Becoming : Carsten Nicolai

initial research

Unlike with most briefs here their was a strong starting point or direction to take the brief in. After being paired into groups, we were given the de-signer known as Carsten Nicolai. Unfortunately no one in the group really had any idea whom Nicolai was so we split up, separated his career, and went on to research about him.

Personally I looked at Nicolai’s work between 2000 - 2002 and him as a designer in general. Nicolai at heart is an audio visual designer and a theorist with themes such as complexity, audio and theory being common throughout his projects. He seems to be a person that enjoys challenging himself with the work he does never attempting to do something thats already been done before, but pushing the boundaries of design. Often looking at chaos theories and the way sound gets affected by other mediums, choosing situations in which a number of variables can be involved. Alva Noto is Nicolai’s musical alter ego, a huge support system for his design work, with him often using his visuals to support his music. Many designers admire him for his long, well thought out work process, and his ability to try and do something different in a field where a lot has been done already.

Looking at the work he completed throughout 2000 - 2002, their are running themes between a number of the projects. He covers a number of mediums including real world 3D, digital etc showing his variety and willingness to experiment. The work I had a look at was initially hard too decipher - if I didnt read what the project was about I would have no idea what he was trying to achieve. Nicolai’s aesthetic is hugely different from the norm, with his work not aiming to be stereotypically pretty rather putting function ahead of form - thats not to say he didnt want to have an aesthetically pleasing outcome, which can be seen with a lot of his Alva Noto visuals.

Becoming : Carsten Nicolai

Initial idea

Having looked at the general work Carsten Nicolai had done, I decided to go down the route of sound visualisation. His audio visual work is always done for a reason; for example his ‘Kerne’ piece, which tried to visualise a humans ‘soul’, by filling up light bulb like vases with water and have them effected by speakers and lighting. Nicolai also does more digital and ‘aesthetically’ pleasing audio visualisations, as well as pieces that require the users interaction. The best example of Nicolai working on an ‘audio visual’ series is his ‘Moire’ pieces, which all look at different approaches to visualise audio. ‘Moire Film’ allows each user to experience a different image due to it being built upon the idea that every perception of it is different. ‘Moire Schatten’ on the other hand is a visual representation of sound using string, trying to create a literal visualisation of sound.

Wanting to go down the audio visual route, I knew one thing, that my ability in terms of theoretical complexity was just nowhere near that of Nicolai, so I had to counter this problem. Therefore my plan was to try and do something that had not really been done before, attempt to create visuals that are aesthetically pleasing and to try to make the visuals speak for themselves, to an extent anyway. Going down the audio visual path I inevitably was going to run into a large portion of his work as Alva Noto (musical alter ego). His visualisations for his music are much more interesting to me, because visually their extremely weird and intrinsic (organic looking) as well reacting/supporting the audio their featured in.

Audio visualisations are absolutely everywhere these days, in adverts, music videos, art work etc. their so common, meaning to stand out and be able to deliver your message wasnt going to be easy. To get a custom too different styles and visual deliveries in this field I looked at a number already existing examples outside of Nicolai’s work. One that I straight away went to look at was the audio visualisations used in Justin Timberlake’s ‘Lovestoned’ music video; using only digital effects, the music literally visualised Timberlake and others as well as a variety of soundwaves reacting to the music. I also look at a number of different ways of visualising audio out of the digital such as ‘Cymatics’ (using liquid / paste that would be effected by sound and its vibration) as well as the ‘Liquid Light Show’ (using overlaid slides and liquid, a big craze between the 60s-70s.

The idea I came up with is too visualise music genres; it made sense since both me and Nicolai are extremely passionate about music. Music has been visualised by a number of people but never really their respective genres, so you could compare and see the different visual differences between them. Too differentiate my project even more so from already existing ones was to not present it through a series of animations but rather in print format; something that has not really been tried when it comes to this field. It was a matter of researching respective areas to find out how to achieve this ‘base idea’ and develop it into a final product.

Becoming : Carsten Nicolai

Idea Research

Once I had a good grasp of what my idea was to be, it was the matter of gathering enough relevant research and imagery to push me into that direction. Initially I started looking at ways of putting depth and meaning behind my visualisations which led me to the association between colour and music genres. Eventually I arrived at a neurological condition known as Synesthesia - a sensory condition which allows anyone affected by it to in effect see colour when listening to music. Knowing about this condition led me onto a search, hoping that someone has documented what colours they associate when listening to certain music genres and luckily ‘Johnathon Dowse’ came up trumps. He compiled a number of music genres on his blog and the colours he associates them with, which I backed up with some articles and forums posts by other Synesthesia effectee’s whom had similar outcomes. Knowing these colour associations straight away give depth and correlation to the visualisations, as well as an aesthetic.

