Meeting Carsten Nicolai in Linz
In September 2000 german soundartist Carsten Nicolai was awarded with the Golden Nica at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria for his project 20' to 2000.
Digital Musics & Sound Art
20 minutes, 2000 years. What is time, a point in time, a leap in time, the future? A series of cds attempts to formulate this question; 12 individual statements-issued monthly-each adopt a position. making full use of a year”s time span, the zeitgeist manifests itself in electronic music. The twelfe artists-collaborators on the award-winning project-will each perform for 20 minutes. In transforming their own ideas on the changeover from 1999 to 2000, perhaps they”ll provide a manifesto of the millennium.
For the Festival in Linz Carsten Nicolai conceived a club night at Posthof with live performances of sound artists: Komet/D, Ilpo Vaisanen/SF, Ryoji Ikeda/J, coH/RUS, Beytone/D, Senking/D, Thomas Brinkmann/D, Scanner/UK, Noto/D, Mika Vainio/SF, Wolfgang Voigt/D, Elph/UK
In September 2000, Nicolai and his Label Raster Noton also performed in my home town Berne at the Taktlos Festival at Dampfzentrale Bern.
Later when I moved to Berlin in 2002 I met Carsten again at the Club Transmediale Festival at Maria am Ostbahnhof.
Sometimes I see him on the market in my neighborhood.
Nicolai, born 1965 in Karl-Marx-Stadt, is part of an artist generation who works intensively in the transitional area between music, art and science. In his work he seeks to overcome the separation of the sensory perceptions of man by making scientific phenomenons like sound and light frequencies perceivable for both eyes and ears. Influenced by scientific reference systems, Nicolai often engages mathematic patterns such as grids and codes, as well as error, random and self-organizing structures. His installations have a minimalistic aesthetic that by its elegance and consistency is highly intriguing.
After his participation in important international exhibitions like documenta X and the 49th and 50th Venice Biennale, Nicolai’s works were shown worldwide in extensive solo and group exhibitions.
https://www.ctm-festival.de/archive/festival-editions/ctm03-play-global/
