NONOTAK: The Materiality of Light

The perfect embodiment of reinventing sound, light and space.

Back in 2011, Noemi Schipfer (a visual and tatto artist at NONO) and Takami Nakamoto (a former architect-musician who played in a metal/hardcore band) co-founded NONOTAK Studio, a creative hub working around performances and art pieces, but also audiovisual installations. They develop immersive and dreamlike environments by connecting light, space and sound elements, bringing their audience into a new level of storytelling perception. 

Being a duo gives them the freedom to create sound and visuals simultaneously, which might be their biggest strength. NONOTAK’s pieces and performances don't need any context. It’s all about the sensorial effect that moves us and the way we feel immersed by it. A sort of universal language.

Keep scrolling to know more about their projects, aesthetics and universe.

Karen: With backgrounds in visual arts, architecture and music, how did the idea of producing sensitive experiences together come up? 

We think it all comes together organically. Since we have knowledge and huge interest in these different domains, we felt like developing experiences that link space, light and sound was a way for us to express ourselves on a much deeper level. We felt like it was possible to give more to the audience's experience by combining all the elements that could disrupt human senses. We feel like using sound and light allows us to tell so much, without adding much material or construction within the space. It feels so overwhelming in the way we experience it but so minimal in the way it physically occupies space.

Karen: What do the concepts of sound, light and space mean to you? 

 It almost means something universal to us. Something anyone can feel and experience on a daily basis, outdoor or indoor. For instance, as a child being afraid of the darkness is even part of that universal language. We associate many feelings to different types of lights, spaces and sounds. The culture of music has always been visually abondant. Cities are filled with many layers of sounds.  We all develop a certain relationship to light, space and sound on an hourly basis and that is why we think combining these elements and creating immersive art experiences is such a fundamental part of our work. This combination allows us to speak a language anyone can feel at any age. Space is usually the starting point of our work, since it is where the experience will happen.

Karen: Looking at your work, it is both heavily sonorous and visual. Is there a certain kind of hierarchy in your art forms? Do you think of a project, first as musicians and then as visual artists, or vice versa? 

 We have that ability to work both aspects at the same time and be flexible, even while testing the experience on site, in order to be able to program and compose while we are in front of it. It is important to put together such a work process in order to express yourself while you are standing in front of the installation. This is where we can really project ourselves in how the audience is going to experience that. And it is actually inspiring to be able to manipulate the content of the installation in a real time manner.

Karen: In your opinion, why is spatialization of sound so important in contemporary music and art? 

We don't think it is necessarily important in contemporary art or music, but it is in what we are trying to achieve. We are obsessed by the materiality of light and how it can affect space and our perception of space, so spatialization is obviously an interest.  But there are a lot of art forms that don't need spatialization and that we respect and love. 

Photo: Courtesy of NONOTAK studio.

Karen: You guys have an NFT collection of the physical audiovisual installation MOON V1. What do you think about the dematerialization of the art itself that can bring the Cryptocurrencies nowadays? 

 We have mixed feelings about this. We are experimenting with NFTs and educating ourselves about blockchain technology in general. We think the subject of NFT is interesting, especially in the industry of gaming where since decades, people have been collecting in game art like items, perks and skins, trading them etc. All these littles pieces that visually feed a game's visual universe are values created by artists. Implementing blockchain technology into gaming will give back the values creators are generating in a sovereign way, without middle men who are here to decide for the rules of the 99 percent of the people. In terms of installation art and digital art, the utility is still a gray area to us. We are not closed to it and happy to experiment to see what can be done in the future. Our main goal is to create physical installations that people can experience physically and we consider nothing can replace the real materiality of light. So dematerialisation of art won't be really possible when it comes to Nonotak. Digital art collecting has been a thing way before this NFT trend. Matter of fact, online galleries like SEDITION have been representing our digital works for many years and we keep releasing projects with them from time to time. Lot of people think about NFT as images or jpeg but we think that it is more about the technology, and especially the way it will be implemented in the gaming industry. We also think it could have interesting utilities like authenticating an art piece or product without a centralized system being able to change the data, just like it is happening with luxury goods. We are more interested in the decentralized aspect than the speculative aspect of it.

Photo: Courtesy of NONOTAK studio.

Karen: Since Nanotak’s aesthetic is inspired by minimal architecture and optical art, how do you find and produce the music that goes according to this aesthetic? 

 We just try to put together a soundscape that we imagine while visualizing an immersive art piece. It is hard to describe but we always think about creating a sonic experience that feels "enveloping" to disconnect the audience from reality, but using sound design to help tell a story is infinite and it makes this combination so playful.

Karen: What inspires you to create these immersive sound and light environments?

 The desire to disconnect from reality. Lot of the times we present site specific installations abroad, the audience already knows the space from its daily use, this makes the installation's impact much more powerful since people feel the disconnection between what they used to know, and what they are currently looking at. Space and architecture inspires us the most.

“The desire to disconnect from reality.”

Karen: What role does a computer play during your creative process? Which other tools are part of it? 

It is essential and fundamental, which feels a bit shameful sometimes. But in order to control audio, light, visuals in a time coded matter, and being able to program it live, requires a laptop. At least for now. Takami uses his guitar a lot to sample to process the sound afterwards. We also use a lot of basic workshop tools, like 3d printers, lathes, presses, cnc machines and laser cuts in order to prototype many technical aspects of our installations.

Karen: How does the music of the future sound in your head? 

Loud and overwhelming, melodic but in a way it would be hard to sing or decode. Sharp and cold.

Karen: Have you ever thought about sharing your creation techniques to upcoming audiovisual artists? What does knowledge sharing mean to you? 

Not really but not close to it, but we consider creation techniques being something you develop over years, through successes and mistakes and we don't think it is something completely shareable, at least in a correct way. Just sharing portions of techniques ends up with people just trying to replicate, rather than getting inspired. It would need a lot of time and dedication to be able to transmit the whole spectrum of our techniques and we are just not teachers. We are living in a world of "how to" videos and so on, and we get across people asking how to become an artist or how to make this or that in a 2 min question frame and we usually answer that it depends on what you are trying to achieve.

Many of our techniques discoveries came from mistakes or some happy accidents, during the process of figuring out how to make a visual effect we had in our head. The whole process of figuring out is such a fundamental part of creation and we wish everyone interested in creating feel that joy and passion. We think knowledge sharing is amazing as long as we also learn through free education on the internet. Creation process is something you build through many different experiences and this is maybe more personal. 

 Karen: Do you have a place that, given its architectural and spatial properties, you wish to play one day?

Would be unreal to perform inside the Grand Palais in Paris, playing along with the spatial sonic properties and the architecture. 

Photo: Courtesy of NONOTAK studio.