The visualization of sound presented in book form and accompanied by a CD-ROM by Carsten Nicolai, the creator of our successful Grid Index and Moiré Index titles. Ryoji Ikeda and Carsten Nicolai both work at the cutting-edge of contemporary electronic music and sound art. In 1999, the two artists initiated the joint project cyclo., which is devoted to the visualization of sound. In their shared work, they generate new hybrid forms of audiovisual art and expand the possibilities of digital technology. The project’s first publication is cylco. id, a book and included CD-ROM that offer a multimedia and interactive documentation of the audiovisual material that Nicolai and Ikeda have collected, researched, and created since they began working together. The featured images are formed by the metering of sound bits that have been selected by the artists with meticulous care according to their acoustic and illustrative potential. The material collected in cyclo. id is pure elegance, and its rich structural complexity is inspiring for anyone working with sounds and forms. Visually fascinating, the examples also invite the viewer to play and experiment with them. The open-source format of the digital files makes it easy for creatives to further develop the data and use them in their own work. Carsten Nicolai, the renowned German contemporary artist who successfully documented fundamental visual structures in Grid Index and Moiré Index, has been working at the intersection of art and science since the early 1990s. The work of Ryoji Ikeda, one of Japan’s leading electronic composers, explores the physical properties of sound.

cyclo.id: Vol. 1

Arts & Photography

Nicolai, Carsten

History & Criticism

gestalten

Carsten Nicolai brings art, architecture, and music together in one inventive project. syn chron documents artist and musician Carsten Nicolai’s eponymous project―in analog form as a book and in digital form on an included DVD. The centerpiece of syn chron is a mobile space that simultaneously serves as a body for transmitting acoustics, a resonant room, and projection surface. This space, which was constructed by Werner Sobek, is a crystalline architectonic structure whose translucent, synthetic skin is a medium for sonic and optic impulses. Electronic music composed by Nicolai generates projections of modulated light that are triggered by lasers. Visitors can enter the structure and experience it from the outside. Nicolai has presented many concerts in this installation, including those at the New National Gallery in Berlin, at Ycam in Yamaguchi, and at biennials in Berne and Singapore. This book showcases syn chron in a rich selection of images and texts. The included DVD features supplementary audio and video material. One of Germany’s most famous contemporary artists, Carsten Nicolai has been working at the intersection between art and science since the early 1990s. In the books Grid Index, Moiré Index, and cyclo. id, he successfully documented fundamental visual and sonic structures.

Syn Chron

In unidisplay, the artist Carsten Nicolai explores our perception of audio-visual stimuli and their impact. After its debut in Milan, Carsten Nicolai’s formidable and expandable project unidisplay , which was constructed by star architect Werner Sobek, moved on to Frankfurt’s Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK). this publication captures the consciousness- altering experiences it offers. An excursion into scientific discourse, technical experimentation, perception research, architecture, art, and sound, unidisplay is clearly structured, yet challenging for the senses. This book is a further manifestation of the artist and musician’s illusions, and reflections take our perception to its limits. In this project, Nicolai aims to not only make varying scales of time ―from a second to millions of years ―concrete and measurable, but also to give the visual language of symbols its own graphic vocabulary. In the end, he confronts us with optical illusions and their psychological impact, thereby turning his gigantic, abstract artwork into a human laboratory in real time. Breaking down unidisplay into the various elements of which it is composed, the book’s 80 pages include a gatefold covered with a reflective foil to simulate the experience of viewing it live. In this way, the publication allows readers to disentangle the project’s concentrated sensory flood, layer by layer. In the process, they not only gain insight into Nicolai’s impressive visual theories, but also into their own perceptions ― and how they might lead them astray.

Unidisplay

Individual Artists

Carsten Nicolai's stimulating audio-visual art challenges our perception and worldview. This book explores the work of the internationally renowned German artist. Art is freedom. Everything is possible. Carsten Nicolai creates his work according to the strict application of his very own rules―and has established an impressively clear artistic perspective. Parallel Lines Cross at Infinity showcases Nicolai’s fascinating artwork from the past ten years, which explores the boundaries and intersections between art, nature, and science. Carsten Nicolai uses patterns, series, codes, grids, mathematical equations, televisions, computers, neon tubes, and other devices. He visualizes phenomena that are usually invisible to the human eye, such as magnetic fields, and works with and against gravity. Nicolai considers the world to be his laboratory and his art can be seen as his experiments. In the examples featured in Parallel Lines Cross at Infinity, he analyzes, fragments, and condenses data and images in order to give his audience direct access to highly complex processes of time, space, and sound. Nicolai visually structures even the greatest chaos and his results are aesthetically brilliant. Parallel Lines Cross at Infinity offers a wealth of inspiration for anyone interested in avant-garde art, mathematics, science, experimental music, and film, as well as conceptual thinking and design.

Carsten Nicolai: Parallel Lines Cross at Infinity

CARSTEN NICOLAI PIONIER /ANGLAIS

Spector Books