Overivew

A decade since its inception, Ryoji Ikeda and Carsten Nicolai are re-launching their collaborative project, cyclo., a project that focuses on the visualisation of sound and seeks to create a new hybrid of visual art and music.

Since the beginning of the cyclo. project, the artists, both leading electronic composers/artists from Japan and Germany respectively, Ikeda and Nicolai have developed a database of sounds composed to produce visual responses when analysed in real time with the help of stereo image monitoring equipment. Through processes of composition, editing and experimentation, cyclo. is amassing an ‘infinity index’ of sound fragments. In building this archive, Ikeda and Nicolai transcend the usual dynamic whereby image acts merely as a functional accompaniment to sound. Instead, the audio element in the process is subservient to the desire and appetite of the image.