book - Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, ISBN 3883758914
The exceptional imagination of Carsten Nicolai has gained much popularity in the contemporary art world, which clearly interpreted the codes used by the artist for constructively manipulating fascinating scientific phenomena unveiling their visual and acoustic perspectives. In the omnicomprehensive personal exhibition dedicated to him by the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt there is his entire production, historicized by a luxury catalogue which perfectly mirrors his effective and minimal style (an example: the piece of magnetic tape used as a bookmark). The visual 'extraction' of sound structures (as in 'Milch') or the generation of natural geometrical structures (as in Snownoise), are two of the many directions of a research journey that uses science as an access key and art as a philosophical principle. The interactions between the two worlds open an equal number of perspectives which have their code in mathematical and geometrical recursion and their appeal in the tangible and audible conceptual mix. In the works of Nicolai, technology is recognizable because it's embodied in a peculiar aesthetic light, free from self-complacency and understandable even by novices.