Then the first talking pictures were so awful. Those last silent films were the best silent films that had ever been made. At first, it was so overwhelming вЂ“ and cinema had been perfected. Obviously, is a lot more complicated and expensive, like the introduction of cinema and the introduction of sound into cinema. So from a musician's perspective, this is a great thing, because it lets them create a complete experience around their music rather than sending sound into your headphones.

Most musicians aren't purely musicians вЂ“ they're performers interested in the complete audiovisual delivery of their music, and that includes costumes, performance, videos and a lot of other things. She also brought on a couple other fantastic people like Max Whitby, Luc Barthelet, Drew Berry, who won a MacArthur Award for biological animation, and Max Weisel, who's a really young guy, just a hotshot wiz at apps. We started talking on Skype, then in person in Paris, London, Iceland and New York.

Snibbe: If you look at Gravilux and Bubble Harp, they both use math to create or re-create an alternate form of nature. I share her believe that math was invented to model nature, and that it wasn't invented as a sort of abstract game. That's her big message: this unification of music, nature and technology. If you listen to her music, it's almost all electronic вЂ“ except for MedГєlla and some early things вЂ“ but she uses electronic music in the service of this emotional, nature-oriented message. Her whole vision of her career is the unification of technology and nature. My understanding is that she took a look at some of the apps that came out right when the iPad came out and identified a couple of developers that were in line with her vision. You can imagine a person like BjГ¶rk getting an iPad in the first few days. So I released these apps into the app store вЂ“ Gravilux, Bubble Harp and so on вЂ“ and obviously, a lot of people who first got iPads are curious about technology. Scott Snibbe: I've been doing interactive music in research labs and worked with people like Brian Eno and Laurie Anderson, but none of that stuff ever saw the light of day, for, like 15 years. To make her vision a reality, the oft-described 'genius' tapped Scott Snibbe (whose OscilliScoop iPhone app recently won a ZKM App Art Award) to help her build what he claims is the world's first app album, and we agree. After testing the two song apps that are available so far, we're impressed by their depth, design, and playability вЂ“ oh, and the music's pretty decent too. Her latest release вЂ“ Biophilia, an album app that delivers individual song apps periodically, replete with their own games, visualizations, essays and even music-theory-teaching interactions вЂ“ tests the boundaries of what is possible technically and artistically with the iPad and iPhone. But the singer has another, less noticeable side: the ability to assemble a top-notch team to accomplish her latest vision in the studio, onstage and now in the iTunes app store. You might think of BjГ¶rk as a quirky, charismatic singer known for her otherworldly pipes, innovative songwriting, or perhaps the notorious swan dress she wore at the Academy Awards 10 years ago.

Bubble harp app