composing the lines - architecture gernerator, 2002

Composing the lines is an interactive installation looking into the inspirational relationship between architecture and music.
Following the twelve tone principle in music, visitors are free to compose sequences of notes out of architectural elements. These sequences generate spatial structures that are projected to reveal the relationship between Libeskind’s architectural designs and Arnold Schöneberg’s opera "Moses and Aaron".


Interacting with a touchscreen, visitors can compose a twelve tone row with a visual alphabet Libeskind designed for his jewish museum architecture. They will then hear the tone row that they have composed and see at the same time on the projection table the automated variations developed according to the rules governing twelve-tone music (retrograde, inversion and retrograde inversion).

When all 12 tones have been set the visitors can activate the playing of their tone-row with its variations. A digital interpretation into a musical and architectural structure is performed on a second projected screen.



The project was commissioned by the Jewish Museum Berlin and realised by Co-author Ralph Ammer with the friends and colleagues at art+com with additional help from Studio Libeskind.