The visual artist and artist on his imaginative practice and fascination with electro-magnetic waves.
Carsten Nicolai is a uneasy scientist, continuously upgrading his own sculptures, video and noise setups, or, under his name Alva Noto, his musical output.
Nicolai’s video setup unicolor featured as a vital part of the LUX exhibit, held at 180 Studios in2021 An remarkably big LED wall that faces the audience with looped colour patterns that are continuously challenging our understanding, unicolor shows Nicolai’s continuous limit pressing creative practice.
This function was initially released in Fact’s F/W 2021 problem, which is offered to purchase here.
MAX DAX: Carsten Nicolai, where have I reached you?
CARSTEN NICOLAI: I am presently costs the last days of this year’s summerseason retreat on one of the lotsof Elafiti Islands. As we speak I am looking at the unlimited sea and the far-off horizon line.
MD: Is that what you would call an motivating setup?
CN: That’s why I’m here. Right now, I couldn’t thinkof being in the mountains. I am reading Homer’s Odyssey onceagain, and I like to thinkof the concept that I am stuck here and, like Odysseus, cannot leave this island for the next coupleof years. I typically like great sailor’s stories. I likewise like Jules Verne’s Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Two hearts beat in my chest: I long to travel, however I likewise desire to return home.
MD: In other words: You will neverever discover peace of mind?
CN: When you are takingatrip with a ship you are accepting the eternity of the universe. I at least like to accept that I am just the tiniest particle in the universe. To feel little infact assists me to stay simple. To appearance at the undisguised sea of stars above me assists me to recalibrate and to calm a uneasy mind. We haveactually gotten so utilized to skies that are contaminated by city lights that travelling on a ship and gazing at the night skies actually can reset you.
MD: You are restarting yourself to be able to work artistically onceagain?
CN: Exactly. The older I get the longer it takes. And the truth that we are recording this discussion now is simply another evidence that being on a remote island doesn’t mean that you are detached from the world. The longer you stay away from home the tighter you get reconnected to digital interaction channels. That’s not always practical. To quote Mario Puzo: ‘Just when you believe you are out, they draw you back in!’
MD: You’d mostlikely have to be really abundant and on a really remote island without Internet…
CN: I envy guys like Marco Polo a bit who’d leave Venice for 5 years to checkout the world. I imply, he had a betterhalf and kids. He’d leave the lagoon and return half a years lateron. This is inconceivable in our brand-new time where our world hasactually endedupbeing a digital town and where society – or the art world – anticipates from you to be obtainable 24/7. I wear’t desire to be apart from my household, however I love the concept to vanish for a longer while. Planet Earth has diminished, so to speak.
MD: Why do you like the concept of being the ‘smallest particle’ in the universe?
CN: I just like to accept that we humanbeings cannot outsmart the power of nature – and the universe of course.
MD: But you do work in yearly retreats, wear’t you?
CN: Yes, I guess I cannot stop. But I force myself to handwrite whatever into sketchbooks . Also, I tend to compose aimlessly. I attempt not to focus on a brand-new job, however to tension test brand-new concepts. My supreme objective is to have no objective at all. But it is a long method to reach that state of mind. My method to get there is to jot down my ideas into these sketchbooks. When ideas reappear that I hadactually forgotten in the meantime I draw the conclusion that these ideas may be more extensive than others. Writing down whatever that comes to mind without sensation the obsession to ‘finish’ it can be a really strong compass. That’s why, in hindsight, some of my tasks have endupbeing long-lasting tasks that I continue to checkout – insomecases over the course of years. Other jobs will mostlikely neverever see the light of day. But at least I haveactually composed them down someplace.
MD: The most lovely book by Franz Kafka is his journal. It is filled with incomplete stories, poems, sketches and ideas.
CN: I think that you wear’t have to always perform a task or an concept. According to a principle by Ludwig Wittgenstein, you can bring an concept to life merely by creating it. In that sense, an concept is like a compound, however an ephemeral one. And I, as an artist, like to work with ephemeral concepts that we can’t actually get hold of.
MD: One of the ideas that pulls through your creative life is an early work of yours, telefunken. By triggering a TELEVISION with an audio signal you get unforeseeable visual outcomes.
CN: I am captivated by electro-magnetic waves – they include whatever from light to colour and noise. Depending on which frequency spectrum I focus on, my work will be visual or musical. But for me this is all one entity. I can lose myself in the tiny information of such waves. I puton’t make any declares to develop a larger image. When I began exploring with the concept of media transfer I utilized oscilloscopes. Only lateron did I start to usage computersystems. In telefunken, I produce images with sounds. The TELEVISION set that I had purchased for my mom when she had to stay in healthcarefacility endedupbeing worthless when she passedaway. And as I have not enjoyed tv for rather some years now, I didn’t have any usage for it. But I desired to discover the proverbial ghost in that maker. I think that a signal is a signal. You can take an audio signal and feed it into a video port. The signal is still the signal, however rather of noise you see colours and types. And vice versa. Trial and mistake. My objective is to visualise or to make audible frequencies that would otherwise stay undetectable or inaudible for us human beings with our minimal variety of understanding. In that sense telefunken plainly endedupbeing a plan for numerous works to follow.
MD: Why did you stop seeing TELEVISION?
CN: A TV is a transmitter that turns you into a customer. But if you usage the TELEVISION set versus the grain it can endupbeing a manufacturer of material. The device stops being a tool to shackle you; it endsupbeing imaginative itself. That was a genuine surprise since I understood that I had simply taken the flexibility to experiment and to run a maker inadifferentway than it hadactually been developed. Doing the ‘wrong’ thing in the ‘wrong’ minute led to something deeply significant.
MD: Would you call it a discussion inbetween male and maker?
CN: Absolutely. An animated discussion inbetween a human and the ghost in the maker. I have constantly been interested in finding the proverbial mistake in a system. I appreciate the work of Takashi Ikegami. He explored with loop systems where he would program computersystems to consistently calculate the exactsame complex arithmetical operation. He waited patiently till the computersystem started to produce mistakes. For him that was the veryfirst evidence of synthetic intelligence, a veryfirst seed. In that minute I understood that we have to reconsider the principle of the mistake and of failure. If an mistake takesplace that will ultimately lead to remedying the mistake, then that mistake has to be reviewed as a beginning point for an evolutionary procedure. In that sense an mistake has a favorable undertone. The mistake forces you to leave your convenience zone and to take action. As a human being you can just findout and development from such experiences.
MD: You discover duetothefactthat you are required to take a variance. The French situationist Guy Debord hasactually created the term dérive – to intentionally take a incorrect roadway whilst walking towards a specific location. Debord declares that this regular of breaking with regimens will undoubtedly lead to brand-new surprises.
CN: I am absolutely with you. Coming back to Homer and his Odyssey, I desire to point out that I wear’t comprehend the story as a misdirected journey. As cognitive beings we desire to comprehend the world, or the universe around us. And from Homer we findout that the numerous variances of his journey lead to muchdeeper insights than taking the direct path. To err can insomecases open closed or previously undetectable doors to brand-new areas of faith and cognition. We are certainly capable of producing our own cohes