Morphogen – The Crystallisation of Acoustics

“Morphogen” deals with the idea of translating musical content into visual representations and thus explores how morphing can help develop new formal approaches. Derived from the 18 parts of the musical piece “Music for 18 Musicians” by Steve Reich, different approaches were developed and visualised as a series of sketches that document the complex interrelations in abstract geometric drawings, patterns and graphics, all compiled into a specifically designed book and website. The experiment of analysing the fractal character of the musical piece by correlating it to the structure of a crystal led to the development of a system for displaying individual bars of the notation in space and object, as well as to a two-dimensional grid for designing new applications. The sophisticatedly visualised details of this work thus translate the acoustic dimension of the composition and extend it with visual coding, an approach that ultimately blurs the boundaries between science and design. Statement by the jury »“Morphogen” incorporates a highly interesting approach of translating music into a graphical system that thus allows the composition by Steve Reich to be experienced as a visual representation. The complex solutions projected by the work manifest themselves in systems and formations that possess outstanding expressivity with regard to the various design possibilities of the respective media used.«