I can't code for the life of me. If you put me in front of the website and I have to go to page that after 10 minutes. I'm going to have a headache but drawing pixels and doing this kind of work. I could do it all day. And I would be the happiest person on the planet. So I don't know like over time. I figured out that this kind of working process even though it's not necessarily the most efficient. Even though it doesn't necessarily always make sense. I could code it or I could do.
it differently? The way I do it. I thought I really enjoy it. That was artist.
Nicholas as soon. I'm just gonna come out and say it right away.
I'm a huge fan and collector of Nicholas's work. It's likely the
old-school 1990s computer geek in
me, but I just find this deep nostalgia in the pixelated and early computer Graphics. Feel that is put into his work.
This is very much an episode where you're going to want to pull up the show notes head on over to
Don't XYZ and there, you'll get all the links to the various artworks that we talked about during the show. So you can just follow along.
Now. Nicholas is work, has long
been concerned with the tensions between the pixel and the physical screen
reflecting on their entanglement and materiality by integrating, pixelated
figures more a patterns and early computer Graphics into experimental displays. So while Nikolas does produce stand alone in
FTS, he also has beautiful physical sculptures. And in these sculptures are
All displays that will play his digital artwork as well.
Now on the nft side. He offers artwork on Foundation, super rare and hen. Some of his one of ones on super where I have recently sold for 5 to 7. E, Thor around 20 to 30 thousand US dollars,
but he also has larger editions available on hen one. Recent edition of, 2180 can be purchased for under one tent, so you
can call it six to seven US dollars with
gas, making it very approachable for the new collector, which is just awesome.
All right. Let's talk to him. This is Nicholas has soon.
Nicholas man. So great for you to join me. Thank you so much for being on the show today.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here. Yeah, I mean it's
this is such a crazy world because I'm so used to interacting with folks on Discord and Twitter and then to actually actually hear someone's Voice is awesome, you know, and then I was just at Marfa. Texas recently. We did the our blocks.
Up and meeting everyone. All these artists that unique known respect face-to-face. Is is awesome. I'm bummed you make it out for that.
Yeah. I mean I was going to ask you how that went. It looked like a really really cool and really meaningful events.
I felt very special. I was like the launch of the art blocks official kind of Gallery House headquarters, and they had a bunch of fantastic artists and great panel discussions, like a classic like backyard kind of barbecue text.
Is style and the back, and there's some bar, meetups, and just hang. It felt like very early South by Southwest days, which is a, you know, a pretty popular conference in Austin, Texas. And so, you felt like the beginning of something pretty big, which is, which is cool. But I hope to meet in person at some point. Hopefully, covid permitting.
Yeah, for sure, that'd be amazing. I mean, we're both on the Pacific Northwest. So yeah, very far.
Yeah. It's actually funny. So you're in Vancouver, correct?
Yeah. Yeah. I'm
Originally from France and I moved in Vancouver in 2008. So it's been
13 years that I'm here. I will be up there early part of next year. So we should we should definitely hang then.
Oh, yeah, but but yeah for those that
don't know you via my retweets and of your
work, which is awesome. Let's get
into your background and kind of what got you started in the whole crazy world of then FTS. And you have such a very specific vibe in the in the whole kind of
Of like that really resonates with me. Being someone that was back into, like, the old school days of bulletin board systems, and all the old Tech because I am sold.
Right. Same here. Yeah. So let's talk
about like, you're kind of like world. How did you get started in the art
world? How did I get started in the art World? Well, I went to Art School from like 2001 to 2007. Prior to that. I was always doing some paintings and drawings. And I guess after I passed my
Baccalaureat, which is like the big exam in France when you're like 18 as like I really don't know what I want to do aside from painting and drawing. So I went to art school and seven years into art school. I kept doing painting and a lot of us are sayings but it's really when I moved to Vancouver in 2008 that I start really exploring early computer Graphics as sort of a sort of really stopped what I was doing in art.
School was doing a lot of video arts and a lot of different sort of works with like a very different visual language than what I'm doing now, and I moved to Vancouver and I just had my laptop. I didn't really know a lot of people here. So the funny thing is I kind of gave up on our and I was like, I really want to explore. I really want to explore early computer Graphics. I really want to take the time to like explore this imagery to learn about it to experiment with it without thinking too much about where
Going to Lead Me Without Really knowing where it's going to lead me. So that's when it all started in 2008. So it's been yet. I do the work I make today that you see social medias or on my website, is really, like really began in 2008 2009. Hmm. And when you
say early computer Graphics, when someone starts to explore that is kind of funny because I, you know, you know, I've been chatting on Discord about the tools you use and what not. And I've been also fascinated with this because I remember
I've never shared this view, but I study computer animation in school and I was using old Amigas and then Video Toaster machines. And I was using a software called LightWave 3D and a bunch of other stuff. And I think about those tools being just, it must be so much fun, and I haven't yet to do this, but I want to do this go and buy like an old PC off of eBay, get some like shareware, a CD ROMs, and like fire up a bunch of the old software and just use that as a way to kind of like time and Tool bound your creative process.
As and say, what can I do with these old tools is that some of the things you started to do, or what do you mean when you say explore the old old old ways?
