N ICKY A SSMAN N
NICKY ASSMANN
Witteveen+Bos Art+Technology Award 2020
NICKY ASSMANN Nicky Assmann (1980) lives and works in Rotterdam. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Film Studies at Amsterdam University and a master’s degree in ArtScience at the Interfaculty of the Royal Conservatory and the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague. Besides developing an individual oeuvre, Nicky is also part of the Macular Collective, which researches the relationship between art, technology, science and perception. Nicky Assmann exhibits her work worldwide, including a solo exhibition in TENT Rotterdam and with fellow artists from the Macular Collective in MOCA Yinchuan and the Boxes Art Museum, China and Wood Street Galleries, Pittsburgh. Her work is also included in group exhibitions in the Saatchi Gallery, London, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Art Rotterdam Week, Quartier 21, Vienna, V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam, Exit Festival, Paris and the International Sculpture Biennale of Carrara.
NICKY AS For Solace, Nicky received an honourable mention in the European StartPoint Prize 2011. In 2019, Nicky Assmann completed her first permanent artwork in the public space, the monumental video sculpture Turmoil, in the parking of Forum Groningen. In the coming years, she will be working on several projects and installations incorporating themes like sun, light, light refraction, movement, perception and turbulence.
SSMANN
Turmoil
FOREWORD Nicky Assmann’s work is inspired by natural phenomena and mainly focuses on sensory experience. Light and motion hold a particular fascination for her, due to their intangible nature. In her work, she plays and experiments with these phenomena. Nicky combines her open mind and observations with research and technical application. She merges artistic, scientific and cinematographic knowledge to compose art installations where light and colour often play a central role. To implement her ideas, Nicky often works closely with fellow artists and experts. In 2019, she completed Turmoil, her first monumental project in the parking garage of Forum Groningen. Turmoil is a 20-metre-long light sculpture, based on a tornado, with waves of hypercolours and flowing video images. The images are based on natural phenomena like turbulence and fluid dynamics. Using specially designed video synthesizers, Nicky created a beautiful and mesmerising composition that captures and holds the attention. When we first met Nicky, we talked about the technology and research involved in developing Turmoil. The principles of physicists Navier and Stokes that are being used to simulate flow in the video synthesizers, we also use in our models for calculating watercourses. This is essential in describing and predicting the behaviour of fluids in open watercourses, and it’s being used in projects such as the Room for the River projects, port development, ecological restoration projects or dyke reinforcement projects. It is really great to experience that an artist and an engineer so easily find each other in a common area. Who knows what mutual inspiration will bring us! Witteveen+Bos Board of Directors Wouter Bijman Stephan van der Biezen Eveline Buter
PANTA RHEI Once, while walking down the stairs as a child, Nicky Assmann succumbed to a mind-blowing insight. She found herself thinking about the universe and was simply unable to comprehend its size. It just kept expanding in her mind, so much so that she felt compelled to stop walking and sat down on the step. Her brain nearly burst at the idea of infinity and the thought that there could be giant people looking down on us like we look down on ants, and that these giants could be being looked down on by others too. She saw a maddening, fractal-like repetition of jumps on a scale, from microscopic to cosmic in size. Many of us have perhaps had similar experiences, but this sense of wonder at the nature of things has never left Assmann. In fact, it forms the basis of every artwork she gives life to. Her world is an amalgam of science – physics, chemistry and astronomy to be specific – technology, natural phenomena, and the visual arts. A few snippets: images taken by NASA’s JunoCam of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. This super tornado has been raging across the planet for centuries and is bigger than Earth. And turbulence, which was the inspiration for Turmoil (2019), Assmann’s pièce de résistance. This physical phenomenon is especially intriguing because science is yet to fully explain it. The story goes that Werner Heisenberg, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1932, once exclaimed: ‘When I meet God, I’m going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? and Why turbulence? I truly believe he’ll have an answer to the first one.’ Or black holes. The first photograph of a black hole (from April 2019) bears a startling resemblance to The Abysses of the Scorching Sun (2018), the images produced by her ‘light cannon’. But also inventor and light art
Text Nanda Janssen, curator and art critic living in Paris
