Carsten Nicolai: ENDO EXO, PHOSPHENES

ENDO EXO and PHOSPHENES draw upon Carsten Nicolai’s collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto, which began in 2002. Both videos feature soundtracks from Sakamoto’s final studio album, _12_ (2023). Inspired by Jules Verne’s science fiction novel _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,_ the works are two of the twenty-four chapters in Nicolai’s film project _20,000_ (2014–ongoing). _Carsten Nicolai: ENDO EXO, PHOSPHENES_ is presented in conjunction with the exhibition [_Ryuichi Sakamoto_ | _seeing sound, hearing time_](https://www.mplus.org.hk/en/exhibitions/ryuichi-sakamoto-seeing-sound-hearing-time/), on view in The Studio from 14 February to 5 July 2026. Both videos are part of Art at the Stair, an exhibition series at the Grand Stair that presents outstanding moving image works in dialogue with other ongoing programmes. ENDO EXO Carsten Nicolai. _ENDO EXO_, 2024. Single-channel digital video (colour, sound), 7 min. 43 sec. © Studio Carsten Nicolai, NOTON. Archiv fur Ton und Nichtton. Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie EIGEN+ART Leipzig/Berlin. _ENDO EXO_ contemplates the human impulse to collect, catalogue, and preserve once-living creatures. The camera moves through spaces where thousands of remains lie archived in quiet rows, recalling a cabinet of curiosity—a room for interesting objects and stuffed specimens found in some Renaissance European homes. The collections in these rooms embody our manic pursuit of order and longing to master the living world—the primal desire to possess, to observe, to make nature hold still_._ PHOSPHENES Carsten Nicolai. _PHOSPHENES,_ 2024. Single-channel digital video (colour, sound), 7 min. 23 sec. © Studio Carsten Nicolai, NOTON. Arch iv fur Ton und Nichtton. Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie EIGEN+ART Leipzig/Berlin. _PHOSPHENES_ takes its name from the shimmering, fluid shapes you see when you close your eyes. This unusual phenomenon marks the threshold between perceivable, external reality and the interior vision of imagination. Nicolai uses a quiet, minimalist visual language to represent this experience of inner light and colour, and to explore the boundaries between dream and reality, consciousness and unconsciousness. ## About the Artist **Carsten Nicolai** (German, born 1965) is an artist based in Berlin. He is a contemporary electronic musician who works under the name Alva Noto. Blending abstract forms with scientific principles, his visual art explores the intersection of technology, science, and human perception.