Minimalist Monday
29 May 2006
ULTRA
Extreme Economy in Electronic Music and Visualization
Robert Henke aka Monolake; alva noto [Carsten Nicolai]; Ryoji Ikeda
Programme Notes | Ryoji Ikeda | alva noto interview | Robert Henke audio
xerrox by alva noto [Carsten Nicolai]
alva noto, xerrox
Produced by forma
Photo: Bertrand Prevost
Go to Artist Interviewmacro-micro-minimalism A conversation between Carsten Nicolai and Daniele Balit, July 2006
xerrox is alva noto's follow-up work to the 'transall' series, expanding themes of dissolution and atomisation. xerrox takes its title and principle from the original Xerox machine that copies graphic matter by the action of light on an electrically charged surface, reforming the image with a resinous powder. In a similar way, alva noto's xerrox is born out of a process, in which the ground material undergoes a series of shifts, stretches, zooms and ratio adjustments. The work deals with ideas of duplication, multiplication and repetition, creating and sustaining phenomena that is, in turn, affected by compression, added information and a breakdown in resolution. The constant examination of this process becomes the content of the sound itself.
Whereas in former alva noto releases, sound has always been internally generated within the computer, the xerrox work features a collection of everyday sounds such as, musak, television advertising melodies and elevator bell tones. These ground factors are retained, whilst great volumes of digital noise arise out of the discrepancies between them and the affected duplications. This ongoing 'copying process' leads the work further and further into visual and aural abstraction.
Berlin-based sound artist and producer Carsten Nicolai [alva noto] has established himself as a leading member in the realm of electronic sound and visual designers, using art and music as hybrid tools to create microscopic views of creative processes. He creates precise rhythmic structures with electronic clicks and glitches as essential elements of his music, combining these pared–down electronic sounds with the rhythmic groove of Hip-Hop and R&B. Nicolai’s works captivate consistently through their elegance, simplicity and cool technicism.
