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Creativity Quote by Alva Noto

"I always try hard to arrange all media in a way so that it expresses what I want - this is not limited to one medium alone and varies from case to case"

About this Quote

Control is the quiet obsession pulsing beneath Alva Noto's work, and this line reads like a mission statement for an artist who treats sound, image, and code as one continuous instrument. The phrasing is tellingly procedural: "arrange", "media", "varies from case to case". Nothing about inspiration or confession. It's the language of systems, composition, and design constraints - a worldview where meaning is engineered, not discovered.

The intent is practical but also ideological. Noto isn't defending multimedia for novelty's sake; he's insisting that the idea should dictate the toolset. In a culture that loves to brand artists by format - electronic musician, visual artist, installation maker - he rejects the silo. The subtext: medium loyalty is a kind of creative superstition. If the goal is precision, you choose whatever channel transmits it cleanest, or you braid channels until the message becomes unavoidable.

Context matters because Noto's aesthetic has long been associated with minimalism: sine tones, digital clicks, stark geometry, the controlled "errors" of data rendered audible or visible. In that space, "expresses what I want" doesn't mean emoting louder; it means shaping attention, perception, and tempo. The variability he points to is also a hedge against fetishizing process. The point isn't purity; it's fit. His work often makes the audience feel the machinery behind the experience, and this quote explains why: the machinery is part of the statement.

Quote Details

TopicArt
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Noto, Alva. (2026, January 15). I always try hard to arrange all media in a way so that it expresses what I want - this is not limited to one medium alone and varies from case to case. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-always-try-hard-to-arrange-all-media-in-a-way-157692/

Chicago Style
Noto, Alva. "I always try hard to arrange all media in a way so that it expresses what I want - this is not limited to one medium alone and varies from case to case." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-always-try-hard-to-arrange-all-media-in-a-way-157692/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I always try hard to arrange all media in a way so that it expresses what I want - this is not limited to one medium alone and varies from case to case." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-always-try-hard-to-arrange-all-media-in-a-way-157692/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Alva Add to List
Alva Noto on choosing media to serve expression
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About the Author

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Alva Noto (born September 18, 1965) is a Artist from Germany.

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