• 
• 
• 
• 

Carsten Nicolai

tele
Berlinische Galerie

Neue ästhetische Dimensionen

Carsten Nicolai (b. Karl-Marx-Stadt, East Germany, now Chemnitz, 1965; lives and works in Berlin) has long studied processes of perception and created art that lets the viewer experience the mechanisms underlying visual as well as acoustic sensory impressions. Of particular interest for his work is the question of the possibilities of subjective or objective cognition. He scrutinizes exemplary immaterial phenomena that lead him to the fundamental questions of human consciousness. Which part of what we perceive actually exists outside of that perception, and which part is constructed on the neuronal level of our brains? A self-taught artist, Nicolai originally studied landscape architecture. He launched his career in visual art with paintings before turning to installation art and object-based practices starting in the mid-1990s. He is also active as a musician under the pseudonym Alva Noto.

Carsten Nicolai’s works chart the terrain between visual art and electronic sound. tele is published on occasion of the presentation of his sprawling light-and-object installation of the same title at Berlinische Galerie. With essays by Anne Bitterwolf and Siegfried Zielinski and a preface by Thomas Köhler.