GROUP RESEARCH/As a group we began to research Carsten Nicolai to find as much information about him and his works as possible. The first thing was to etablish who he was and what he did, so a general description of what he is about.

Alva Noto which is a stage name of sound artist Carsten Nicolai who uses art and music as complementary tools to create microscopic views of creative processes. Another alias he uses is Noto. He is a member of the music groups Signal and Cyclo.

Once we had found out this information it was time to start looking into more detial at his works. I began researching some of his latest works which include, Pioner i and thermic, works from 2011.

We came up with some points from what we found.Points to become Carsten...He is regarded as a Scientist or Artist due to experimentation with nature, technology and producing visual outcomes based on the devised experiments.

His method of developing unique outcomes is through processes, which allow for audience interactions to take place in his installations.

He is seen as a Musician because of his use of sound to create visuals as well as his label and tracks produced to drive his installations.

Synbiosis of sound of image can be seen clearly in one of his installations ‘Telefunken’.

Originations of Creative Practices are important factors that help trigger the growth process that is seen within ‘Snow Noise’.

This phenomena of self-organization is what interests Carsten the most when he observes artists triggering these processes.

Cultural collaboration can be seen in his work, especially with several Japanese artists such as Takashi Ikegami, Ryoji Ikeda and Takashi Hashimoto.

Mathematical Processes are what create the unique outcomes in carsten’s work. This is seen especially in his ‘Snow Noise’ installation.

Carsten prefers to ‘focus on the Natural Sciences for inspiration’ as he mentions in an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Space is the defining factor in his installations, which allows the audience to realise the importance of the piece.

Performance can be seen in his musical renditions,like his performance of ‘Cyclo’ with Ryoji Ikeda.

Sound is another factor that is frequently used in his installations. They focus on either frequency or pitch.

Movements are key in his installations. Although it is usually the audience that drives the installations, as carsten mentions, without the audience there is nothing.

‘Mathematical processes with loops create errors, which create particular patterns. These error patterns help in the intelligent processes.’

Harmony of Space or Spatial Awareness is also important to his installations, some require the space in order for the installation to exist.

Pioneer i

the installation consists of a parachute inflated by a wind-machine, creating an ephemere situation of interaction between states of stability and instability. the set-up serves as a methaphor of the ambiguous and discontinuous interplay of artificially produced objects and natural elements. (Below)

thermic

the work thermic is a visualisation of usually invisible heat waves floating through space. hot air produced streaming upwards from a heat source is made visible by a light spot throwing shadows of it onto the wall. like in a fata morgana we can see fluctuations of air thus realizing that we are not surrounded by empty space but by a physically flexible matter. (Above)

Becoming carsten nicolai Tom Bryant tombryant.gdnm.org

GROUP RESEARCH/random.logo.dot

“random.logo.dot consists of a bass loudspeaker lying on the floor, generating a vibration of 10hz. On the membrane lie steel balls set in constant motion by the vibration. The constantly changing configuration of the balls on the membrane forms the background for the logo work. Nicolai distributes steel balls irregularly across a surface, photographs it, makes a photocopy of the photo, cuts circular sections into it shaped e, that, once removed, reproduce the arrangement of the cuts, presenting the variable shape of the logo. The process of photographing and copying creates versions of the individual steel spheres, whereby regular circles become patterns that are somehow organic.” (Below)

snow noice

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GROUP PRESENTATION/we then began to browse through his list of many works and come across one very known piece called “telefunken” which was done in 2000.

We later found that Carson had reproduced his idea and called it the “telefunken anti”, this was definatly the one we wanted to show as we become him, as a group. When re-reading the brief we realised that we need to become him in a sense that we should present ourselves as him and as his work, thus we thought if we re-create a minature version of his work and play his sounds through a tv the class would have to be still to realise that the lights they can see reflecting off the wall is a production from carstens own music. I was personanlly unable to attend the group presentations due to personal family reasons.

What we required for the installation:ProjectorTv x2Cd player x2

After dicussion on a Facebook group that we set up and meetings held in University we came up with an organised plan of the presentation/installation. My role was to read a specific paragraph in English whilst someone else translated it into German. We need to talk about carsten nicolai, his practices, what he is, presenting our installation experiments going on around the whole room.

