Max Weisel

Max was born in Tucson, Arizona on November 12, 1991. After graduating high school, Max attended college in Tucson for a semester before dropping out to establish and run his own tech company.^[5] In 2011, Max moved to San Francisco.^[6] Following the acquisition of RelativeWave by Google, Weisel departed from San Francisco and relocated to New York City. Presently, he resides in New York City, serving as the founder and CEO of Normal.^[7]

In 2008, following the debut of the original iPhone, Max Weisel began tracking the developments within the early iOS jailbreaking community. He became actively involved in creating some of the initial iPhone applications not developed by Apple.^[6] Among his notable creations during this period was MxTube, an application exclusively available on jailbroken iPhones via Installer.app. MxTube allowed users to download videos from YouTube for offline viewing, regardless of their connectivity to Wi-Fi or cellular data networks.^[8]

Subsequently, with the introduction of the App Store (iOS), Weisel ported MxTube to Apple's official software development platform, and released the application on the App Store as MiTube, where it quickly became one of the most popular apps at the time, rising to be the seventh most downloaded app on the day of its launch.^[9] Apple removed the app from the store shortly at the request of YouTube's parent company, Google.^[10]

During his time in high school, Max Weisel developed Soundrop, a recreation of JT Nimoy's Ball Droppings, tailored for iPhone and iPad devices.^[11] The user creates sounds by drawing lines, which then interact with falling dots.^[12]

From July 24 through November 7, 2011, Soundrop was on display as part of the Museum of Modern Art's Talk to Me exhibition.^[13] JT Nimoy, the developer of the original app, expressed appreciation for Weisel's adaptation, noting the addition of new concepts in Soundrop.^[14]

The app caught the attention of many in the app development community as well as prominent musicians such as Björk, who contacted Max to collaborate on an upcoming project after seeing Soundrop, stating in an interview with Pitchfork that “Soundrop by Max Weisel was the best [app] because it really is a musical instrument. It wasn’t just superficial.”^[15]

In 2010, He began work on multiple projects for Björk: three "song apps" to be included as part of the release of Björk's official "app album", Biophilia. The album is a first of its kind crossover between mobile applications and mainstream musical releases.^[16] The album and associated apps were released in 2011.^[17] Max also designed and programmed a new musical interface taking advantage of four iPads networked together to create a large touchscreen surface for playing multiple instruments and controlling stage elements for the Biophilia tour show, including a large Tesla coil used as a melodic instrument.^[18] Max's debut performance with Björk was broadcast on The Colbert Report in February 2012.^[19] The iPad interface was integrated into the Biophilia tour, with Max performing alongside Björk, where he played as part of the band in her tour appearances from 2012 - 2013.^[20] In addition to his work performing on the tour and designing interactive systems for the performances, Max also served as the musical director.^[19]

As part of a development team commissioned by Björk, Max helped to create the Biophilia app, a fully interactive "mother" application which served as the central hub for the individual song apps created by each of the developers commissioned by Björk.^[21] Max developed three song apps for the project, Moon, Dark Matter, and Solstice.^[22]

For the Moon song app, Björk led Max to create an app that "connects musical structure, human biorhythms, and cycles of the moon and tides…" The app allows users to play a sequencer-like instrument by playing with 'pearls' that react to the tide of water in the app.^[23] The user creates patterns in the water, which changes height based on the tide, creating liquid patterns represented both visually and by the music generated in the app.^[24]

The song app for Dark Matter focuses on musical scales, exploring their "relationships in term[s] of magnetism." By taking advantage of various musical modes and scales from different cultures, the user in Dark Matter can create "different colours" by shifting between each scale.^[25]

Represented by 'planets' orbiting a star, with each planet rendered as colored lines, the user controls strings and vocals within the musical arrangement by changing their orbits, speeds and coordinates as they revolve around the central point.^[26] The user can then save their "remix" of the track, creating their own unique version of the Solstice song. A special winter-themed version of the Solstice app was developed by Max and released separately from Biophilia by Björk in December 2011. The winter app was launched with a reimagined design, trading its solar system interface for a Christmas tree.^[27]

Following the success of the Biophilia tour and app releases, the Museum of Modern Art inducted the Biophilia app and corresponding song apps into the permanent collection, making Biophilia the first app entered into the permanent collection.^[28] The app's induction was followed by a retrospective installation on Björk, focusing prominently on the recent interactive and app-based album and instruments used on stage in the tour by Max and others.^[28]