Max Cooper is an electronic composer, multidisciplinary artist, music label founder and former scientist who has carved out a unique space in music and visual art.
He holds a PhD in computational biology while also being the first contemporary electronic musician to perform at the ancient Acropolis theatre in Athens and one of the first wave of artists to produce in Dolby Atmos.
Cooper has spent over 15 years exploring the intersections between the arts and sciences through music, collaborations, and his label Mesh, alongside installations, performances, immersive experiences, online media, music videos and live events. Anchored throughout is his emotive approach, connecting how ideas and forms feel in a way that is accessible to all.
“I’ve always had a strong emotive bond with aesthetics, and found at an early age that the purified forms of electronic music carried a lot of weight for me, as did the reductive natural aesthetics of the sciences. That felt connection to both opened up a world I’ve been lost in ever since.”
Pivoting from computational biology to electronic music might not seem like the most natural career transition, but for Cooper the commonalities are clear:
“In both fields, you’re in a sense free. Free from the limits of living systems, free from the limits of corporeal sound. The only constraints are in your mind.”
Max Cooper has collaborated with Zaha Hadid Architects, Dolby, L-Acoustics, 4DSOUND, Barbican Centre, W1 Curates, The Babraham Institute, and has exhibited work at institutions including the Centre Pompidou Metz, ZKM Karlsruhe, Museum Wave Seoul and the Science Museum London.