Random selection on who says what (Hat Selection)

We are Mathmaticians (Nick)

We are Musicians (Josh)

We are Scientists (Harriet)

We are Carsten Nicolai, we were born in East germany and have an amazing passion for science and art. We have explored all aspects of sound and visual art using geometric shapes and scientific explanations and reasonings behind the collaboration of art with everyday objects and sounds.

The first installation that we have chosen to experiment with and share with you all is a vibration test using different liquids and solids, we did an experiment with Milk, beer, food coloring, oil, iron shavings, dirt and small pebles/stones. (Begin to Demonstrate) From this we collected alot of visual data by changing the frequency through an amplifier, this created liquids and solids that danced to the different frequencies when pressing down on to the live jack, from this we found that the harder you pressed the live jack down the harder the vibrations moved through the liquid or solid.

The second demonstration we have for you is the remake of “telefunken anti” the telefunken anti was a remake from the original telefunken in 2000, by connecting a portable cd player to the video port in the tv we can see that the louder we turn the cd player up the more frequency is being pushed through the tv creating visual lines. (Josh) Unfortuatnly we couldnt get the visuals to work but it was still successful experiment because you can hear the change in frequencies through the tv (tell the class to be quiet and then demonstrate) as you can see not alot goes on apart from minor movement but the frequency sound is clear as crystal, but if you take pictures of the tv with a camera as we did, you can actually see the results.(As shown in the slideshow)

The last but obviously not least of our experiments is to show the “Syn chron” in 3 directions to create a geometric shape, when played through 3 projects we create a triangle and to add even more geometry if we aim the projectors at mirrors we will aim the video in the air creating a 3d version of the triangle shape. By playing the video 3 times showing someone inside the creation we feel like we are also inside it.

This is what we will be saying during our presentation, Videos of experiments will be coming up shortly.

Image of original installation by Carsten called telefunken anti

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IDEAS DEVELOPMENT/The idea was to use a subwoofer to create different sound frequencies. These frequencies played through the subwoofer would create vibration effects on given objects. My first thoughts on the objects I could use were, paper and some form of liquid.

The idea then was to turn the created effects on the objects into visual representations that looked and felt like something Carsten would create. Referring to the idea of being inside his head, this idea uses the language of science to create art. What I am developing as an idea for my artefact is using the science of sound and Hz to create a visual concept as my artefact. At this point I also began thinking about if something could be used to create some form of type with a message that would be become distorted by the bass frequencies.

ResultsThe speaker I would use is a subwoofer. Subwoofers are designed to play lower sound frequencies, usually from around 40 hertz up to about a kilohertz or higher.

I carried out a series of experiments to see what can be created from this idea. Using paper and water were my initial thoughts so I began experimenting with those, however the water was not successfull. Perhaps placing it in a different position may have improved the results, on top of the speaker itself for example. I may have needed to use a larger volume of water and possibly increase the volume of the speaker too. Initially I just used bass frequencies of 50Hz, 60Hz and 33Hz for my initial tests.

I observed that the lower the bass frequency the more the speaker itself appeared to move, so I decided to conduct some further research into this.

A THOUGHT/Potentially, the outcomes could be used commercially for example, an artwork for an album cover or similar, the sound frequency could also relate to the tracks on that particular alubm (this could be almost any type of music).

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RESEARCH/

The ScienceHz is the symbol for Hertz, a unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second. One hertz simply means “one cycle per second” 100 Hz means “one hundred cycles per second”, and so on.

1Hz = 1wave/second

“A smaller speaker will reproduce higher frequencies better than a bigger one. The wavelength of a 20,000 Hz signal is very small, while the length of a lower (bass) note moving in the air could be as big as 40 feet. That explains why a 4-inch speaker can’t really put out bass (the lower the frequency, the more air mass that has to be moved by the speaker)”. (Car Audio Basics – Crossovers & Speakers. Sizes and Shapes. 16 December 2009).

