crt mgn, Carsten Nicolai
Four neon tubes are mounted parallel to one another and aligned horizontally on a wall. Their light is recorded by a video camera, whose signals are transmitted on a TV screen. The televison image is distorted by a magnet attached to a pendulum, which hangs on a aluminium support and moves unregularly above the television screen. Additionally, the swinging magnet induces electricity in an electric coil. The corresponding fluctuations of the magnetic field produce modulations within the electric circuit that are transformed into acoustic signals audible during the exhibition. The magnet field of the televison is influenced in a way that causes the image to shift and distort colours and shape.
The inspiration for the work goes back to an event in 2007, in honour of Nam June Paik shortly after his death, at the Watari-um Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. At that time, the Watari family and Ryuichi Sakamoto invited artists to a collaborative performance commemorating Paik. For a short solo-performance, the idea of a distorted tv image was experimented with (Paik had used magnets + TV in 1965). This work was performed again in Paris at Fondation Cartier in 2012, and this laid the grounds for the installation crt mgn.
Images courtesy of Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Berlin