pioneer Thomas Wilfred (1889-1968), who conjured up dazzling moving images of light with his Clavilux (colour organ). And the geodesic dome – a lightweight but very strong structure – and the jitterbug – a movable, flexible form – both stemming from the brain of homo universalis and futurist Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983). These last structures set Assmann on the path to her soapsuds installations, such as Solace (2011). Fascinating subject matter, even for an outspoken alpha such as myself. Nicky Assmann’s work revolves around movement, light and hallucinatory colours. These elements are a means of focusing perception. Her sense-tickling artworks lead one to experience (or re-experience) the pure pleasure of seeing, an activity many of us undertake only half-heartedly, without being fully aware of it. The artist’s films and installations stimulate the use of our senses’ full potential. And that gives you a kick. Psychedelic drugs don’t even come into it – just technology. ‘I develop tools you can use to ‘listen’. Actually, I make extensions of the senses.’ In the 1950s classic The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley describes his experiences with the drug mescaline. The book’s title is taken from a poem by artist William Blake (1757-1827): ‘If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.’ Nicky Assmann breaks those small windows open with her ingenious set of instruments. I suspect, incidentally, that her senses are more highly developed than the average person – but this is pure speculation. There is an entire field which focuses on dynamics, light and colour. Not least among the movements within it are the twentieth-century’s Kinetic Art, Op Art
Solace / Aurora
The burning of Aurora’s copper plates by Nicky Assmann.
(optical art) and Light Art. Nicky Assmann builds on the ideas of these art movements. While recently standing in front of the painting Tremor (1962) by Bridget Riley – the queen of Op Art – its similarity to Assmann and Joris Strijbos’s Fading Shadows installation (2016) immediately caught my eye. Riley’s painting consists of a black-and-white grid of triangles, some of them deformed. The result is the pattern’s seeming to move, turn and even break free of the painting. By different means, the artist duo also creates an optical illusion. A self-made light fitting with stroboscopic LED rotates in a darkened room, in front of a perforated metal plate hanging from the wall. The dizzying pattern that rotates before your eyes – in which new depths are constantly waiting to be discovered – causes a pleasant kind of short circuit in the brain. Both works of art are clever tricks of vision. The eye perceives something which the brain interprets differently. The system of visual perception is put to the test. Fading Shadows experiments with moiré patterns, an optical effect that occurs when two similar patterns are superimposed, one at a slightly different angle to the other. Although Nicky Assmann identifies with the aforementioned art movements, they are too limiting to define her. All the more so considering she adds an extra element to this optical theatre: a deep appreciation for nature. Nicky Assmann often finds inspiration during her travels. Exhibitions of her work abroad are a perfect excuse to get out on the road. With the Macular collective, of which she is a member, she made a road trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco. The route passed by a number of national parks. She hiked in sequoia forests, with the ancient, fireresistant trees towering above her; and in Antelope Canyon she was awed by the undulating, striped gorges which have resulted from millennia-long erosion, and admired how the light fell through the
weathered rock. She also discovered luminous jellyfish in Monterey Bay Aquarium; made acquaintance with thermophiles – brilliantly coloured microscopic and photosynthetic organisms that can survive at high temperatures and are linked to the beginning of life – in Yellowstone National Park; enjoyed starry skies in various deserts; immersed herself in the Northern Lights during a residency in Finland; and investigated whether a site in Portugal was suitable for testing kinetic wind and solar installations, before violent fire tornadoes raged there two weeks later. Nicky Assmann transforms the natural phenomena she admires into art. For example, Turmoil’s form – a LED sculpture concerning turbulence and fluid dynamics – is directly derived from that of a fire tornado. Self-shot images of jellyfish and the Northern Lights, among others, provided input for the video. In addition, an ecological turn took place in her philosophy around 2013. Participation in Dark Ecology, a three-year art and research project in the Arctic regions of Norway and Russia, provided the impetus for her slight change of course. During the project, Nicky Assmann was captivated by the ideas of James Lovelock – known for his Gaia hypothesis – the philosopher Timothy Morton, and Donna J. Haraway. Morton believes that the climate apocalypse has already well and truly begun and has called for a different understanding of nature. One without hierarchy, in which everything is considered equally important: humans, animals, insects, bacteria and non-living elements such as water and rocks. He calls this coexistence of all elements ‘dark ecology’. The feminist sociologist and biologist Haraway’s thinking is related to this. She argues for the abolition of the rigid boundaries between humans and animals, organisms and machines, and men and women. Instead of calling it the Anthropocene, she prefers to refer to the
Incidence of light in Antelope Canyon, image made by Nicky Assmann during road trip.
