iPad art by singer Bjork becomes first-ever app in MoMA's permanent collection
While Apple fans consider the iPad hardware itself to be a work of art, it's an app that was designed for the iPad in part by Icelandic singer Bj?rk that has earned the distinction of becoming the first application of its kind accepted into the permanent collection at New York's Museum of Modern Art.
First released in 2011, the collaborative $12.99 iPad app Bj?rk: Biophilia is part album, part interactive multimedia presentation. As users listen to tracks from the artist, they can also experience them in new ways through visualization and input allowed by Apple's iPad.
But the software goes even further than that, and allows people who play the album to contribute to songs. Each song is given its own "mini-app" where different interactive themes allow users to play musical instruments. For example, in the track "Solstice," users can contribute to the song by controlling the orbits, speed and coordinates of planets orbiting a star.
"Each in-app experience is inspired by and explores the relationships between musical structures and natural phenomena, from the atomic to the cosmic," the app's description reads "You can use Biophilia to make and learn about music, to find out about natural phenomena, or to just enjoy Bj?rk's music."
In the three years since it's become available, the "Biophilia" app has gained recognition, and as of this week it holds the distinction of being the first downloadable app to become a part of MoMA's permanent collection. The admission was announced this week, and spotlighted on Friday by TUAW.
In a post announcing the inclusion of "Biophilia," MoMA Department of Architecture and Design Senior Curator Paola Antonelli noted that while the museum has acquired digital artifacts in the past, the collaborative creation by Bj?rk is the first of its kind at MoMA. Other digital works of modern art at the museum include video games, videos, fonts, and even code.
"I started thinking about acquiring Biophilia when it was released, in 2011," Antonelli wrote. "At that time, a year after the iPad had been introduced, designers and developers were excitedly experimenting with apps that took advantage of a screen bigger than the iPhone. With Biophilia however, Bj?rk truly innovated the way people experience music by letting them participate in performing and making the music and visuals, rather than just listening passively."
Of course, for those who can't make it to the world-renowned Museum of Modern Art in Midtown Manhattan, Bj?rk: Biophilia can be experienced on an iPad from wherever, thanks to its continued availability Apple's App Store.
First released in 2011, the collaborative $12.99 iPad app Bj?rk: Biophilia is part album, part interactive multimedia presentation. As users listen to tracks from the artist, they can also experience them in new ways through visualization and input allowed by Apple's iPad.
But the software goes even further than that, and allows people who play the album to contribute to songs. Each song is given its own "mini-app" where different interactive themes allow users to play musical instruments. For example, in the track "Solstice," users can contribute to the song by controlling the orbits, speed and coordinates of planets orbiting a star.
"Each in-app experience is inspired by and explores the relationships between musical structures and natural phenomena, from the atomic to the cosmic," the app's description reads "You can use Biophilia to make and learn about music, to find out about natural phenomena, or to just enjoy Bj?rk's music."
In the three years since it's become available, the "Biophilia" app has gained recognition, and as of this week it holds the distinction of being the first downloadable app to become a part of MoMA's permanent collection. The admission was announced this week, and spotlighted on Friday by TUAW.
In a post announcing the inclusion of "Biophilia," MoMA Department of Architecture and Design Senior Curator Paola Antonelli noted that while the museum has acquired digital artifacts in the past, the collaborative creation by Bj?rk is the first of its kind at MoMA. Other digital works of modern art at the museum include video games, videos, fonts, and even code.
"I started thinking about acquiring Biophilia when it was released, in 2011," Antonelli wrote. "At that time, a year after the iPad had been introduced, designers and developers were excitedly experimenting with apps that took advantage of a screen bigger than the iPhone. With Biophilia however, Bj?rk truly innovated the way people experience music by letting them participate in performing and making the music and visuals, rather than just listening passively."
Of course, for those who can't make it to the world-renowned Museum of Modern Art in Midtown Manhattan, Bj?rk: Biophilia can be experienced on an iPad from wherever, thanks to its continued availability Apple's App Store.
