Nik Emch and Laurent Goei teamed up to form Minimetal back in 1994 and have been making sound-performances ever since. The publication contains 13 hours of their music, videos and 307 photographs—a collection gathered together in this photobook.
21 years ago, Nik Emch and Laurent Goei formed the Zürich-based artist duo Minimetal. They produce musical visual art projects and play both underground venues and white-roomed art galleries. Their “sound sculptures” are a veritable torrent of guitar sounds, drums, vocals—and images. A torrent that has been carrying audiences off into a hypnotic stratosphere for 21 years now. Minimetal is punk, rock, art and above all: a lifetime project. Back in the early '90s Emch and Goei composed 11 songs with the idea of playing what they call “Minimetal”: a mini-band, just the two of them, but with plenty of power and metal. To this day they've stuck to these 11 songs, which have become their mantras, reinterpreted over the years in highly produced or rough and unfinished renditions ranging from pop and punk to noise and techno. How and why have remained crucial questions as their discussions and arguments in the studio have become part of the show. From the get-go, the duo steered clear of the usual rock show arenas, rarely, if ever, performing on stage. This eschewal of “maxi” venues gave Minimetal plenty of latitude to explore new ways of performing and recording, which invariably led to the art scene and now to an artist's book.
QR-Codes (quick response), which you scan with a smart phone, lead directly to video and audio content. The book becomes a recording medium. Minimetal 11 mantras is not only a time journey trough Minimetal's œuvre, but also a travel through time from VHS to HD-recording.
Minimetal is the name of an art project founded in 1994 in Zürich by Nik Emch (born 1967, Bern) and Laurent Goei (born 1964, Lausanne). Both are graphic designers, painters, sculptors and musicians, thus enabling them to develop and create a unique musical and visual art project. transplanting their “punk underground” performance onto the art galleries' scene, their “soundsculpture” releases a stream of sounds and images, produced by guitar, drums and vocals, that engulfs gallery visitors in a stunning, agressive atmosphere.