Well, I guess I'm kind of cheating. I don't really use old machines and old softwares. When I, when I started exploring early computer Graphics. I'm really talking about a type of imagery from the mid-80s to like the mid early 90s. So really a time where home computers and video game console become like really
Really Mass distributed and available to everybody, but the chip set of computers are still very weak and images can really be displayed with a lot of visual information. So, everything is pixelated. There's a lot of pixel
patterns to try and represent
Shades of Grey or different gradients and color palettes or limited to like 8, 16, 24, 256 colors. So, in back in 2008-2009, I
I really wanted to explore that type of imagery more, because it had been like a very important part of my upbringing, but my tools were by the Adobe Creative Suite, sand just like regular mainstream tools. And so, a big part of my process was to figure out how to reproduce this kind of imagery through the available tools. It's even harder in some ways, right. I give it some sense. It would be easier to
go by the old.
Wear and use the tools that created that aesthetic. But now you're saying I'm going to use modern tools to kind of go back and create a more retro type Vibe.
Totally. It's like a really crooked way to go about it because I could have gone the code route, but I'm like literally the worst coder on the planet. I can't code for the life of me. I've tried, but it's not, it's not for me. And so I kind of
try to do is what I had
available. And I mean, the thing that's really interesting about this Graphics, though.
Oh, is that when you look at images from like the first Photoshop or when you look at images from Apple Macintosh, or is the first IBM, PCS? This type of Graphics are very easily
reproduce. Ssible, what is
modern tools? Because they're almost kind of like the backbone of graphic tools that we use. Today is just that people don't really think to use them that way. So, in a way, like when I use Photoshop or when I use the tools, I use I make you
Like 0.1% of the functionalities of the software, but I have such like a very focused and specific and sort of like, I guess like unique working process with these tools that it leads to this kind of results. Usually what would you
classify if you can? Is there a genre of art that you would classify yourself as falling into? Is it, is it retro? Is it pixel art? Like what what do you think? How do you frame?
That
I mean, I usually introduce myself as a visual artist because I feel like I work across multiple fields for the last 10 years. My career was really focused on Contemporary Arts. So all these early computer Graphics that are sir, like the major inspiration of my work and the visual language that I use in my work then gets used for a lot of different things. And by I make,
Those animations, but I also make a lot of friends. Make a lot of sculptures. Sometimes I collaborate with fashion designers on different, sort of prints and patterns for textiles. I did a lot of installations a lot of Creations from music festival. So I relate to these categories like retro pixel art or like people say talk a lot about Nostalgia and I think like all these things are are contained within the work. I I haven't really
We come up with like a good category because I feel like if I put myself in a categories, then it's like well, everything. I do needs to fit that category good point. But at the same time, I'm very comfortable when people are like, oh like you work is so retro or your work is like really like pixel whatever vintage or nostalgic. It's like. Well I get it because everybody has like a different emotional response to a work and it's not my place to tell people. No you shouldn't have that response. So you shouldn't think that
About my work. It's like once the work is out there. It's like everybody can make whatever they want out of it.
Yeah, it's so awesome. But I was in preparing for this interview and pulling up all of your different projects and I must have like 10 tabs open right now as we're speaking. It was really hard for me to decide which projects do we talk about because you are so good at. I mean even your I just love some of the actual physical stuff you've done with like the rock with the display coming out of that.
I guess you call it the prophets. Is that correct? Mmm. Yeah, thank you. Some more, the sculpture stuff. This just so, people are listening. I'm going to have a whole Treasure Trove of show, note lengths. So, you'll definitely want to kind of follow along as you here is talking about these because it, it obviously audio doesn't do it justice. The, the prophets, can we talk about that one briefly? Because that is more of a physical piece or pieces. Mmm. What was your thinking there?
Yeah. So the prophets is a project. They started in 2019 and so on.
Said, it's the series of sculptures that are centered around these sort of lava rocks that are Pumas rocks. And then you have the Lava Rock sitting on this sort of display. And there's a screen with like a Longneck coming out of the rock that almost can look like a human or a humanoid figure or like some sort of figure or can look like things. That's more vaginal, or like a gross. It depends on like, how, how people see, or interpret the shape. I guess, my main,
Main my starting point for that project was to try and give these rocks to sort of intense almost as if they were like haunted or inhabited by some sort of activity or like spiritual activity or some sort of expression, and I wanted the technology like the screen and all the cables to become the sort of interface by which you see the contain in the Rocks. It's almost is the yeah. That's hot. That's exactly the sense that I got.
Some ones. Like you were tapping into the brain of the
Rock. Yeah, exactly. That's a, that's a very good way to like, summarize, what I was trying to do. And I guess that the, the influence or like the inspiration from that came from, a lot of different things. I think, when you work a lot with digital, your relationship was like, materiality becomes a little bit different and I've always been, I've always been fascinated by, by rocks, like, collecting rocks, like, mineral specimens, or geological specimens. And one thing I've always been
Been fascinated with an interested in interested in is like volcanic cycles and volcanic eruption, because volcanoes are sort of like this cycle of creation and destruction. When, when you have volcanic eruption. It's sort of it destroys a lot of things. But it's also like the original of life in like many, many different ways and many different steps of like, the history of the earth. And so, that's something I wanted to try and tap into is that project and instead of
use technology as a way to mediate that to mediate this sort of
This sort of experience of geology's experience of volcanic activity. And so when you look at the sculptures, you have this lava rock and then you have this screen that almost like stares at you and and the screen is showing the sort of animation of pulsating, lava. That's like very, very soothing and very calm but also, I guess like a little bit ominous depending on how you look at it. And yeah, it's almost as if like, you know this Cycles in this activity that
Narrated the Lava Rock was still kind of contained within the Rock and expressing itself.
It's so beautiful. He's a really cool. Did you sell these at a gallery or how did you end up? How many did you make in total? Well,
I made a bunch that I think I made like 12 or 15. So some of them look a little bit like
Bonzi. I don't suppose you could say the Bonsai one is looks so cool. They do right now. It looks like he's like a lamp hanging off of the Bonsai piece.