Liquid Worlds - Nicky Assmann & Joris Strijbos
current era as the Chthulucene, in which the human and non-human are inextricably linked. These thinkers inspired the artist to transform her depressive feelings and powerlessness in the face of environmental problems and climate change into a creative force. The Abysses of the Scorching Sun, the ‘light cannon’ that follows the path of the sun and projects light back towards it, is her first artwork directly linked to a climate issue – global warming, to be specific. Technology is essential for Nicky Assmann to produce the images she sees in her mind. Her fiercely inquisitive, do-it-yourself attitude was developed during ArtScience, an interdisciplinary master’s degree in The Hague. Empirical research is what leads her to make new discoveries or stumble upon new finds. Sometimes, too, the artist gives an old, existing technique a new twist – The Abysses of the Scorching Sun is, after all, essentially an enlargement of a theatre light slash old cinema projector. Due to the experimental nature, it often takes several years for an artwork to be developed. She worked stubbornly for years on Solace (2011), the soap film that became a hit and signalled her breakthrough. Though it had been considered impossible, Nicky Assmann was determined to use soapsuds to create a screen of monumental size, like a film screen and with the same 4:3 aspect ratio – a reference to early silent films. Her background in film (she studied film science at the University of Amsterdam) came into play here. She simply carried on creating mock-ups, adjusting and adapting, and concocting yet another soapsuds recipe until it worked. So, as well as a fresh perspective and inventiveness, a certain degree of stubbornness can be handy too. Nicky Assmann is careful, incidentally, not to get bogged down in technology. It should be subservient, just as a brush is to a painter. The final composition or the experience she wants to create is
paramount. Partly for this reason, she often works intensively with programmers, engineers and electronics manufacturers in creating the software, machines and electronics she requires. Various sorts of handmade instruments and technical gadgets appear in her work. For the soundtrack to the film Liquid Solid (2015) – another co-production with Joris Strijbos, in which a soap film freezes – the electric charge of the Northern Lights was converted into sound using a VLF (very low frequency) antenna. And the long, thin notes in that soundtrack were produced by self-made monochords – simple stringed instruments that trace back to Pythagoras – played with electromagnets. The Abysses of the Scorching Sun traces the sun’s orbit using a built-in tracking system which couples data from the solar database with local coordinates and times. For Turmoil, Nicky Assmann worked with two specially-made digital video synthesizers to create and alter photos and videos made by herself or obtained from other sources into smoothly-flowing imagery. Just as with musical notes, images can be used to compose with by manipulating them in terms of speed, direction, colour and other variables. Video synthesisers, which were popular in the 1970s (in analogue form), can be used to achieve this. The artist makes all this technical ingenuity seem straightforward – as if there were nothing to it – but there is actually quite a lot involved. These two custom-made video synthesizers and the differences between them, alone, would provide enough content for a weighty tome. And besides, how does one come up with such ideas: transforming the Northern Lights into sound?! A database of the sun’s position?! What a wonderful world she must live in! Although nature provides the inspiration for Nicky Assmann to create an artwork, the final result is always abstract. This raises the original phenomenon
The making of audio recordings with self-developed VLF antennas of the solar wind, which in the dark can be seen as Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) in Kilpisjärvi, the sub-Arctic region of Finland during the artist-in-residence of Nicky Assmann and Joris Strijbos for Liquid Solid.
