Alva Noto, the artistic pseudonym of Carsten Nicolai, is a pioneering German artist known for his groundbreaking work in electronic music, visual art, and multimedia installations. With his minimalist aesthetic and innovative use of technology, Noto explores the intersections of sound, space, and perception, pushing the boundaries of artistic expression.
"It is such a complex matter we live within, it is impossible to track logic and decision making really, so therefore each choice can actually only be seen as coincidence."
"I try to keep a balance between conceptional or intellectual comprehension and emotional understanding."
"The subject of my work has a lot to do with general, artistic matters, questions like: What is creativity? Where do we come from? What are our motors? What is coincidence? What is logic?"
"Some things can be perfectly expressed by sound alone and images would only be disturbing. Other times, sound would be possible, but visuals are much stronger and closer to what I want to express and then again, they sometimes overlap perfectly."
"I usually create sounds and have different generators running over it. You know you can open a word-file as a picture or the other way round. I do the same with sounds."
"Starting off, all options are always open, but as soon as you choose something, you inevitably limit yourself. If you go for B, A is out."
"Every individual decision is nothing but coincidence, every artistic decision is coincidence."