02/05/2019
We are happy to present: Flowers of the Sky
Commissioned in 2019 by conductor and musician Krijn Koetsveld, Flowers of the Sky draws parallels between data visualisation and music, showing how rigid mathematical systems can produce organic and emotive forms. Flowers of the Sky is a printed visualisation of the history and parameters of comets on a harpsichord.
Having commisioned the building of a harpsichord according to an original seventeenth century design, Koetsveld sought out Superposition to design the visual imagery applied on the harpsichord. We mirrored Le Nuove Musiche's ambition to produce encounters between past and present by setting out to draw parallels between Monteverdi's and Koetsveld's lives. Though Koetsveld was born roughly four centuries after Monteverdi, the two lives are connected by cycles of nature.
Monteverdi lived during the late Renaissance. In our search for connecting cycles we discovered that during this period the commonly held belief was that comets were signs of the gods. It was not until the start of the seventeenth century that scientists started using the very first telescopes to prove comets were not in fact signs of coming disaster. Where comets used to be referred to as Flowers of the Sky, it slowly became clear these flowers were actually relatively small solar system bodies.
Today, this once feared phenomenon is studied by space agencies such as NASA using high tech sensors and optics, resulting in immense amounts of highly accurate data describing these comets. This data is now publicly accessible. Using this data, we designed, programmed and produced four unique data visualizations that draw parallels between both lifespans. Each visualization uncovers information about comets that both Claudio Monteverdi and Krijn Koetsveld might have seen from Earth during their respective lives. Together, the visualizations form an alternative timeline that connects the two musicians.
