Carsten Nicolai. unidisplay

Carsten Nicolai is a German artist and musician. His more than 30-metre-long light and sound installation unidisplay is being shown as the first work in CC on Papirøen.

Carsten Nicolai is known all over the world for his minimalist and digital works – both on the international art scene with his conceptual installations and on the electronic music scene, where he has also aroused attention under the name Alva Noto with his precise, subtle sounds and visual codes. At the intersection of art, music and science, Carsten Nicolai explores the logical systems and control mechanisms that structure our world.

unidisplay is a powerful experience both visually and physically. The work consists of a long wall on which changing light patterns are projected and are reflected in mirrors on both sides of the projection to make up an endless universe. The undulating patterns affect our eyes with among other things optical illusions, flickering and after-images. At the same time the various visual impressions are grounded by a soundtrack that is propa­gated through the body via speakers placed beneath a long bench on which you can sit in the installation.

At the general level unidisplay is about the way we sense the surrounding world, and how our surroundings in turn affect us. Carsten Nicolai himself calls his practice an investigation of semiotics – of how meaning, by means of signs, is produced, conveyed, received and understood, both non-linguistically in our bodies and as a scanning of information processes in the world around us.

Carsten Nicolai (b. 1965) lives and works in Berlin. He has participated in important international exhibitions like Documenta and the Venice Biennale, and his work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions all over the world. In his music projects he has collaborated with among others Ryuichi Sakamoto. Under the name Alva Noto he has mounted performances at venues such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Centre Pompi­dou in Paris and Tate Modern in London. Most recently Nicolai has arranged the music for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s latest film, The Revenant.