INTERVIEW
In Conversation with Han and Nicolas Daniel
by Jeff Davis
Han is a recent college graduate who has been exploring NFT projects for the past year. Originally from France, Nicolas Daniel is a creative coder now living in Canada. I asked the two artists a few questions in advance of their upcoming Art Blocks collaboration AlgoRhythms.
Jeff Davis: Hey guys, it’s nice to chat with both of you. Thinking back, what do you think was your first exposure to art?
Nicholas Daniel: I think I've always been interested in creating things: stories, games, comics, etc. It was in 2013 that I started to create digital work. I was studying web development in France and discovered the endless possibilities of code to create 2D and 3D shapes and animations. From that moment, I started to explore the world of digital art, generative art and I fell in love with it.
Han: To be honest, I actually don't remember when I first started as most things touch art in life.
JD: How did you discover NFTs and crypto art?
H: I discovered it with Pak. I've been following him for a long time and when I studied his work, I realized that such a world existed.
ND: For me it was on Twitter. In 2020, a lot of artists I was following for a long time started talking about crypto art and NFTs. I started to learn about the subject and some artists like Roger Kilimangaro were very helpful and took the time to explain how it works. Since then, I’ve met and chatted with a lot of artists and collectors from all around the world and can't wait to discover more.
JD: Any recent accomplishments you’d like to share?
ND: I now work four days a week instead of five in my agency and devote this extra day to art!
H: I brought many artists together in my project called CryptoCubes & Creators and I continue to do so.
JD: How did the two of you connect with each other to work on this generative project?
H: I was following Nicolas Daniel and his projects for a while. We were both working on cubes and I was wondering what kind of work we would create together. Over time we started to have friendly conversations and decided to create a project together.
ND: Yeah, I discovered Han thanks to his project CryptoCubes. I was blown away that it was a student project, and that he learned code and so many other things to be able to release the project. We started discussing and quickly decided to create a project together.
JD: Alright, let’s talk about AlgoRhythms! What was the inspiration for the project?
H: Music boxes.
ND: The sound. Indeed, when we talk about generative art, we talk a lot about the visual aspect, but the code also makes it possible to create sounds. This was the starting point of our project to create colorful melodies.
JD: What should collectors look for in your Art Blocks project as the series is revealed?
H: AlgoRhythms are digital music boxes, and they contain twenty-eight different musical scales from different cultures. I’m excited to see what kind of original melodies will be created in these pieces that are formed with hash. Also look for single-note AlgoRhythms in the project and a surprise we named "silence."
ND: They should obviously look at the visual variety, but should definitely click on the output to discover the variety of melodies the series will create.
JD: Anything else people should know to better understand your art?
H: In my journey, I try to tell stories with my research and explorations. In short, all of my creations describe an exploring process.
ND: I’ve never really felt like an artist but I can say that I also love exploring new things all the time, mainly around code and automation as a medium.
