Perpetual Motion by Max Cooper

07/09/2019. [MUSIC-VIDEO] Official Video by Nick Cobby
metalocus, ÁNGEL VALDEZ

Max Cooper's idea for Perpetual Motion was to document the continuous movement of people. The whole project was a commission from the Barbican centre in London. Their brief was around emerging new technologies and how they're changing society, so "I tried to boil the whole process down to its fundamentals which I could visualise and write music for - which spawned, "yearning for the infinite"".

Some ideas for visualising the infinite were combined with abstract visualisations of stories, in our endless activity as part of the systems in which we exist. An human story and the abstractions (transcendental digits from Martin Krzywinski, aperiodic tiling from Jessica In and dividing surfaces from Andy Lomas) merging.

Perpetual Motion by Max Cooper. Official Video by Nick Cobby

Perpetual Motion by Max Cooper. Official Video by Nick Cobby

When they discussed the idea of the film, Max Cooper and Nick Cobby felt Mexico City was the perfect place to use as a canvas. A sprawling metropolis of 9 million people, all packed in tight and some really interesting land forms and architecture.

"Nick Cobby had time in Mexico city which seemed an amazing opportunity to capture this dense human activity, and once again he's created another of his tightly synced and detailed masterpieces, many thanks Nick!"

Max Cooper

Nick Cobby then got the idea of using drones when scouting for locations on Google Earth. There were some amazing geometric forms that when viewed from above give an entirely different perspective of the city.

Nick Cobby collaborated with 3 very talented Mexican photographers who shot some incredible footage for me, Manuel Marañón, Roberto H and Santiago Arau.

For the animation side, Nick Cobby collaborated with Andy Lomas and Jessica In, integrating their forms frame by frame into the drone footage with my own point data, aiming to create unexpected transitions and connections between reality, hyper realism and the hidden systems beneath.

It recommend watching on a big screen where possible.

Music & Concept.- Max Cooper
Directed.- Nick Cobby
Drone Photographers.- Manuel Marañón, Roberto H, Santiago Arau
Animators.- Nick Cobby, Andy Lomas