“Morpho Towers - Two Standing Spirals” is an installation by Sachiko Kodama that consists of two ferrofluid sculptures that move synthetically to music. The iron bodies of the electromagnetic spiral towers have an helical design so that spikes of ferrofluid move up, trembling and rotating around the edge of the spirals when the magnetic field is strong enough.

Depending on DC bias voltage and AC pattern corresponding to the music metadata such as beat position, chord progression, and melody block information, the tower’s surface dynamically morphs into a variety of textures ranging from smooth, black fluid to spikes spreading like fractals, defying gravity.

Again what I love in this sort of installation is that the piece is not an end in itself. It is not just art, or self-centered. Beyond the sheer aesthetics and physical abstraction of the constantly evolving shapes, it is just full of possibilities. We are surrounded by digital data and yet it is still pretty rare to see it actually transformed into any kind of analogue physical phenomena beside sound or light - something palpable. I am completely fascinated by the soft, organic pulsations as if the fluid was breathing, with the complexity and apparent unpredictability we usually associate with living beings. With the current progress in nano and biotechnologies we'll probably end up seeing devices or even androids made of similar stuff one day.

From Sachiko Kodama's website: "In this art we want to harmonize several opposing properties, such as hardness (iron) / softness (fluid) and freedom (desire for design) / restriction (natural powers such as gravity). This work emerges as an autonomous transformation of the material itself: sometimes it seems like a horn, sometimes a fir tree, and sometimes even like the Tower of Babel." She also has a number of similar interesting projects here.