Liquid Solid
to a higher level. Many artists who have something essential to say about nature – about what lies behind the visible reality – end up turning to abstraction. In the recent groundbreaking exhibition at Centre Pompidou, Women in Abstraction (2021), Nicky Assmann discovered several kindred spirits. One of the many artworks she was struck by was Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting Red, Yellow and Black Streak (1924). This is not surprising, since the painting has the same aesthetic as her own work. In wavy forms and bright pinks, yellows and oranges, the painter depicts the reflection of the setting sun on a lake. In her paintings, O’Keeffe aimed to capture the essence of nature and its rhythms beyond the visible plane: ‘The abstraction is often the most definite form for the tangible thing in myself that I can only clarify in paint … I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for.’ But The Swan, No. 13 (1915) by Hilma af Klint moved Nicky Assmann the most. This magical painting consumed her. Its creator – a Swedish artist, traces of whose interest in nature, mathematics and science can be found in her compositions – was a very spiritual person. Af Klint was involved in anthroposophy and also acted as a medium. Her canvases can be seen as a portal to higher realms. It is notable that many of the artists Nicky Assmann feels drawn to are spiritual, such as the aforementioned Thomas Wilfred, as well as Kandinsky, the composer and musician La Monte Young, and Georgiana Houghton, whose drawings – made while acting as a medium of God – were exhibited at Women in Abstraction. Yet Nicky Assmann herself has no spiritual intentions with her artworks. Nevertheless, her focus on the nature of things can indeed induce a spiritual experience. After all, that which one person calls God is called nature
by another. Her sensory visions put many in a contemplative mood. Personally, it gives me the not unpleasant feeling of insignificance – of being a tiny cog in an infinite universe. At such a moment, I have the experience of being in direct contact with the essence of life.
The Abysses of the Scorching Sun
Solace
Wervel
Liquid Solid
Radiant
Solaris
Circuit Dress
Aurora
Fading Shadows
Moiré Studies
Delayed Field of Visions
Sinking in Between
The Abysses of the Scorching Sun kinetic light sculpture 2018
Moiré Studies collaboration with Joris Strijbos 2013
Solace kinetic sculpture, soap film apparatus 2011
Delayed Field of Visions collaboration with Joris Strijbos work in progress since 2020
Turmoil video sculpture in public space 2019
Sinking in Between collaboration with Cocky Eek sculpture with light composition 2020
Liquid Solid collaboration with Joris Strijbos video installation 2015 Radiant kinetic light sculpture 2015 Solaris kinetic sculpture, soap film apparatus 2013 Circuit Dress performance 2009 Aurora sculpture 2015 Fading Shadows collaboration with Joris Strijbos kinetic light installation 2016
JURYRAPPORT With great praise for the other nominees, the jury of Witteveen+Bos Art + Technology Award announces the 2020 winner: Nicky Assmann. Although Nicky Assmann is a relatively young artist, she has already created some impressive works. She dares to think big and does not avoid complex projects. In developing her ideas, she initiates fruitful collaborations with fellow artists and experts to achieve the desired result. Based on her fascination with cinematography, she creates screens consisting of various materials, such as soap films, copper plates, metal grids and plexiglass. Not classic projection screens: rather than carrying the images, the screens themselves become the image. The movement you see is not a film but the transformation of the screen itself. We also see this specific approach in works with projected light phenomena: what we see is not a pre-recorded film but is generated in real time. By returning to the physical principles of our perception, her art can also be regarded as a commentary about our modern image culture, in which reality is increasingly mediated in a digital fashion.