Then I went on to looking at specific visualisations that were in the style I was imagining mine to look like, as well as ones that had a strongly defined aesthetic. Artists such as VinhSon Nguyen and Nick Jonas were hugely inspiring for me, since both were pushing the boundaries of audio visualisation looking at smoke visuals and using HTML5 to visualise sound. The HTML5 visuals are extremely exciting since they allow for the users interaction with them, but from a visual / aesthetic stand point, normally they are pretty plain, while the smoke visuals are beautiful but dont really ever seem to fit the music. Visuals by ‘Steel Studios’ seen above use reflection to create stunning reactive visuals.

Lastly I went on to look at how to present my visualisations in a print format, in a collated manner, rather than having a split up selection of images. One of the best visual ways to present experiments / findings etc are through reports - not the typical sort filled with a heap load of text but the visual kind (such as the one presented above). Pig 05049 is my main inspiration behind this idea (a report like book showing what one pig was made into), due to its very clear and organised layout as well as its clean and crisp minimalist look. I wanted my report to simply state what I wanted to achieve, why and to show my visualisations - doing it in this format seemed the best idea.

Becoming : Carsten Nicolai

Idea Development

Having done all the research needed for me to form a strong idea I was ready to start experimenting and trying out my own take at audio visualisations. I decided to use two different software packages to achieve my results; Adobe After Effects and Processing. When it came to Processing, I decided to give it a go because it was something I was completely alien to, and wanted to see what I could come up with. Using a variety of codes which adjust volume levels and shapes I was able to come up with a fairly simple visualisation using the software.

It was with After Effects, using the ‘trapcode’ plug in where I found my feet and started coming up with genuinely interesting results. Trapcode essentially allows you to play around with particles and forms which you shape, edit ‘form’ into what you want, using parameters etc - that also allow you too make them react to audio. Before actually getting involved with anything digital I first sketched out a number of visuals, using my descriptions of each music genre to give me a platform when trying to recreate them in digital space. Using my sketches as reference, I began attempting to create visuals using the wide variety of plugins and tools that are associated with After Effects and Trapcode. Initially anything I did barely made any shape and just looked like a crazy chaotic mess (just like the red soundwave pictured above right). Eventually though I started learning how to create a number of shapes, such a circles and getting them to react to the sound - whilst also learning to create much more visually stunning and defined soundwaves (such as the red / white above). This initial play though let me get on to my push towards the final outcome.

Becoming : Carsten Nicolai

The Final

Having spent a ridiculous time getting in sync with the trapcode plugin for After Effects, I was ready to begin trying too achieve final outcomes for each genre. Before starting I decided on my final selection of genres cutting out Electro, due to the fact that I felt the genres style had been covered by the rest in parts, therefore their being no need too produce another. Using my basic sketches and descriptions of genres as reference I begun plowing through each music type.

I decided to start of with the two genres I felt I could get done quickest, due to the visuals I had in mind were not to complicated to achieve (or so I thought), those being Hip Hop and Drum & Bass. Behind both the initial idea was some sort of soundwave, equalizer, in terms of Hip Hop; it was due to its multiple layers, while a soundwave could represent Drum & Bass range perfectly. My initial outcomes for both were just way too simple, giving the vibe of a simple Windows Media Player Equilizer, something I couldnt have. The soundwave used for the Drum & Bass piece was multiplied, rearranged, angled and had its frequency changed so every little piece of the music was noticeable. While the other was reshaped as a speaker/boombox to try and link the genre to one of its root pieces of technology.

Moving on I wanted to then try my hand at what I envisioned to be the hardest visuals to achieve, for both Classical and Dubstep. Due to both being in essence an organic shape (in these cases a sphere), these are the hardest to form using trapcode due to the huge number of variables having to be altered and changed, while going along. Both relied on the idea of particles flowing to create other shapes and figures while the music was playing, with the final shots representing this in action (I feel both came out brilliantly, and assume the role of the relevant genre well).

The final three genres; Pop, Rock and Disco, were very much trial and error due to their erratic use of instruments, volume, sampling etc. All three visuals differ, with one using a mirror/kalaeidescope effect to best merge with the music, the other essentially looking like scrunched up paper to present another with the final being the smoothest and calmest of the three.

The design of the report, came from visuals that were not selected for the finals and the colour schemes they used. The report is very much in tandem with all the visuals and Nicolai’s work so it has to and in my opinion has embodied all of this. I am happy with that I have come up with in the end, with every visual being different from another, and all having their own style. Although it can be argued to all may visually sync with their related music genre, I feel its because no still image really has ever had to (only audio visuals). I do feel with more time to develop my skill at using the software and a computer that could actually run After Effects without dying every 5minutes, I would have achieved more and better quality visuals, but that was not to be.

In the end I feel I have attempted and to an extent succeeded at becoming Carsten Nicolai, presenting crazy, complicated, chaotic yet detailed pieces of work, exhibiting his biggest passion outside design.