Nonotak presented Late Speculation and Zero Point Two at the ISEA2017 – International Image Festival

Nonotak, the French duo made up of Noemi Schipfer and Takami Nakamoto, was present during the performance of the 16^and International Image Festival – ISEA2017. Thanks to the Colombia-France Year, the group opened the event with its performance Late Speculation and presented the Zero Point Two installation. We asked them about their career as artists and their presence at the Festival.

Who are they?

Naomi: We are Nonotak, which comes from our names, Noemi and Takami. We are a duo of artists from Paris. Four years ago we started working together.

Takami: Noemi had studied illustration and I had studied architecture, we wanted to show visuals in a space through installations and later we started doing performances. Before I had a group, so I had musical training. At first, we started with small installations dealing with the relationship between space, light and sound.

What is the joint work for the creation of your works based on?

Naomi: It is based above all on experimentation, projecting on different materials, finding interesting structures.

Takami: We started working directly two. Before we were not in this world of media art or technological art. We were more sensitive to the artists of the 60s, of the optical art movement, op art, like Julio Le Parc who comes from Latin America or Jesús-Rafael Soto, for example. When we started, we learned together; We have a very collaborative way of working. We split up a bit when I work on music, that is, on the sound design of a piece during performances, and Noemi is in charge of the projections. So everyone gives their best during the performance.

Naomi: Yeah.

Takami: But for the installations, we rely on quite simple technologies. It is the way of configuring our installation in the space that will create a game with visual perception and the senses, because it is audiovisual. So we played a lot about the layout of the facility.

Can you tell us a bit about your Zero Point Two installation presented at ISEA2017?

Naomi: Zero Point Two is a recent installation. The idea was to have a series of very fine light rays, to trace lines in space. We use fiber to make two-millimeter lines and synchronize them to the sound. There is a choreography that is played between light and sound.

Takami: Here we work with light systems that will project lines in a straight line, which we cannot do, for example, with projectors. What we wanted was a light sculpture with parallel lines.

Is that your most recent project?

Takami: Yes, it is our latest installation.

Naomi: We showed it in May in Strasbourg (France) and then in Montreal (Canada). On this occasion in Manizales; It is the third time that we present it.

Now let's talk about Late Speculation, the performance they show at ISEA2017

Naomi: It was our first performance. The idea here was to play with our silhouettes, that we put ourselves inside the installation device (triangles of semi-transparent screens). There is a projector in front and a projector behind. So when the projector in the front is on, it hides our silhouettes and when the projector in the back is on, our silhouettes appear. It is a game of light and shadow.

Takami: Since I had played in a music group, I thought it might be cool to go on stage and propose a live version of our installations, an interpretation of what we want to express and bring an energy that is not in an installation, a live side.

We looked a little at what the artists did as performance, what is it that is done today? And we realized that there weren't many performances that played with silhouettes. Often in performances, there is a big screen but you don't realize that there is a person behind it, a living person who is feeling things and it is something that frustrated us. So we wanted to play with our silhouettes, with our bodies to do this performance, and that's why we had the idea of the triangle. We wanted a compact configuration but one that gives many possibilities. We project onto a fabric sculpture. When we project a line, we have the impression that it is a triangular line that encloses us because the projection sticks to the fabric. So it gives a 3D look. That's how we started and then we did other performances.

Is Late Speculation the performance that you have exhibited the most?

Takami: It is the one that we have presented the most times, but now we are alternating between this and another that we have done for a year and a half.

Do you have a new project(s)?

Naomi: We have a virtual reality project.

Takami: Yes, we are working on a virtual reality installation that will be shown in September. We always have a bit of a sculptural side to our installations, we like to build, make three-dimensional things and that's why we started thinking about a virtual reality project where there is complete abstraction. We wonder what we could do in virtual reality without falling into the trap of it becoming an interactive video game. What is the immersion limit for a virtual reality project to be an art project and not…

Naomi: …an attraction?