Carsten Music/ALVA NOTOI decided to look at some of the music that Carsten had produced. Some of the tracks that I found most interesting are listed below. I was considering using them as background music for the artefact or even incorporating there sounds and the bass frequencies.

Alva Noto - Xerrox Monophaser 1

Alva Noto - Haliod Xerrox Copy 111

Alva Noto & Sakamoto - Aurora

Alva NotoIs the stage name of Carsten Nicolai. He uses art and music as complementary tools to create microscopic views of creative processes.

Becoming carsten nicolai Tom Bryant tombryant.gdnm.org

IDEAS DEVELOPMENT/To develop my original idea further the idea was to use iron filings to create words or phrases that relate to Carsten. I struggled initially to think of words so continued my experiments using words like Carsten.

Equipment for the job:2 StencilsPlain white A4 paper2 Tripods80grams of Iron FilingsBass CDVibe Subwoofer (wired up to Laptop)2 Cameras’, Canon 450D and Fujifilm FinePix (Canon to document the experiments and the Fujifilm for the video recording)

The ExperimentThis was just an experiment to see what the created effect would look like. I am pleased with the way the filings move about. I did need to consider what they will form in the further development that is related to Carsten. At this point I also decided it was worth renting a hi def camera and filming lights for better quality. Another point is that the filings were sat on paper, on a box, right next to the subwoofer. This presents a problem in that as soon as the frequencies are played through the sub, not only do the filings move about but the paper does too, I will have to overcome this in further development, possibly by using another form of background or set up.

Becoming carsten nicolai Tom Bryant tombryant.gdnm.org

IDEAS DEVELOPMENT/

Artefact DevelopmentInitially Istarted by having the subwoofer facing upwards with the idea of plaing paper or another materialon top, then arranging the filings on top of that. Using the stencil I created a few different versions using different bass frqencies, also experimenting with the volume of the sound.

The first peice is called aN for Alva Noto – it uses a bass frequency of 60Hz to create the effect of the filings. After recording the footage using the Canon HD camera the footage was first taken into Adobe Preimere then After Effects. The video and audio have both been reversed and then played back at normal speed, I’ve also changed some of the lighting and other controls/effects.

Equipment Canon Legria HFS20 Mini HDV CameraTripod3 x Video LightsVibe Alpha One SubwooferLaptopAudioIron Filings2 x StencilsPaperCanon 450D (To document the development process)

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IDEAS DEVELOPMENT & FINAL ARTEFACT/

With my tripod, HD video camera and film light all set up, it was time to start getting creative with the iron filings. My final 3 texts would be, 33hZ, aN and Aurora. The idea behind Aurora was to use one of Carten’s audio works and create my own version using a similar style, becoming Carsten.

With everything in place and the iron filings set up using the stencil I played each piece of audio through the subwoofer for each of the three works. Once I had finished filming it was time to digitally edit the footage. To do this I first used Adobe Premierr then Adobe After Effects. The footage was reversed on all three so that the message is revealved as the audio is played. I changed some of the lighting and effects of the footage to create a nice visual piece. Some desaturating was included to keep colour minimal, a style that I believe reflects Carsten if we look at some of his works.

Artefact DevelopmentThe first peice is called aN for Alva Noto – it uses a bass frequency of 60Hz to create the effect of the filings. After recording the footage using the Canon HD camera the footage was first taken into Adobe Preimere then After Effects. The video and audio have both been reversed and then played back at normal speed, I’ve also changed some of the lighting and other controls/effects.

33hZ this piece has been created by the same methods as aN, however for this time a bass frequency of 33Hz was used instead.

AnalysisI had some difficulties during the development of my artefact, the first was a practical problem - difficulty with the paper moving about when exposed to the vibrations that the subwoofer created. Secondly was deciding what the text would display for the final artefact. After experimenting with different frquencies and researching into some of Carsten’s sound works I came to the conclusion that I should use atleast one element of one of his existing works. However I did want to add my own ideas and create something unique and not just a copy of Castens work.

Overall I am pleased with the results of this brief. I think the artefact is quite visually interesting and uses art and music as complementary tools to create a creative process.

Final Artefact