EMERGENCE is an epic, immersive audio-visual experience, the debut film directed and scored by Max Cooper.

The story explores the evolution of the universe, the creation of unexpected and often beautiful results from simple natural systems, and how complexity, like humans, can emerge from the immaterial through the action of simple laws embedded in the foundations of reality.

The project was originally released in 2016 as a soundtrack to Max’s live show narrative exploring the concept of emergence. Over time, chapters of the story have been published online and featured in Cooper’s live shows.

With sound remastered in surround sound by Cooper and the engineers at Dolby Atmos, the project is finally available as a monumental 90-minute animated film.

The work is a fusion of cosmic awe and wonder, a meditation on the mystery of our emotional connection to fundamental natural forms. In the approach to Koyaanisqatsi and Samsara, but based on images from science and not from classical cinematography.

Few artists are as qualified as Max to approach an idea as profound as its creation through electronic music and video. Max received a PhD in computational biology in 2008 with research on the evolution of gene regulatory networks and was a geneticist at UCL before moving into music. He collaborated with artists Andy Lomas, Nick Cobby, and Henning M. Lederer, as well as mathematician Dugan Hammock, to this end.

Each chapter of the Emergence narrative focuses on the beauty of natural laws and processes, using a mix of real data visualization and animated film. It interprets the deep structures and principles from which the known physical universe arises, such as symmetries, the distribution of primes, waves, spatial dimensionality, and the action of physical forces on matter. Later chapters deal with the emergence of biological forms, with thought, and finally with a darker turn to the structures and systems of human civilization.

Max has combined his skills as a producer and his extensive interest in science to create a unique experience exploring the sonic frontiers of home theater.