Nicole Vella is a computer artist and web developer residing in Toronto, Canada. She works with computers and code to create artworks and installations that invite interrogation into our relationships with technology and the world at large.&nbsp;Her works have been featured in public installations in Toronto, Canada and in galleries in New York, and have recently been included in exhibitions organized by <a href="https://www.brightmoments.io/" id="">Bright Moments</a> and <a href="https://feralfile.com/" id="">Feral File</a>.

In Conversation with Nicole Vella on This Is Not A Rock

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One day in 1991, I went swimming in a lake. Going out to the deepest point where I could still tippy-toe touch, I felt a large, smooth rock with my feet. I could barely dig it out and bring it to the surface. [That rock](https://express.adobe.com/page/yTCRoiQjChyRe/#rock) is still with me. I once thought I lost it. Six months later, I found it in the trunk of my car. I threw a party to celebrate its return, but it was just us two.

The rocks you see here are not my rock. They are not rocks. They are not even images of rocks. They're code. But does that matter? If I were to show and ask you "What is this?", you'd probably say "It's a rock". So then, what is it? The title and imagery borrow from René Magritte's paintings [Treachery of Images](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images) and [The Castle of the Pyrenees](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_of_the_Pyrenees). Like those paintings, *This is Not a Rock* acts as a gateway to introspection and encourages the viewer to question what they are looking at while thinking about the interplay between object, representation, and truth.

*This is Not a Rock* continues my exploration into Quines (software which outputs its own source code). In the scene, a large rock hovers, defying gravity. Behind the rock, a backdrop of computer code; combining the digital and the physical. The code you see is is the actual code used to generate the scene. It is all created inside a single-pass fragment shader with Javascript and GLSL, and rendered using a technique called Raymarching.

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This Is Not A Rock

Nicole Vella

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In Conversation with Nicole Vella on This Is Not A Rock

Previewing the Art Blocks Curated Fall 2023 Program

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This Is Not A Rock

Nicole Vella

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Heart + Craft: The Latest Project by Snowfro

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