Nature observations form the basis for her work, phenomena at both cosmic and microscopic scale. By zooming in on physical phenomena, she presents colours in a way that makes you look at colours ‘anew’. You can look endlessly at a soap film screen in which you see the colour spectrum, your own reflection, and which then suddenly ‘bursts’, before being lifted again. The jury admires the way in which she combines different scale levels in her work and how she makes the similarities between micro and macro patterns visible. She creates fascinating installations and performances because she continues to experiment with technology, which she often explores in depth. She always connects the experiment with the technology with ‘looking closely’ and clear artistic concepts. The jury is particularly impressed by the beauty of Nicky Assmann’s work and how, using technology, she manages to create engaging sensory experiences that not only enchant and amaze the observer, but also make you observe more precisely and experience what perception means.
JURY Maria Verstappen (Chair) was the winner of the Art+Technology Award in 2013, together with her collaborator and life partner Erwin Driessens. Driessens & Verstappen have worked together as an artist duo since 1990, and were trained at the Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts and Design and then at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam from 1988 to 1991. They are leaders in the field of generative art, both in the Netherlands and internationally. Their work has been included in the collections of various museums, in the Centre Pompidou in Paris, as well as the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and Centraal Museum in Utrecht.
Arie Altena is affiliated with Sonic Acts and V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media. He studied literary theory and criticism and has written about the interfaces between art and technology since 1993. He is the author of Wat is Community Art? and (co-) editor of various Sonic Acts publications including Travelling Time, The Dark Universe and The Geologic Imagination. Altena also served as co-curator of the Dark Ecology project. His texts have appeared in Metropolis M, Open, De Gids, Gonzo (Circus), Neural and Mediamatic Magazine, as well as various catalogues. Altena regularly gives presentations and lectures at art academies and other institutes of higher education. He previously worked as a lecturer in the Interactive Media MA programme of the Frank Mohr Institute in Groningen, and as editor of the magazine Metropolis M.
Robbert Roos has served as director and chief curator of Kunsthal KAdE in Amersfoort since its establishment. KAdE opened in 2009 and does not have a permanent collection, but houses a wide range of solo and group exhibitions in the field of art, architecture, design and contemporary culture, showcasing the work of both Dutch and international artists. It is housed in a striking building on the Eemplein square in Amersfoort. Roos worked as an art consultant for the Mondriaan Fund and the Council for Culture, among other institutions. He was chief editor of Kunstbeeld magazine for eight years, and worked as an art critic for many years after completing his studies in journalism.
WWW.NICKYASSMANN.NET Editing
My immense gratitude goes out to
Photography
Fellow members of the Macular Collective: Joris Strijbos, Eric Parren, Daan Johan, Matthijs Munnik and Jeroen Molenaar
Witteveen+Bos
Nicky Assmann Gregory Bohnenblust Seth Culp-Ressler Mariette Dölle Ruth Dragt Alvarez Sebastian Frisch Sander Heezen Jenne Hoekstra Aad Hoogendoorn Ed Jansen David Joosten Joey Kennedy Pieter Kers | Beeld.nu Paula Lambeck Grace Parker René Passet Jan Sprij Joris Strijbos Cloud Mine Photography With thanks to
Nanda Janssen Graphic design
Houdbaar Print
Zwaan Printmedia Binding
Binderij Van Wijk © 2020 Witteveen+Bos Art+Technology Award www.witteveenbos.com 978-94-90335-13-7
Cocky Eek Robert Pravda Diederik Schoorl Dieter Vandoren Nenad Popov Stock V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media Sonic Acts The works have been made possible with the support of
Mondriaan Fund Creative Industries Fund NL City Council of Rotterdam Stichting Stokroos Kunstpunt Groningen City Council of Groningen Werktank and the Flemish Government TENT Rotterdam Klankvorm
ASSMAN N N ICKY A NICKY ASSMANN
Witteveen+Bos Art+Technology Award 2020