Yeah. It's like a lantern almost because there's four screens. So when you look around like when you were sir, like walk around the
Ultras. There's always a screen facing you and it almost looks like a little man turn or a lamp. I made. I made a few, I made like three or four different ones that kind of look like the trees. So you have the lava rock, you have the tree like a branch coming out of the Lava Rock ends and you have
this sort of lantern hanging
of the of the tree branch. Actually that tree branch is actually a type of tree from the West Coast called montanita. I don't know if I don't do it. It's a really interesting word. It's like a short.
It's like a tie.
Or shrub or I could
small type of tree that grows all over the West Coast on the coast. It doesn't grow in man in all Negroes by the ocean. And the funny thing about this tree is that it has this seed and the seeds can only
Sprout after a fire. Oh crazy.
So it's like, it's almost like further tree to Kip living. There's a need for some sort of death or something. It's like after a fire zits.
And
usually also, small manzanita trees starts sprouting. And so it felt kind of appropriate for for that project because we talked about like volcanic cycles and creation destruction, life and death. So I used that I made about 15 sculptures. And usually, I showed them in museums and I have the has been representing me in Vancouver for the last eight years now.
And so, I've been selling quite a few through my gallery. I also have like a few of them with me right now, as we're talking, because I met my Studios right behind me. Very
cool. How do you how does one? I mean, when I take to take a look all of your entities and how much success you've had there and then you also have this physical real-world component. How do you balance that? How does he, how do you wrap your head around that going forward? I, that's the one of the things I wonder about these artists, like, in some sense.
It's and correct me if I'm wrong here, but it would be a lot easier to just stick to a lefties.
Then we have the physical know like absolutely no question about that. I mean, to be honest, the last eight years of my career, if I'm really honest with myself, what I really love making is animation and that's all that's always going to be the starting point for everything. I do. I start with digital sketches. I start with animation and that's really, I don't know. That's like my happy place. I guess they're like my
Mm of choice and then trying to survive in the art world. I very quickly understood that just making digital animation wasn't going to cut it and that I had to sort of diversify my practice, and I've always enjoyed that I've always enjoyed like being able to do a lot of things during projects in Contemporary Arts. I'm making prints making sculptures, but also like collaborating with fashion designers, collaborating with music festivals like working on installations.
I've also done a ton of like underground events in Vancouver where I would go produce events with music producers and I
would make projections in this space.
So I've always I've always loved that and it's also being like very useful because it's there like you diversifies your range of activity. It feels like you're not relying on just one thing now. Since NFC is like you were talking about. How do I make a balance? I don't make a balance. I'm like dive in like full force in nfc's and that's that's pretty much all I'm doing now since February.
Oh,
wow. So, what was the first and ft for you to really would that you produced and how crazy was that experience? Was it the wild west, like, did you have any idea what you were doing? Or were you pretty technical enough to know? Oh, this is the thing that I should just jump into
know. I really, I was really skeptical at first. I think super rare and Foundation, contacted me last year. And at first, it was like, what is this? Like, this looks like a scam. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about that and I
I kept paying attention to it. I think from like, October or November, 20, 20. And so like February, which is when I released my first NST. I just kept looking at it, and I kept seeing like I was like, Mom, this is actually pretty good. And then, I kept seeing artists that I really like jumping on board and
So, I don't know. I think it was like a slow process for me also because I've been so burnt on like different projects in the past that have been like very promising for digital artists saying like, oh, we're creating this new Marketplace. It's going to be great. You guys are going to make lots of money. Your work is going to be valued and appreciated. And at the end, it never really quite worked. So I've came to a Nifty like, very suspiciously and through baby steps. And then in
Library. I released my first one on Foundation. I believe. It's this work called alone in the sea and it's sort of like this like Deep Blue Wave. That's undulating. And there's this little red dot that's floating on the surface of the wave and from then onwards. It's been pretty crazy.
Yeah, it's this is really cool to see the kind of your Evolution. And, and also you've taken your art in so many different directions. I feel like one of the things, I guess, one of the styles that I wanted to cover is this kind of retro almost like the first Mac graphical interface and I think on your website you call it Pandora. What was what was Pandora referencing? What? What is that style?
Oh, Pandora is the name of the street. I live in in Vancouver. So that was the whole.
The whole beginning of the whole project Pandora was, I think it started in 2015. And this this organization called opening times from London invited me to do an online residency. And usually when you are an artist and you do an art residency, you go somewhere and like you go into like an art center or like the studio and you cannot, you cannot work with the tools that they offer you and you stay there for
A certain amount of time. And so at the time when they offered me, the online residency as a quite is an online resonance effect into. Like, where does it happen? Exactly? Yeah. I said, I don't even know what that means. Yeah, exactly. And so at the time, my studio was at my house and so I was like, well, I guess I'm doing a residency at my studio in my house. So I called it project Pandora, because I live on on, Pandora Street in Vancouver that I made like this series of works that were like, some of them are.
Section of my Studios. Some of them are depiction of my house. Some of them are inspired by like the window shapes of my house. And so I kind of use my house as this sort of like, I guess like this this source of inspiration for manifesting different works. And yeah, it's the first time I kind of explored also like really large-scale works. There's like this work in Pandora called Studio visits one and Studio visit to and they're really large work. They're like 4K animation.
That are this sort of isometric representations of my studio. Wow, you
can click in on these I didn't even know you could click in it.
