Please view the video in 4K to avoid YouTube’s compression artifacts (cog icon in bottom right).

This is one of two animated sequences I created for Ingredients for Disaster, a new documentary based on the work of the celebrated Swiss Jazz musician Nik Bärtsch. The film is now streaming on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, and Google Play. An alternative edit that spans 6 parts can be viewed on Bärtsch’s YouTube channel.

Working closely with founder of Harmonix Alex Rigopulos and his talented team, I was tasked with visually communicating the complex polyrhythmic structures within Bärtsch’s music. This was achieved by assigning the various instruments to organic bioluminescent digital organisms which would dance, pulsate and communicate in time to the varying time signatures demonstrating how they drift in and out of alignment. In this piece the organisms move back and forth in a rhythmic mating ritual that is tied to their respective beat durations and they pulse in time to the notes. At the point at which they realign on the 35th beat they come together to “kiss”.

A brief explanation of the polyrhythm structure:

• The instruments being visualised in this piece are the bass clarinet (orange) and the bass guitar (purple). 

• The bass clarinet is 2.5 beats long, or 5 eighth notes (because each eighth note is 0.5 of a beat). When it repeats twice it completes a full 5 beat cycle. 

• The bass guitar is 1.75 beats long, or 7 sixteenth notes (because each sixteenth note is 0.25 of a beat). When it repeats four times, it completes a full 7-beat cycle.

• Both patterns sync up after 35 beats.

The visuals were programmed from scratch in C++ using openFrameworks and GLSL. The application runs in realtime and a VR headset was used to position the in-app camera.

Director and Producer: Julian Phillips
Creative Director: Alex Rigopulos
Audiovisual Systems Engineering: Mike Mandel
Music Analysis and Transcription: Rick Cody & Simon Rigopulos