Comments
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Good fit there: MoMA is about as overrated as Björk.
Where in this case being part of the "permanent collection" means being a serious pain in the butt for the person responsible for persistance and probably being 100% inaccessible within 10 years.
Where in this case being part of the "permanent collection" means being a serious pain in the butt for the person responsible for persistance and probably being 100% inaccessible within 10 years.
I dunno. iPad has been around for 4 years. I think it's entirely likely given its broad success that 10 years from now is less than the sum of the time between now and when the last iPad will be available which will run the last-ever version of the app and the time between then and when said iPad unit ceases functioning. I'd suspect that "serious pain" will involve upgrading their iPad unit (assuming it'll be stored on a device rather than just the app file on some other media) a small number of times over the next decade.
Good fit there: MoMA is about as overrated as Björk.
Examples of what you consider fine art and great music?
At $12.99, probably one of their cheaper acquisitions this year.
Where in this case being part of the "permanent collection" means being a serious pain in the butt for the person responsible for persistance and probably being 100% inaccessible within 10 years.
I dunno. iPad has been around for 4 years. I think it's entirely likely given its broad success that 10 years from now is less than the sum of the time between now and when the last iPad will be available which will run the last-ever version of the app and the time between then and when said iPad unit ceases functioning. I'd suspect that "serious pain" will involve upgrading their iPad unit (assuming it'll be stored on a device rather than just the app file on some other media) a small number of times over the next decade.
When will the last iPad be made? There's a question! Twenty years' time? Fifty? Ten?
/soapbox
Good fit there: MoMA is about as overrated as Björk.
Examples of what you consider fine art and great music?
Yes, do tell us about some "properly" rated as great modern art....
Quote:
How exciting! Björk is such an incredibly talented, visionary artist. Unfortunately, most people don't "get" her, or get too caught up with her "weirdness," or focus too much on her one commercial single, and don't see what an amazing musician & visual performer she really is.
/soapbox
I've always found Björk a fascinating figure - her unique music/Icelandic roots, distinctive videos, her iconoclastic ways (art as life/life as art), the other unexpected arenas she pops up in noticeable ways... ...and it's not that she's someone I listen to/watch over and over, or that I even like all her work, but give her big props for creativity, originality and breaking new ground... ...and here's another (way interesting and unique) first she's achieved...
...so good on 'er....
And good on Apple (with the main cred to Steve Jobs) for having always fostered that intersection between tech and liberal arts that Suddenly Newton posted the image of, and creating the device and built the ecosystem that makes real, groundbreaking new art possible.
An artist friend of mine just got her first iPad (a Mini) and is finding her work totally revitalized and is finally moving to direct-to-web digitally made art as a new medium that gives her a whole new audience and medium.
It's not all about the specs and details of the tech. Like the commercials say, "What's your verse...??"
This is the "real news" of the digital revolution: not its internal engineering, but its impact on human society. Not only gaming, content consumption, productivity, medicine, industrial/business uses, snapshooting, etc., but also the totally new and novel that tickles our sense of wonder.
Good fit there: MoMA is about as overrated as Björk.
You love an artist because she is hot?
Oh, I did not mean to offend. Just expressing an opinion.
I prefer musicians and bands that actually had great artistry in both their vocals and their compositional skills (not to mention instrumentation), such as (in no particular order) Zappa, Zeppelin, Traffic, Clapton, Joplin, Hendrix, Stevens, Dylan, Mitchell, Tull, Taylor, King, Maal, Toure, CSN, Young, Reeves, Keita, Lema, Simone, Cohen, West..... I could go on.
I think you were responding to brlawyer?
On that list, I could only agree with Zappa.
Bob Dylan had a major impact on music, but I find him repetitively annoying.
Zep is good if you're wasted, kinda like SNL. Otherwise, often imitated (back before hip hop killed rock 'n roll), never equalled, but kinda pretentious.
i like techno and bluegrass, go figure.
Your opinion and mileage may vary. As I recall, SJ idolized Dylan.