Quantum Digital Art Season 1 Artist Interview: Nicolas Sassoon
We sat down with Nicolas Sassoon to speak on his career in digital art, experience in Web 3, and his biggest influences
With his latest project, SLABS, Nicolas created a collection of new works developed from these fundamental concerns that guide his visual research: the expression of depth, materiality, space, and scale through limited color palettes and compositions, yielding moiré patterns and other pixelated illusions.
Quantum:
Who have been your biggest artistic influences, and why?
Nicolas Sassoon: My biggest influences have always been early computer graphics and natural environments. I grew up by the ocean in coastal cities in France and I experienced both of these very different environments on a daily basis. Computer and videogame systems like the Apple Macintosh and the Atari 2600 gave me an affinity for digital abstraction: I’ve always been fascinated by early computer graphics and their ability to express space and materiality through a minimal visual language made of pixel patterns, limited color palettes, motions and light. I’ve also done a lot of outdoor activities connected to the ocean - surfing, diving, swimming – these activities have been very impactful on my imagination and on what attracts me in terms of sensory experiences. I’ve tried to connect these inspirations in my research for the last 15 years, especially in my abstract work, and my project SLABS is a perfect embodiment of these influences. The artists Bridget Riley and Jesús Rafael-Soto have also been very inspirational in my practice, in particular for their respective research on how to mediate experiences of nature and landscapes through kinetic, interactive and optical art forms
Quantum:
What was the process of creating the artworks for this collection?
Nicolas Sassoon:
The artworks from SLABS were created using a moiré pattern technique which I developed over many years of experimentations. This technique consists in the overlap of two images to create the illusion of a third image. I produced all the works from the collection using this optical process, and you could say that they’re all optical illusions. The textural elements of the animations were generated during this first step, I was trying to evoke an organic surface which can appear both liquid or solid: I was thinking of sand textures, tree bark, rain storms, water ripples. Some textures display very intricate motions while others display very broad motions. I wanted the textures to feel like they were from the same “environment” subject to different variations.
The next step was to create minimal vertical and horizontal compositions. My intention with these arrangements was to suggest large blocks of matter, or geological layers stacked together. I produced over 100 compositions, after which I selected only 50 of them. This is something I often do when I work on a series; I create a lot and then select the most successful pieces. I wanted these compositions to feel like they belonged to a cohesive system, and some of them respond to one another. The final step was to define color palettes: there are 18 color palettes in total, 15 color palettes were applied to 15 sets of 3 artworks, and 3 color palettes were applied to singular works. Some palettes were created after landscapes I’ve been to, some others reference environments I’d like to experience, while some others evoke completely imaginary places.
SLABS, like much of my work, is also built around self-imposed limitations and trying to explore these limitations as much as possible. I’ve been very influenced by abstract painting and procedural art in that regard.
Quantum:
Precisely what is it you want to say with this collection, and how do you get your artwork to say that?
Nicolas Sassoon:
One of my goals with SLABS is to express notions of depth, of materiality, of landscape, of natural and imaginary places using a visual language pertaining to digital abstraction: pixelated textures, simple compositions, fields of color and motions creating optical illusions. When you look at the works, at first you see a series of colorful abstract compositions – horizontal, verticals, all-overs. But after some time spent looking at a specific work, my hope is that the moving textures, colors, arrangements may evoke – let’s say – a waterfall, a forest, a cliff, a frozen sea, a lava field, an alien planet, etc. The interpretations are open, my intention is more about evoking sensations of real and imaginary places, and creating a contemplative experience through a screen. In that regard, the works have been conceived to be seen on a wall-mounted screen, or projected on a wall: they were created to eventually become part of an interior like an abstract painting, or a landscape, or a wallpaper.
Quantum:
Is there a piece that embodies the overall collection and can you share the story behind it?
Nicolas Sassoon:
SLAB 47 is a very important piece for me; I created it in 2015 and a lot of my ideas for the collection came from this piece. At that time, I was experimenting with a large LCD display in my studio, and SLAB 47 was created through these experimentations where I would put the animation on the screen to see how it would look if it was part of an actual space, on a wall, at a larger scale. It was an important moment in my practice when I really started thinking of my digital work as something existing outside of my laptop and inside a living space, or an exhibition space. The idea of creating digital works for both digital and physical spaces was important in the creation of SLABS.
SLAB 47 was also part of an important exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris last year focusing on web-based artworks in relation with the history of abstraction, it was part of a fashion collaboration with UNIQLO in 2018, and it was also projected many times on gallery walls and music venues. It is also my first artwork exhibited in a major art institution that I’m releasing as an NFT.
Quantum:
How did you first encounter NFTs and Cryptoart, and when did it click for you that there was a lot of potential here?
Nicolas Sassoon:
My first encounter with NFTs was in the fall of 2020 when I got contacted by Foundation and SuperRare. It took me a few months to get involved, mostly because I wanted to educate myself and understand better what I was getting myself into. I finally released my first NFT in February 2021 and it triggered a bidding war which I’ll remember forever. I’ve been very fortunate to get such a positive response to my work, and I also started collecting NFTs in March 2021. The collecting part was an important moment for me in terms of realising the potential of the space: I was able to collect artworks from artists I had admired for a long time, in a format that I had always cherished, and to connect with them. I have met more artists and made more friends last year than I’ve had over the last 10 years, and all of it happened because of NFTs.
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/nicolassassoon
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/Nicolas_Sassoon
Website:
https://www.nicolassassoon.com/
Discord: Nicolas Sassoon#3423