A few days almost a week ago I (re)discovered this artist named 'Nick Verstand'. Donno much about this guy, other than what we can all read on RA (Resident Advisor) and his own website. Don't even bother to open the RA link, no profile information, some upcoming and past events only. The website: Click on about.
As a good HIVEian I could copy/paste some of it including source recognition, or I could rewrite it in my own words. But why would I do so? Minimising the number of words and giving you the links, deviates this blog post much less from what I intend to be the core message. Also, hyperlinks are much easier to copy/paste 😂
Ah well: Let me tell you something about Nick anyways...
Who is Nick? Well, Nick had many roles in the past, from event organiser (yes, dance events), to light jockey and disk jockey AKA DJ. And probably mucho more other roles he took in the nightlife scene. For quite a number of years. Until he started to make more or less exposition art installations. Though I seem to be part of this nightlife scene longer than he, I never knew of his existence.
Until last year when I saw a post on Facebook. A post that snuck itself into my timeline. Posted by a Facebook friend; An acquaintance in real life. The name? Well, not important 😉 A post about my Facebook friend's evening at an event he was super happy about. Knowing his taste, it made yours truly immediately check it out. An event that turned out to be Nick's latest light show in one of our most prestigious concert halls in my tiny city of Amsterdam, Carré. I remember I couldn't choose a lot anymore. One day of events. Spots open only for the one with collaboration with some singer, Eefje de Visser (more about her down below). Time: Late afternoon, early evening. In the end, I didn't choose anything. Not sure why I decided not to go, but likely due to my work schedule or something. Most probably my work schedule. For some strange reason, I prioritise my office work over many other things in life. Not always, but too often to my own taste. Learning. Learning. Learning. We can and shall never stop learning 🙇
I totally forgot about him, her (the singer), and the event. About everything, essentially.
Until two six evenings ago when I saw one of my favourite talk show hosts on Dutch television and decided to watch this program on my laptop instead. One thing led to another and I found myself consuming Nick's website from left to right and top to bottom.
This guy's work impresses me BIG TIME!
...and that was the core of this blog post. My evolving admiration for Nick Verstand for what he does and creates.
Why this guy impresses me?
For many reasons with a few in particular:
- Collaboration with Iris van Herpen
- Collaboration with Björk
- Collaboration with Lowlands festival
- Skyline II project
...and many of his other projects. Such great light shows and effects this guy creates. Minimalistic in nature, something that I LOVE in almost anything, from music to fashion to colours, to furniture and the boxes we live in aka houses and buildings. Keep reading since I'll give you some more thoughts and stories down below.
Iris van Herpen: It was this Dutch designer I came across for the first time back in 2014/15. At that time I was digging into the 3d printing world. I believe in this time period, consumer printers were hyped. This segment I wasn't too interested in since all the 'home' printers were quite low quality. However, several companies around the world with big floors full of industrial printers. Shapeways for instance, is a Dutch company with printer factories not only in the Netherlands but also in the USA. Another one, iMaterialise. The 'consumer' play of Materialise, a Belgium company. It was this factory I visited a few times, to check the printer quality, but also to get inspiration and find ways to cut some deal with them. In parallel I was working with a developer to try and create a fully automated design-to-print tool. We never finished this, since it turned out we needed other type of developers to get things working the way I wanted. For some reason, I never hunted for these peeps I needed, and the idea and project came to a halt. Now 7 to 8 years later, I'm still surprised the idea I had, is still not created by the market. At least, I wasn't able to discover this when I searched for the current state of affairs some weeks ago. The main reason why I don't share my idea with you. I got some positive vibes again and may re-start the project. Who knows. No plan at the moment, but I have this itching feeling (the good kind) whenever I think of this.
Anyways, Iris van Herpen impressed me a lot back then. Her 3d printed shoes (voìla). Back then she started to experiment with dresses as well. Something she continued to do so (click me). Some of her 'best' work, you can find on her own website (here here). What a range of crazy dresses and outfits she made for some of the top actresses and models around the world! Don't you think?
Björk: One-of-a-kind artist in the world. She is known for her out-of-the-ordinary music and projects. Maybe because she is not being mainstream (though she is kinda mainstream in terms of the number of people knowing her music) I love most of what she does. Recently our own Steevc blogged about her latest album (here I am).
Lowlands: One of our longest-running festivals in my tiny country of the lowlands. Pop, Rock, Dance, Theater, Art: All combined. Already in the 90s I regularly thought: "I shall visit this festival", but I never did. By now this festival became so big, and so well known, that I feel I won't belong there. Regardless, I have great respect for the peeps running this weekend of pleasure thingy, every single year. Fortunately, the two years of covid didn't shut them down. Though short on finances, they survived.
