Carsten Nicolai (18 September 1965), also known as Alva Noto, is a German musician and visual artist. He is a member of the music groups Diamond Version with Olaf Bender (Byetone), Signal with Frank Bretschneider and Olaf Bender, Cyclo with Ryoji Ikeda, ANBB with Blixa Bargeld, ALPHABET with Anne-James Chaton, Opto with Thomas Knak, and Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto with whom he composed the score for the 2015 film The Revenant. Life and career Carsten Nicolai was born in Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz) of Saxony, GDR in 1965. He studied architecture and landscape design before pursuing art. In 1994 he founded the label NOTON, following which a collaboration with RasterMusic began and by 1999 the two labels had merged into Raster-Noton, which operated until 2017. Returning to the labels origin in 2017, Nicolai runs NOTON separately. In 2009 Nicolai wrote the opera Sparkie: Cage and Beyond in collaboration with Michael Nyman. Nicolai performed and created installations in many of the world's most prestigious spaces including the Guggenheim, New York, the SF MoMA, Modern Art Oxford, NTT Tokyo, Tate Modern and Venice Biennale, Italy. As a member (and co-founder) of the Raster-Noton label he was responsible for the acclaimed CD series 20 to 2000 that went on to win the Golden Nica prize at Prix Ars Electronica, 2000. Carsten Nicolai also works as a visual artist. In 2013, Nicolai participated as a visual artist in Biennale Documenta, an official collateral show of the 55th Venice Biennale of Art. Nicolai started his professorship in art with focus on digital and time-based media with Dresden Academy of Fine Arts since 2015. Nicolai scored the music for Alejandro González Iñárritu's The Revenant. The score was nominated for a Golden Globe, BAFTA, Grammy and Critics' Choice Movie Awards. In 2018 he created the sound design for Iñárritu’s groundbreaking VR project "Carne y Arena" Flesh and Sand. Solo exhibitions (selection) 2019: Parallax Symmetry, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf 2012: unidisplay, Hangar Bicocca, Milan 2007: static fades, shown at PaceWildenstein, New York City and in Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich 2006: inver, shown at Frieze Art Fair, London and at Galerie EIGEN + ART, Leipzig 2006: Polylit, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart 2005: Audio Visual Spaces, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent 2005: Anti Reflex, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt 2005: syn chron, shown at Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin 2003: funken, Galerie EIGEN + ART, Berlin 2002: International Art Biennial, Buenos Aires 2000: Ystads Konstmuseum (Sweden)