying to express feelings and ideas outside of language. This chapter uses many layers of sounds, constrained to a precise rhythmic grid. Cooper said of the track, “It was designed for escapism amongst dense rigid complexity. It may not be for everyone, but I had a lot of fun making it.”
Max talked with Donato about the idea and in collaboration with Marco Holland and Silvia Gariglio, they embarked on a painstaking hand drawn mapping of geometric structures to the elements of the music.
“I love how the visual interpretation plays on the rigidity and precision of the musical approach, as well as the humanised notation and thought surrounding the structures. For me, it’s a perfect interpretation of the music in the visual realm,” Cooper said of the outcome.
About Unspoken Words
“I’ve always struggled with words. Trying to communicate anything meaningful about my internal state, in any way which seems to do it justice, has always been beyond me. But music bypasses language. It is my means of expression, which is why I make a lot of it – I’m compelled to create.” – Max Cooper, 2022
Unspoken Words is Max Cooper’s most revealing work to date, leading the listener through experiences of escapism and connection with personal stories of reflection, acceptance, grappling, idealism and rejection.
The raw expression of Cooper’s own mental state illuminates the universal experience of being human. Unspoken Words offers common ground, a unifying space for anyone who faces internal discordance and feels the need for greater connection and greater expression.
Speaking about the process of writing Unspoken Words, Max continues: “I find existing inside my mind to be a sometimes beautiful, sometimes intense, sometimes abrasive, messy, baffling, relentless experience, and I’ve tried to put as much of that feeling and form as I could into the album.”
The deftly mixed audio is accompanied by a visual story which unfolds through 13 short films by a range of visual artists commissioned and directed by Max Cooper, and mixed in Dolby Atmos surround sound.
Album artwork designed by Zach Lieberman and Colin Droz. Further information around the album and the forthcoming augmented reality exhibition will be found at the companion website www.unspokenwords.net
About Max Cooper
Max Cooper has carved a unique space as an audio-visual artist with a science PhD and an international reputation as a leading electronic musician.
His work carries an emotional resonance and sensory immersion, often focusing on humanity’s place in the world. He merges electronic music and visual art with scientific enquiry through installations, live performance, immersive audio-visual experiences, a range of digital media and award-winning music videos.
Unspoken Words is Cooper’s 6th studio album and the latest in an impressive back catalogue that dates back to 2007, when he juggled studying Computational Biology with being resident DJ at a local techno club.
He recently supplied the music for a powerful video narrated by Greta Thunberg and Pope Francis and played at COP26, urging world leaders to consider climate and environment in Covid recovery plans. Last year, he became the first techno artist to play at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece.
Other work includes commissions from The Barbican, France TV, AND& festival, Waltham Forest Borough Council, and collaborations with Zaha Hadid Architects, The Babraham Institute, and L-Acoustics alongside musical reworks of contemporary classical musicians including Philip Glass, Nils Frahm, Terry Reilly and Michael Nyman and pop artists Hot Chip and Moby.
His label, Mesh, is keenly placed to explore the intersection of music, art and science through interdisciplinary creative collaborations that blur lines between art, mathematics, film, choreography, sciences, architecture, psychology and spirituality.
