Max Cooper^UK

Image Credit: Ella Mitchell

Max Cooper is an electronic composer, multi-disciplinary artist, label founder and former scientist who has carved out a singular space between music and visual art. He holds a PhD in computational biology, was the first contemporary electronic musician to perform at the ancient Acropolis theatre in Athens, and was among the first wave of artists to produce in Dolby Atmos. For over 15 years, through his music, collaborations and label Mesh, Cooper has explored the intersection of art and science across installations, immersive experiences, music videos and live events. Anchoring it all is his emotive approach: connecting how ideas and forms feel, in a way that is accessible to everyone.

"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."

The pivot from computational biology to electronic music might seem unlikely, but for Cooper the connection is obvious: "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."

Cooper has collaborated with Zaha Hadid Architects, Dolby, L-Acoustics, 4DSOUND, the Barbican Centre, W1 Curates and The Babraham Institute, and has exhibited at museums including the Pompidou Metz, ZKM Karlsruhe, Museum Wave Seoul and The Science Museum London.

Max Cooper — Feeling Is Structure

Feeling Is Structure is an exploration of the hidden dialogue between physical form and human emotion. Across ten spatial audio-visual works, Max Cooper investigates how structure in sound, architecture, biology and art quietly shapes the way we feel. At its core, the album rests on a single conviction: that our inner emotional lives are inseparable from the environments we inhabit.

Conceived alongside his live show, the project grew from Cooper's fascination with form as a vessel for feeling: "I'm fascinated by architects who can imbue brutalist buildings with humanity, or artists who can paint a block of colour representing their soul. We have this remarkable capacity to spill ourselves into the world through form. When I began working on this show, that connection between large-scale physical structures and feeling took over, and this album emerged from that process."

Musically, Feeling Is Structure draws on the most intricate and deliberate side of Cooper's craft. Eschewing improvisation, the record is built from carefully designed systems and generative processes: evolving sonic architectures that are precise at the micro level, yet profoundly emotive in their impact. The result is music that mirrors its own thesis, treating structure not as constraint but as the very shape of feeling.