Max Cooper's Ascent — Making of the Music video
Enter the 5th dimension
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We know you're Yearning for the Infinite, but do you yearn for dimensions too?
Welcome to Ascent from Max Cooper's latest album Unspoken Words.
So, go ahead — ascend to higher dimensions. You may forget to come back.
An early version of the Ascent video premiered at Max's Live at the Acropolis show.
The video expands on visual elements first presented at the And& festival in Leuven.
The “Ascent” digital art collection by Max Cooper and Martin Krzywinski comprises vast images of transcendence in 75 million pixels on billboards in NYC, LA, Miami, London, Berlin and Leuven.
The collection is the latest of the NFT collections curated by Mesh Lab.
They look superb in print.
buy artwork
The video builds on work I did with Max for Transcendence from the Yearning for the Infinite, which itself was based on my 2015 Pi Day art.
In 5 minutes and 55 seconds (8,520 frames), the video takes you from zero to 5 dimensions and back again.
To help you interpret what you are seeing, I walk you through the video. I also present the animation system I built for the video, which was coded from scratch.
The entire animation is built up from about 170 keyframes. Each keyframe defines (a) which objects are shown (b) the dimensionality, size and rotation of each object and (c) the zoom and rotation of the camera itself.
The walkthrough will take you through some of the important keyframes in the video — where new elements are introduced or interesting things happen.
c c0 s [w] 0.815
c c0 s [xyz] 0.15
The keyframe definitions are shown in yellow boxes under the frame — these are commands that the animation system parses as it builds the scene over time. The grey boxes show position and zoom of the camera and the actual angles and sizes of objects.
Right now, all this looks confusing — not to worry, it will all be explained in the walkthrough!
If you like math to a heavy beat and a lot of screen flashing, check out Aleph, our 6 minute video on the story of transfinite numbers.
The video is unique in that it demonstrates Cantor's diagnoal argument to proove that rationals are countable and that reals are not countable.
Mesh was founded in 2016 to explore the intersection of music, science and art. With a growing global audience and engaged community of practitioners and activists, the platform has conceived work by leading creatives in the fields of music, digital art, film, installation, code, architecture, developing collaborations and commissions with business, arts and science institutions.
Typically, Mesh projects begin with a scientific stimulus which leads to a creative expression, incorporating a variety of digital media including AR, AI, VR, NFT, spatial audio as well as physical structures and live experiences. Collaborators and commissioners include The Babraham Institute, Zaha Hadid Architects, Dolby, L-Acoustics and PepsiCo, and have been exhibited and performances at Barbican Arts Centre, Odeon of Herodes Atticus at the Acropolis and will host an interactive art installation during Art Basel in Miami from 1—2 December.
Nature Biotechnology cover
My cover design on the 7 April 2026 Nature Biotechnology issue shows the dendrogram that represents a cluster of uniquely expressed (or downregulated) genes in human naive stem cells induced from such cells. Within each dendrogram block, the genomic barcode sequence (sampled from Supplementary Table 1) is depicted with a Code 39 barcode. The highlighted barcode is one of those used for cell isolation.
Ishiguro S. et al. A multi-kingdom genetic barcoding system for precise clone isolation (2026) Nature Biotechnology 44:616–629.
Browse my gallery of cover designs.
Happy 2026 π Day—
Art for the 5%
Celebrate π Day (March 14th) and enjoy the art — but only if you're part of the 5%.
Go ahead, see what you can't see.
Ishihara's Tests for Colour Deficiency
Authentic and accurate images of Ishihara's test plates photographed (and lovingly color-corrected) from the 38-plate Ishihara's Tests for Colour Deficiency.
I also provide the position, size, and color of each circle on each test plate.
Symmetric alternatives to the ordinary least squares regression
What immortal hand or eye, could frame thy fearful symmetry? — William Blake, "The Tyger"
This month, we look at symmetric regression, which, unlike simple linear regression, it is reversible — remaining unaltered when the variables are swapped.
Simple linear regression can summarize the linear relationship between two variables `X` and `Y` — for example, when `Y` is considered the response (dependent) and `X` the predictor (independent) variable.
However, there are times when we are not interested (or able) to distinguish between dependent and independent variables — either because they have the same importance or the same role. This is where symmetric regression can help.
Luca Greco, George Luta, Martin Krzywinski & Naomi Altman (2025) Points of significance: Symmetric alternatives to the ordinary least squares regression. Nat. Methods 22:1610–1612.
Beyond Belief Campaign BRCA Art
Fuelled by philanthropy, findings into the workings of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes have led to groundbreaking research and lifesaving innovations to care for families facing cancer.
This set of 100 one-of-a-kind prints explore the structure of these genes. Each artwork is unique — if you put them all together, you get the full sequence of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 proteins.
Propensity score weighting
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. —Mr. Spock (Star Trek II)
This month, we explore a related and powerful technique to address bias: propensity score weighting (PSW), which applies weights to each subject instead of matching (or discarding) them.
Kurz, C.F., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2025) Points of significance: Propensity score weighting. Nat. Methods 22:638–640.