Yeah, you can click in. Oh my God. These are huge. Yeah. Yeah, they're pretty big. Yeah as so you can scroll around and so like the first ones to do visit one is sort of like this depiction of my studio where there's like all these prints and sculptures but everything is animated. So it's almost like
The sculpture is in the prints are like in digital form. Like they're they're animating and they're flashing and so it's kind of like a I guess like a player responds to like how artists have represented their Studios over time in the history of Art and like, a psycho, like a painter is gonna paint themselves in their Studios with like other paintings or like a, sculptor is going to make a
Self portrait of them like sculpting and I was like, well, I'm going to make an animation of my studio with all my Works in digital form and that that was kind of like the the bases. And then I made a second, a second one. I think called Garden visits which is kind of like
It's kind of like a funny kind of commentary on like Vancouver and just like artists in general. We're like, the whole studio has been turned into like a weed grow up. We're like, instead of having art. You just have like this weed, plants growing. And I guess I made that like in response to like, a couple of things. The first is like, well when you're an artist, it's like, how do you make ends meet? And then also because in Vancouver, like, a lot of people at the time, like, relied on relied on growing weed to like make ends meet, not me.
Like a lot of my friends did so I don't know. I kind of wanted to, I guess I was intending like some sort of social commentary through the piece. It was like, definitely misinterpreted. Like, a lot of people were like, oh my God, you're just like glorifying weed and everything is like, actually, I didn't mean that, but but yeah, it was like, interesting to kind of play with, like, my studio as like, just sort of basis for different works because I never really, until then, I never really used elements from like
My surroundings into my work. So that was that was
something very new to me. And it was kind of exciting. This is so cool. We're going to link up Studio, visit one and the second one. One of the things that I wanted to ask you about. This is it is such large scale. And
how did you create this? Like it's like, did you
go manually and just do pixel-by-pixel. Like, let me take a really basic example, then we go into something crazier, but
The chair, the chair sitting in front of your desk is a very like I wouldn't even call it 8-bit style. It's more evolved than that. It's like, I feel like it's it's early Mac interface. Like Vibes.
How, how did you build that? Yeah. I mean it's kind of drawn. It's sort of like manually drawn and then sometimes I use like a very simple 3D model and I sitter export an image and isometric perspective of it and then I retouch it and I redraw on top of it. So
So it's extremely extremely time-consuming. Yeah. Say this whole thing. Everything is
animated in here. I mean, this looks like it probably took you, what? Three, four, five
months each of them took me about like three weeks or four weeks because I was just working on it full-time. Also, it was, but there's something, I mean, I love doing that. It's like this thing is, like, I can't code for the life of me. It's like if you put me in front of like a website and I have to go to page that like, after
like, 10 minutes.
I'm going to have a headache but drawing pixels and doing this kind of work. I could do it all day. And I would be the happiest person on the planet. So I don't know. Like over time. I figured out that like this kind of working process even though it's not necessarily like the most efficient. Even though it doesn't necessarily always make sense. Like I could I could code it or I could do it differently the way I do it. I thought I really enjoy it and I can do it for hours and hours and hours and I would be
Be super happy. So, yeah,
on how much of this is, you sitting there, kind of doing, frame-by-frame, animation versus, do you have you refined a process? Like, for example, the on the studio visit one? This background has this like not pulsating blue, but this kind of blue, like, what would you call that? What style would you call that? Like the blue striping that's going on in the
background? Oh, the more a pattern. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, more. I'm proud of.
Is that something you did?
Once in a very small format and then replicated over and over again, or is it something where this entire project was just a series of frames that you had to go in and manually
animate. So the the moire pattern is actually like a whole part of my practice that I've developed and if you go on my website, it's called patterns on the homepage. And so that body of work is really based on digital more animation techniques that I sort of came up with over time. And really, what
It is it's two images overlapping on top of each other and one image is moving or two images are moving and it creates the illusion of motion and it creates the final animation. So it's actually it's not done frame by frame. It's usually I usually use Flash, which is called animate now and I have a background. I have a foreground usually is a foreground is transparent or has like negative space. That's transparent. So you can.
Overlap, post images and and that creates the final animation and its really. If you look at more pattern, there's a kind of like a significant history of my patterns in kinetic art and optical art artists would do kind of like the same thing as I'm doing, whereas it would take like two images that would be like the little bit transparent. They would overlap them and it would create the illusion of a figure or would just create this geometric shapes.
And I basically translated that sort of working process into a digital workflow. So yeah, that's the first step and then there's a lot of there's a lot of like image post-processing. So for example, when I do one of these animations, I export an image sequence and then I will reinforce each image on Photoshop and do some modifications and write a script. So this modifications are recorded and apply to every single image of the image sequence. And then I just reek sport
it.
I say very cool.
I don't know if that made any sense or not.
No, it does. It sounds like it's a prospect that the process that it's kind of Uniquely Yours. Like, you've must spend a lot of time kind of honing this in.
