Berlin-based visual artist/electronic musician Carsten Nicolai performs and records using the pseudonyms noto and alva noto. Described as ‘metal machine music of a most beautiful kind’, Nicolai’s powerfully synaesthetic live performances combine minimal electronic sounds and real-time visualisation of sound as video or installation. Nicolai’s works captivate consistently through their elegance, simplicity and cool technicism. Carsten Nicolai has performed and exhibited in many of the world’s most prestigious spaces and has won a number of highly regarded prizes for art and electronic music. He further explored the physicality of sound in his collaborations with Ryoji Ikeda, Mika Vainio, and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and in the pioneering ‘supergroup’ Signal with Olaf Bender and Frank Bretschneider. Alva Noto, his project with Ryuichi Sakamoto, uses processed sounds from Sakamoto’s piano to create a mix of beautiful harmonics and glitchy micro electronic sounds.