Bjork's Biophilia becomes first app in New York's Museum of Modern Art

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jun/12/bjork-biophilia-first-app-museum-of-modern-art-new-york

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Biophilia, a work by Icelandic recording artist Bjork that was the first-ever album app upon its release in 2011, has been inducted into the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It's the first time an app has been included in the collection.

"I started thinking about acquiring Biophilia when it was released, in 2011," said Paola Antonelli, senior curator of the department of architecture and design, in a written statement. "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, Bjork truly innovated the way people experience music by letting them participate in performing and making the music and visuals, rather than just listening passively."

In the app, Biophilia's songs were turned into a series of discrete mini games, which allowed the listener to interact with the songs – sometimes purely playfully, in other cases being able to rework the material. Bjork commissioned a series of developers who made her then favourite apps, bringing them together in Iceland to collaborate. "I think when you listen to music on headphones and you close your eyes, it's very internal," she told Drowned in Sound. "I wanted it to be that you could see the sounds, you know?"

It joins a host of more tangible objects in the museum's design collection. It was the world's first when it was founded in 1932, and includes everything from iPods to kitchen utensils.

The Biophilia project has since blossomed into a wider mission: the Biophilia Educational Programme, an interactive learning programme drawing together music and science, which has recently been incorporated into Nordic curricula.

Bjork also cropped up recently on a new free album from noise-rap duo Death Grips, Niggas on the Moon – she wrote "I adore the death grips and I am thrilled to be their 'found object'."