Yeah, you know, it's funny when I was in art school. I was looking at painters and I was like, so jealous of them because like Z arrive at their Studio. They have their paint brush. They have their like tubes of paint. They have their canvases and they're just kind of like doing their own cooking or like recipes. And
Just they just do their own saying and they kind of know what they're doing. But they're the only ones who know what they're doing and I was looking at them as I really want to do something like that. Not painting. But like, I want to, I want to find my shtick. I want to find the thing that I can do that. I really enjoyed doing that I can do for hours and hours and that's going to be like very unique to my practice. I guess. So I always
I don't know. I kind of developed my practice consciously or unconsciously towards
that. It makes makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I mean, it clearly, I think you've found it. I'm curious about a couple of the others, the home studies. So I've told you this on Discord, some of my favorite just so simple, but beautiful, and what a fantastic thing to actually have up in your own home. Like, I just can't wait to get a digital frame. You'll put mine up on on the wall. Walk us through that one. So
home studies. I think I
Is this whole
body of work around 2010 and we talked a little bit about 3D modeling on Discord the other day. And so when I discovered 3D modeling, I discovered it because I was doing this, like, gigs for a different like, architectural firms. And one thing that really stuck with me was how how 3D models became like really important in like the promotion of architecture today, and like how to sell architectures because most most
New condominium complex in most new like buildings or sold and promoted to clients through 3D renders. And that really stuck with me as I call. That's really interesting how, like, people just like buy things for for millions of dollars based on just a rendering. So I kind of started experimenting with very simple, 3D modeling programs. Kind of worked a lot with SketchUp because the learning curve is really fast and for what I was doing.
Was really enough. I didn't really need more
features. And yeah, I started developing these series of architectures. That are more like, I guess I call them studies because that's what they are. They're just studies. They're like very simple, like simplified versions of architecture where you just have more like the overall shape and features of an architecture. And then this architecture is usually presented as rotating and Leslie. Almost kind of like an item.
I'm in a video game like a possession like a, I don't like a potion or
something. Oh my gosh. I think you're nailing White's resonating with me because yeah, I remember playing those old games and you like collect something in cycling and like floats in the air and then
rotates. Yeah, exactly. And it's like, I don't know, like there's something about like architecture being like these sort of items like that, like these desirable items that really resonated with me. And so I kind of I kind of wanted to treat architectures almost like this sort of like this items was like different
Pretties and based on like the background, I would set up. Then it would create a stage like the one you collected. It looks like it's it's like daytime and unlike some other works on that series look like they're at like nighttime or at sunset or at Sunrise. And so it looks like this house is that are floating that you don't, you don't really know where they are. They're just kind of like floating in limbo, but there's something kind of desirable about them because you sort of want to
Explore them. I don't know. That's kind of what I was trying to infuse in the work.
Hmm. Yeah, it's wonderful stuff that they're really, really cool because they feel so so simple. But yet you can tell it's very confusing when you look at it. Like how was this created? Because it's like in some sense, you're like, well if it was 3D it would be way more complex. And and, and just like rendered feeling you, what I mean, right? And they're like, well, if it was hand drawn, there's no way he could, rotate it like this and hand, and they do this by hand.
It's a very confusing piece to look at but it's so simple that it's just, yeah, I think he hit it out of the park. But this one really,
really thank you. Thanks so much. The I seek like the pixel patterns also, like create like, a sort of trig because when you first see the animation, it looks like there's like these different colors. And then when you look at it upon second inspection, your realize that it's more like just this pixel patterns almost like Black and White and then there's a gradient behind. So,
so that's that's something that's really fascinating about early computer Graphics from the 80s is that no image weasel, like a lot of visual information were translated into images was just like two colors. And so we see two colors. You have to create like, all these sort of visual artifact is pixelated patterns that the image a lot of texture and a lot of character. And that's really what I love exploring, is how these textures and houses, this sort of patterns can just create like
Really unique and compelling aesthetic, experience
that makes a ton of sense given that you are so good at patterns. And it now I can see that that is kind of the uniqueness of a lot of this is like the patterns that you come up with that you animate. They are what really make this stuff pop in a very subtle way, but a very interesting way it's cool stuff. Like, well, I'll give you another example. My favorite piece of yours. Is this poster? The
Sixth Avenue Skylight, which has this kind of like animating pattern texture that's going down the front of it and it's got a
frog. All right. Yeah. That that
is so cool. What was the inspiration behind
this? So as a whole project is inspired by my involvement in underground venues in Vancouver. So like from 2000 to 2012 till 2018. I've been co-producing a lot of events in Vancouver and
Rounds in use and I was doing projections for this event. So the whole project index Avenue and Skylight is, it's sort of like a way to look back at this, this like, six or eight years that I've been doing this and I really it represents like a really big part of my life. So I really wanted to like make a project around it and that particular work, you're describing called poster the, the original inspiration. Is this very old advertising for
Nurse pills. I think it's by Carter's. It's called Carter's little nerve pills. So it was like these pills. And at the end of the 19th
century, as a beginning of the 20th century
that were sold to help people with nervousness and just basically like when your, your stomach was bothered because you're too nervous and the, the actual advertising of the peel. Is that frog with sort of see that?
And it has like this really weird like Alice in Wonderland Vibe, but it's also like really creepy.
It's super creepy. It's gotta be a, you know, the Frog. Like standing up above the baby.
Yeah, exactly. He hates his super creepy. Yeah, it's super creepy. And so, it's really cryptic. But I guess, like, one of the things I wanted to evoke who is sort of underground. Venues is like, the nervousness of people, and especially of DJ's. Because when they have to like laser DJ said, they're all
Always really, really get nervous. And so like one of the producers that I was working with at the time was super nervous when it was her time to DJ and her favorite animal was the Frog. She was always like wood frogs everywhere. So I guess that poster is sort of like a sort of a response or like an evocation of that and usually when that work is shown, I tells a story because otherwise you look at the work and you're like, what is this mean? Like, where is this going? I don't understand and the work.