Skyline II: Though this one is not my top favourite of all the light art shows Nick created, the Skyline II has this extra appeal to me since the only outdoor club (Thuishaven) in the city I live in, installed a very similar setup above their mainstage area. I never asked if they just got inspired by Nick, or if they actually worked with Nick to make this happen for them. Next time when I go there, and I'm able to spot the owner, I'll ask.
Intermezzo? Endnote? A peak into my grey mass...
Somehow I feel I can't stop here, not providing you information about other topics and peeps that crossed my path on my road to the re-discovery of Nick Verstand. There is still this somewhat mysterious singer, Eefje. And what about the talk show host?
I'll introduce you to all of them, don't worry 😉 Let's try this somewhat personal format. One that shows how I can get distracted and fully absorbed at the same time when I see something that strikes me. I'll try and give you how one thing led to the other in chronological order. Don't worry too much about the number of videos included. Just watch them all, from start to finish 😂 ...I mean it! Watch them! 🙃 ...Or not, it's entirely up to you 😎
The talk show host...
A guy that made it into international news (yes, all over the world) at least two times. The first time I posted a gazillion years ago, part of my initial set of writeups stored one our blockchain. "America First - The Netherlands Second - Donald Trump": This one. 30M views.
The second time was mucho more recent. An event I held to myself, until now. "Referendum for all Russians: do you want to join Holland?": This one. 600k views?
The same guy that I saw the other evening. In an interview with no one else than Eefje de Visser. Eefje who? Wait a minute, and I'll tell you. The interview was held in the well know memory game style. When Arjen (the talk show host) draws a pair, Eefje needs to answer the question written on the cards. She is good at this game, therefore it took four draws and some cheating for Arjen to get a question out. Funny! 😂 The video: click me. Sorry. This one is not with subtitles. Tip: either work on your Dutch, get someone to translate, use some auto-translate tool, or skip this video.
The singer...
Oops, now I went too fast. This is the interview. Only after this one, I saw the memory game video. Both vids turned my first impression of Eefje completely. From thinking she is super reserved and introverted, to someone who speaks her mind and knows what she wants. She said herself, she usually pushes her will onto others, most of the time, especially when in the studio. Interesting!
And music-wise? I started to remember she was running for Eurovision contest last year. Around that time, heard her singing, for the first time ever. Sounded interesting, but apparently not interesting enough to immediately start discovering more about her. Said evening, was different. Going from Discogs to Spotify, skipping through most of her albums, spending most of my time with her "Bitterzoet" album. Electronic sounds, electric instruments, guitars, drums, and more instruments combo with a voice that not only sets the mood but fits the instrument arrangements very well. Can't say I love the album, but this one certainly is worthy to listen to a few times more. For that reason; Bookmarked it.
PreSearch brought me (while listening to parts of the said album) to various places on the internet, most of which I already forgot about. But this one: Wikipedia. The Dutch version: quite elaborative. The English version: needs drastic improvements.
The Dutch Wiki version listed the two things that triggered me big time: "3voor12": one of Dutch high-quality music platforms and "Nick Verstand": the name that rang a bell, thinking it was this performance I skipped last year, though not completely sure it was him. Interested in both, I first browsed "3voor12", read an interview and started listening to her performance at Pinkpop festival. Originally a Dutch rock festival, but having a wider context these days with more and more cross over towards other genres, like the electronic one. It was this performance the "3voor12" journalist was raving about. It was this performance in which Eefje worked together with Nick Verstand. She, singing. He, the LD (light jockey).
Stopped watching this vid after a little while skipping back and forth in favour of finding information about Nick Verstand. Top results in Presearch: His own website. This is where the re-discovery of Nick took place. The results I already shared with you further up this post.
Endnote - The proper one 🙂
With all information and links, I may have bombarded you to much. It'll take considerable time to go through all of them. I know that I usually bookmark such posts for later reading. Some of them I actually go through entirely, including all links. Others are still waiting to be 'processed'. Some may already be waiting for weeks, to months, and some even more than a year. My list is growing, that is what I know. Therefore, I'm perfectly ok when you didn't spend all your free time digesting all info and links I gave you in this post. That said, when you did, let me know! Even when you didn't, let me know what you think of all these artists. Am also interested to learn how your clock ticks. If you can get distracted as I can be. If you can get so absorbed by something, you'll forget everything else around you while flowing through whatever you are drawn into. Even when this happens at some moment you planned to do something else. In my case, the hours I spend were supposed to be sleeping time. The next morning, I wasn't too happy, but when remembered why my night was cut short, I felt positive again 🙃
a HIVE original