In his multimedia, interdisciplinary work, Nik Nowak concentrates on the affective dimensions and potentials of sound and space so as to redefine the boundaries of form between installations, sculptures, and paintings. With his large-format, mobile sound sculptures, the artist explores sound as an identity source and as an element that influences society. Here, his interest lies particularly in the use of sound systems as cultural transmitters and acoustic weapons in the context of war, and as a global and cross-temporal phenomenon in colonial history.
For Ruhr Ding: Schlaf, Nik Nowak transforms an overseas shipping container into a large-format mobile sound sculpture. As a participatory installation, it will be temporarily turning the location into a place of discourse and of musical, acoustic intervention. The project is conceived as an appeal and a megaphone for different voices and sounds of a society that is marked by the migration routes of various generations and by phases of industrial and post-industrial development, as well as digital, local, and global growth. Taking as a point of departure the question of who we as a society really are, Nik Nowak confronts virtuality with materiality and, in the process, thematically explores how the private and public spheres interrelate in the digital age of 24/7.
Nik Nowak earned a degree from Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) and also studied sculpture at Normal University Shanghai. He has been master student of Prof. Lothar Baumgarten at the UdK in Berlin and his artwork has been exhibited in numerous international contexts.
Nik Nowak (*1981 in Mainz) lives and works in Berlin.