Geico way for me to just talk about talk about my experiences into spaces and the people I've worked with the sort of like culture and communities, that were surroundings who's just venues and
events. What would you describe this design style? As I get, it does feel like it could be a trading card almost in some sense. It feels like it could be a Dungeons and Dragons kind of
objects Only Yesterday. Yeah. I mean, it definitely has like this sort of trading card or
Like monster Might and Magic sort of. Yes, Vibe for sure. Yeah, very
cool. How do you approach? What you have so many interesting things here that I'm looking through your portfolio on through your archives. And how do you decide as an artist, which ones to release which ones to hold back the Cadence in which you release new things. Do you consider that as your kind of doing doing new drops, any some artists, you'll meet and
They're doing a weekly drop will drop 10 new items every week and
other artists are
one Co xcopy does something every four months or something. That's right. What, how do you figure out your own pacing?
I mean, it's a working process, to be honest. Like, I sometimes, I try to like, when I have a series that is already finished trying to say, okay. Well, maybe I can release one a week for the next four weeks and then it really depends on the, on the project I guess.
As I as I move into the nft space and as I sort of like discovers that culture and I grow into that space. I feel like some Works. Make more sense than others and I can't really quite pinpoint. Why or how but sometimes I come up with a plan and I have this series of works and I'm like, oh, yeah, they're going to be great as an F season's end up on second expection. I'm like, well, actually maybe you don't make that much sense. Maybe I should do something else and I
Try to, I don't know. It's like a way for for me to keep it exciting where I don't really have like a I don't have a roadmap to. Basically, I don't really have like a very exact idea of what I want. Like some of the works, including like the ones we've talked about. I don't want to release them yet. I will release them later. Some of the works have been released already, but I I try to make new work. That also is created in response to my
Chances of the nft space like in response to, you know, my new friends, the artist. I've met the collectors. I've met all the conversations we have every week because there's like so much that's been talked about every week and and yeah, and just like my personal experience of that space of what it has brought to my life, like the sort of the perspectives, it brings the art. I see because I see a lot of amazing art that kind of influences me and inspires me. So yeah, there's no
Long story short, there's not a very specific precise plan for what's to come?
We have this is I've really think that what you've done in terms of the Cure releases for me. It always seemed like it was very very thought out like you seem to have these different pieces that you release on different platforms. Is that true? Like do you think of different platforms as different Avenues? Create from a creative standpoint? Like do you release different types of nfc's on him versus Foundation versus super rare. How do you
Think about those platforms.
Oh, definitely. Yeah, like, I, I see each platform as like its own space in a way. I'm super like visual in terms of how I approach my work on the screen. So when I go on Foundation, when I go on super rare, when I go and take it neck, which are pretty much like the only three platform by I release works on, just the whole experience, a whole lay lay out the whole like ux/ui of the
Platform is gonna sort of trigger, some like different sort of responses. And I'm like, well, this work will look good on on this interface or is this environment? This work will look good on that. And also it's in response to like maybe like some of my experiences with the communities around this this platforms. And yeah, I mean, there's also like some limitations sometimes because working with gifts and working with like hard Edge, pixel patterns. When you convert your work to like video formats, you lose a lot of quality. So I also
I also have some words that I kind of I make like a lot of different versions of one work and I look what version seems to work the best and on which platform and then I kind of based it upon that. There's a, I guess. Like, the thing I should say is that there's a lot of, there's a lot of experimentation and a lot of trial and error before I release one work on a specific platform. I just kind of like, try it out and try to, like, see your preview. I try to see how it looks on that, but form versus that one and so that's how I kind.
Kind of make my decision.
I would imagine that as you're creating these different Works. They vary in terms of file size. Obviously, like the more sophisticated, a higher pixel count longer duration, in terms of whether it be actual video, or an animated. Give what is it? What does the landscape look like in terms of your options there? Like when you export a gif, is there a maximum file size issue that you run into where then you have to convert it to?
Video and do different platforms support, larger file types than others,
I guess. Yes, and no, I've always enjoyed working with limitations when I started making my work. As animated gifts. I realize that I was going to be limited to like, 256 colors, no matter what. I was going to be limited to file size that are downloadable easily and fast. Because, you know, when I started making that work in like 2010, 2012, not all internet connections, were that great. So I usually
Ali. I try to take that in consideration and try to keep file size to like, like 5 or 10 megabytes, those are workloads fast or well. And yeah, I've always enjoyed working with his limitations to see what I can get out of these limitations. It's almost like a bit of like, a technical Challenge on my end and now moving into the nft space, this whole sort of like negotiation around like file size and limitation gets real.
Evaluated, because this whole Space has, like different sorts of limitations that are really like specific to the space. I mean most platforms have like, 50 megabyte size limit, but it's like, if you make like a gift, that's 50 megabytes. Usually, it's going to be like pretty slow. It's going to take a while to load. So I don't know. I try to take these things in consideration, so I can experience of the work in the end is like really like seamless and and enjoyable.
but I mean, guests are not like a really
They're like a pretty light format. So obviously if you like if you make like a one minute long gift, but that's not going to be light and that's probably going to crash your browser. But so if I'm if I really want to make a work that's like one minute longer two minute long, then I will definitely
Go to words like a video expectation or like a different format than gift. But I've always really enjoyed gif as like this sir, like almost like little time capsules, you know, like this like little seamless Loop where it feels like temporality is kind of different. It's like this thing that has like no big inning or and then it's it's almost like an image that comes to life. That's like has like this sort of imbued with life, but there's not the temporality is sort of like non-existent.
