Sachiko Kodama, Yasushi Miyajima
“Morpho Towers — Two Standing Spirals” (2006-2007)

“Morpho Towers–Two Standing Spirals” is an installation that consists of two ferrofluid sculptures that moves synthetically to music. The two spiral towers stand on a large plate that hold ferrofluid. When the music starts, the magnetic field around the tower is strengthened. Spikes of ferrofluid are born from the bottom plate and move up, trembling and rotating around the edge of the iron spiral… In this work, we are trying to activate analogue physical phenomena (= fluid) precisely by utilizing digital music metadata. To control the synchronization of the ferrofluid with the music playback in real time, time series metadata are added to the music beforehand. The metadata consist of musical information, such as beat position, chord progression, and melody block information, and ferrofluid control information such as DC bias voltage and AC pattern. Each data record has a time stamp that indicates the timing of presentation. All data are stored in time-series order.”