Stand. It's kind of like floating in mid-air and it doesn't really have like this notion of like this is a big Innings decision. At least for my work. I think like a lot of people may give that have like more like a narrative Dimension or like a beginning, a beginning and an end or like more figurative elements that kind of like tell a story. But for me what I find really exciting is like yeah, like working on like this rotating object is rotating. Architectures is rotating landscape. That just feel like your
You're looking at some things that deploys itself in front of you and and time isn't really part of that experience. It's more like you decide how much time you want to put into that experience. Yeah, it is.
That's interesting. I didn't know about those. This gift limitations. They crash. Your browser is that due to this size of the gift, or is it what happens there? It would seem like a modern-day processor should be able to handle an image format. That was
Didn't like the early 90s or whatever.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think you wouldn't crash most browsers, but I think if your computer is pretty weak or pretty old, he would crash it. So I've always been a bit like Overkill when it comes to that and I've always tried to like make works. I would feel would like run smoothly on most machines even if like, the machine is ten-year-old and like use like a really crappy web browser, but I guess 50 megabyte gift.
Probably runs fine on, like 80% of my computers out there. But like, I don't know. I just get worried about the 20% of the computers are not going to be able to run it. So I try to make some things that like would potentially like rich, like a 95% or like a 98 percent Ratio or like most of the time it runs smoothly. Yeah, that makes sense.
When you look at these different platforms. We mentioned, you kind of look at aesthetically, how a piece would fit into the other pieces or
That particular platform hand is such a wild beast in the nature of like, yeah, Scrappy miss both in terms of it, just the availability of the website being online and a whole slew of other things, but it is such a fun. It almost has like an underground kind of vibe. Like you'd Miss totally underground, kind of like then use it. You participated in a back in the day that you do. You get that yet. So you get that sense as well. And then do you see that as kind of like the Indy?
Anti-corporate
platform. I mean, I love hen. Like I think it definitely is. It's definitely a platform. I really, really enjoy. What all it is. I'm curious. I see a lot of people say, they
don't like how it's like the interface is bad or they say, but I'd like to hear your story. What, what attracts you to
it? I mean the interface is bad. I mean, I can't deny that. Zakat is terrible. It's like, but what's really refreshing about it? Is that like you look at other nft platform and like the
Your face is like super polished and very like here. We're going to, we're going to take you on this like very comfortable journey and like here's the big buttons that you're supposed to click on and then you go on ahead and there's like none of that. It's like Bare Bones, right? It's like really rugged and I certainly love that because I don't know. It's really just about the Arts. It's not about like the interface of the platform. It's not about like shiny pretty buttons. It's not about like a really cool user experience. It's about the art and
And I love that. And I think I love the community around hand because the community around hand is amazing. I mean, I when I, when I started posting my first minting, my first works on hand so many people helped me like so many artists were like, do you need a hand? Like, can I can I walk you through that like do you need help or like here? Here's a free edition of this. Here's a free edition of that. So to me, it's like a hole where I like the community itself and Ike.
The platform are are creating this sort of ecosystem. That's really, really welcoming and really built around like ideas of mutual support, and ideas of that camaraderie. And I, yeah, I just really loved that experience, because to be honest after, like, 10 years in the art world. I I didn't think that this experience could could happen because in the art world, I mean, I love artist and I love art and I love like going to see shows in museums.
They're so very little opportunities that everybody tends to like keep to themselves and it's like, even if you want to be nice and friendly and helpful to other people, you realize, at the end of the day is that like most people are not going to do the same thing for you. And so that you should keep like your opportunities and your energy to yourself and then like you arrived on a platform like hand and like everybody's helpful while not everybody but like a vast majority of people are like
Super helpful, super welcoming, super friendly. And and yeah, I mean that to me is like also like a huge thing and a huge part of my experience of the platform.
Yeah. That's is it because there's limited real estate in the physical world. Like I is it think I can imagine like a gallery, right? Like there's only so much wall space. There's only it seems like more of a let's fight to to get in here and maintain
Our position in here and be top of mind for the curators. Or is it that kind of vibe versus when I think about crypto? One of the things that I'm attracted to par? The reason why I do this show to honestly is like, I think if it is like this expansive pie, like there's room for
everyone here. Yeah. That's World. Totally know. And that's, that's the beauty of it is like everybody gets a piece of the pie and that makes it so much better. Yeah. I mean when it comes to the art world, I think it's like a sort of like a system.
Issue. And it's not really like I wouldn't say like it's the actors fault that I don't think it's like, Z artist fault, or like the Creator's fault, or like, the museum directors fault. It's just like the system and the structure doesn't have enough opportunities. There's not enough opportunities for everybody. There's probably enough money but like the waste produced tributed is really shitty. So at the end of the day, I mean I have like so many artists friends who are just as talented as me, who are just as great.
As me who are just as nice people as me and they feel miserable in the art world is feel miserable because they don't, they don't get opportunities and they feel like they're like they're failing because they're not getting these opportunities. And to me, it's not their fault. It's just that, like, this system doesn't offer enough opportunities for artists. And so when you arrive in the nft space, as an artist, especially as a digital artist, we're like in Contemporary Art when you make Digital Arts, everybody's like you didn't pick the right field. Get ready.
Mr. Like when you arrive in NST, you're like, what the hell? Like, what is this? It's like, people are friendly. There's tons of opportunities. People don't keep everything to themselves. Like they're like, you know, offering their time and energy and yeah, I mean, that's I guess that's like a really also, like a really big things that I'm so why I'm So Into n ftc's, like the black, the mutual support the wealth, redistribution like trying to include folks and
And people that have been like systematically like excluded from opportunities in like the history of Art and the history of society. And seeing that actually happened in NST. Space is just I don't know, it just gives me so much more energy and drive to keep like investing myself into that space because and it's like a I don't want to sound like pretentious. And I'm not saying it at all that, like that, but like I've been able to help so many artists in Exile.
The last eight months in nfc's, I've been able to help so many people way more than I've been able to help in like 10 years of career and Contemporary Arts. Wow, and that's just because there's so many opportunities in Estes and because it's the culture of the space because when I entered the space, so many people helped me. So many people were like here, this is how you do that. Here's this is how you should do. This. Like, collectors were advising me where like, you should release works like once a week, like, don't release too many works. Like this is how you shoot, like,
Like look at like your price points and things like that. I got so much help that I was like, well if I don't give back I'm really like the worst jerk on the planet that like I need to perpetuate that culture of of support. Because that's, that's also to me like a really big revolution like from like an artist perspective because, in Contemporary Art, I've never seen that. Like you see pockets of that when people gather into collectives and to try to like, create something that's like really in sir.
But like on a whole like systemic level like that. I've never seen it before. Yeah,
I agree. This is like, this is, what is so exciting and I would talk about just not being able to sleep and getting up in the morning. And really just wanted to jump back in and see say, good morning to everyone. Yeah. Yeah, man, just like, I'm like, this is cool. I get this, like, bubbly excitement feeling in my gut. There's just, like, I haven't had since web to find.
For started, so it's pretty awesome. I'm curious, before we wrap here a couple last questions for you one and this is a really hard one and I always ask it to people and feel free to. Well. Let me, let me bound it by number then who are another two, maybe three artists in this space that are up and coming that you respect, that that you would like to draw some attention to are. There are there other artists that you look to and you're like, wow, they're doing really cool.
Us. I mean, there's lots of them. I know it's so hard to answer. Is it hard to be like because like I have a list of 20 like or 30, I mean, there's definitely like a few shoutouts that I want to give like, especially to like eggshells and pixel fool because it's been amazing. I things are like amazing and talented artist, but they're also like amazing human beings and they've been helping me so much and we've developed friendships that are like really, really meaningful to me.
Me, and then I can terms of like up-and-coming artist. I think, like, you know, they go by or counted on on Twitter. They're amazing. They're making like, really, really cool 3D work and they just recently created this project called magma on foundation with like tons of artists from Brazil, and there's like lots of experimental work. Lots of really cool things. Cool. Another artist that I really love is Linda Dunya. She's based in the car, and she also
Really cool curation on foundation called cyber bats and it's a lot of artists from the African continent and there's recent curation. What do you mean by that? It's like, just like World feature on Foundation, where artists can basically create like a page on foundation with different artists, so it's sort of like,
It's called world and I called it, like, curated selection. I think, like, everybody can sort of decide. What word they want to use applies. Best to to this sort of initiatives. What I think is cool. Is that some, you know, some artists that are acting as Community leaders in in Z. NS t. Space have are basically given the opportunity to like push the work of different artists and and also group these works together to
Sort of like establish a dialogue between all of these artists practices. So the Cairo did that with this project called magma and Linda Dunya did that with this project called cyber bat. And I think they're really, they're really like super exciting project. And then I'll have to give it like some shout outs to some like local artists who are really, really cool to who are based in Vancouver's. There's Kristen ruse, who makes
like amazing, amazing
works with like old Amiga and Ike.
Apple Macintosh, like he does works because like 25 year olds computers or 30 year olds computer. They're absolutely amazing.
There's also seen as in Kristen Ruth some of the the mega stuff is beautiful, which I can I can relate to because I first was trained on a me. Guess that's very cool.
Yeah, like his work is amazing and there's also fist pop and Alex Gibson who are two other artists from Vancouver who I just want to shout out because
They're amazing. I fist pump has like this really amazing practice where he didn't make this gigantic images that are like, I don't know, like 10,000 pixels by 10,000 pixels. Like, when you see them on,
On the NS to platform, make sure you check like the ipfs link is like when you see them in real size. They're like, it's like a whole world. It's like it's like I don't know. I hope they don't mind that comparison, but it's like it's like almost exploring like a video game map where there's like so many details everywhere and you can just like kind of scroll through the image. Yeah, I would definitely highly recommend checking out their
work. Fantastic and then last question. What's next for you?
Well, what's next for me?
I'm releasing a new work on show you next week normally and that's a pretty pretty big work. It's like a work. I've been working off and on for the last six months. It probably took me like two months full-time to create, it's called after and it's a it's a four minute long traveling through a sort of post-apocalyptic landscape. I've made this work in collaboration with a
music producer from Vancouver who is based in Berlin called LNS. And yeah, that's the thing. That's probably like my biggest work today that I'm going to release as an NST. So I'm pretty excited about that. Do you
know which platform you'll be releasing it on?
That will be released on a new platform called show you all the show you. Oh it I haven't you show you? That's interesting. Yeah, it's not out yet. It's like it's about to be launched. So I think October 15. Yeah, and so that will be like an interesting
experience. Very cool.
Awesome. Well Nicholas, thank you so much for being on the show. And I will, of course, link up your Twitter and on your Twitter page you have links to all of your other stuff. And so we'll make sure to push people there as well. But this has been a ton of fun to chat about all this and I hope when you have some other big project to talk about you'll come come back and tell us more
for sure. Thank you so much for having me. And yeah, it's been such a pleasure and such a privilege to be able to talk with you. Thank you so much. Kevin. All
right, that is it for this episode. Thanks so much for tuning.
Earning in. If you would like to help us out head on over to proof dot x, y z and click on the reviews button at the very top and leave us a five star review. Thanks so much. Take care.
