10 Questions with Nora Papp

Nora Papp is a Swiss artist born and based in Zürich, Switzerland. She holds a BA in Fine Arts from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

She has exhibited her work in the Netherlands and Switzerland and, in 2019, became one of the Haute Photographie Talents in the Netherlands.

studioklar.com | @studio_klar

Nora Papp - Portrait by Caroline Staeger (2022)

ARTIST STATEMENT

Nora Papp combines her interest in human perception and the digital photographic picture with her investigation of the image as an object. She develops her works with the help of common image processing programmes on the computer, where she collects "aesthetic data" through the dissection of the digital image.

She realises pictures solely on the basis of the collected "aesthetic data" that emerge from the scientifically listed decisions on how to apply the appropriate application. Through this generative process, images with abstract objects emerge whose references, in turn, provide identities to create new images.

INTERVIEW

Let's talk about yourself first. Why are you an artist, and how did you become one?

I became an artist with further education because I studied Fine Arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy after a practice in sports and an apprenticeship in hospitality. But different from my peers, I studied very late. Due to an accident, I had to reconsider following a career in sports. So I went back to school for additional grades. During this period of my life, I discovered a deeper interest in arts & design. Looking back, I was also very lucky to meet mentors that guided my curiosity in this area.

You work primarily with photography, data, and image processing programs. How would you define yourself as an artist?

I work with digital media, with a focus on digital photography that evolved from analog photography. I would describe contemporary photography as a technical image viewed on a screen that has evolved from a chemical-developed image on a plate. So if you look at the term "digital image", it incorporates not only the depicted visuals but also the software that supports the representation of the image as well as the device that depicts it. I explore the digital photographic image compared to the former medium of an analogical photograph. With this focus, the digital photograph is detached from its material display and is basically a file. The camera captures a scene in the form of a file containing information. In order to receive a visual image, you need hardware and software to view this file as an image.
Image-wise, I work with an image you can dissect into artistic decisions, like using contrast, saturation, brightness, warmth, colour, sharpness etc. Naturally, this is already given through the use of visual software. In my work, I list my decisions scientifically. At a later stage, I visualise them and collect data again. Through this process of visualisation, I gain images that depict abstract objects and data.

You have a pretty unique approach and style. Why did you choose photography specifically? And how did you develop your style?

I developed this work through trial and error, and started this work during my time at the academy. At that time, I was interested in exploring the relationship between image, text, and the "white space". Therefore I uploaded white images on Facebook. In a way, I was interested in the digital colour of white as a colour. But also how you use the space between text and image on graphically normed networks. With uploading white images on Facebook, of course, the general feed you saw was interrupted with empty white space. And you had only text. Text that describes an image, but I didn't follow this experiment further. Instead, I used the white "empty" image on the Instagram application. Of course, now Instagram also belongs to Facebook as a company. While uploading a white RGB image on Instagram, I discovered that you are able to visualise the different filters on Instagram due to the non-pictorial information of a blank white image. You create a new image with those filters due to the software application and your artistic choices on how to apply the filter. When I start a new subject, I always take notes.
So after a longer process, I managed to understand my work as being a part of producing that filter-image and the notes of my own artistic choices. It was essential for me to use the notes of a created image for the next step.
Looking back to the start of this work, it was a choice to work with applications that support a digital photographic image.

What messages are you trying to communicate with your art? And what do you think differentiates your approach from others?

I don't try to communicate a message. Instead, my work displays abstract objects. "You get from it what you bring to it".
One fact is that I work with the "photographic image," but I don't have the practice of a photographer. The tools that I work with are softwares. So I don't shoot an image, I use the context in which the digital photograph exists and dissect that image. At the same time, I always have an image that originates from another one. So I have interconnected works.
In a similar manner, I could use my concept also to colour, and we would talk about painting.

In your statement, you say that you work with "aesthetic data". Can you tell us more about that? What do you consider aesthetic data, and how do you use those data in your work?

As already mentioned before, I dissect the digital image to collect aesthetic data. I introduced the term aesthetic data myself.
If you use a digital image with software like Photoshop or Instagram, you find the image being dissectible into luminosity, layers, brightness, contrast, texture, warmth, saturation, colour, and sharpness. Reproduction, distribution, or storage are also parts of a digital image. So I write down all of my choices on how I apply those categories while working on an image. And select values that don't represent general repeated decisions. By using the term values, I already incorporate the idea that softwares usually percentage how far you apply a choice. I list those values in an Excel sheet.
With one line of such an Excel sheet, you generate a graph. So I import this image of a graphic representation of my aesthetic choices into the Illustrator program, a vector-based software of Adobe. There I start to work with the outline of the graph.
So the data I collected defines how the image looks because I separated these as categories of choices while working on the image. And the data is based on my individual choices as an artist.

Do you have any other source of inspiration for your work?

I am often inspired by software and network use. So my starting point was the Instagram application. But there, the user has not only an image. There is also a possibility to comment on the image, add a location tag, or use the hashtag. The marking of the picture with hashtag terms then assigns it to a certain grouping, since each grouping uses a specific hashtag and can be found again through this mark. Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags. Combining such different hashtags creates "micro-poems" either deliberately or by chance. Therefore I used hashtags to create micro poetry.
I call them Hashtag-Haikus, as they are, in my case, a combination of Hashtags and a Japanese form of poetry called Haiku. It consists of three groups of words with incomplete, open texts. Not everything is said in these texts, and the poems are made accessible through the specifically mentioned states and their context. I combined them with statements or text fragments from 100 Artists' Manifestos, quotations from Ad Reinhardt, Martha Graham, Duchamp's statements on the Fluxus movement, and conventional Instagram hashtags.
At the same time, I am also inspired by photography or photographic work. I also create photographic documentations, where I select images from the World Wide Web to represent the specific social, political, and environmental situations of the region. In addition, audio files from the dialogues (taken from YouTube documentaries) serve as commentary on the images and give the entire documentation a narrative structure. I see this form of work I present as an installation or as a book.

Blenderillustratornormalginza5 © Nora Papp - courtesy Kahmann Gallery

Blenderillustratornormalginza3 © Nora Papp - courtesy Kahmann Gallery

How has your art evolved over the years? And what inspired you to experiment?

Well, I studied late after absolving a professional career already in another field. I am not the average age of graduates from an academy. Therefore I am still a young artist with a couple of years of practice. So I can't speak for "over the years". That seems to me like a longer period.
But the starting point of the work was the Instagram application to collect "aesthetic data," and that led me to create abstract objects in Illustrator. But while I am creating those objects in Illustrator, I again write down all my aesthetic choices on how I apply colour, how much opacity, how much light, etc. So again, I gain notes that I list in an Excel sheet. And this led me to construct abstract objects in Blender again based on Excel. Blender is like Illustrator, a vector-based program and a free source program available for everybody. Also, with Blender, I take notes about my decisions. And again, I have "aesthetic data" to develop my work further in another new program.
I think transforming dry data into a sensory experience that exceeds the informational significance is inspiring for me. But also to further explore new software and parallel to construct my concept keeps my interest focused.

What about NFTs and digital art? Are you incorporating this medium in your production as well?

As an artist, I don't think medium based. I would use the term "Contemporary art" as this is the art I'm dealing with. An "art" that responds to the information age. So my visual work responds to it. And also, there is no need to show my work purely digital. I believe this is where another layer enters my work while showing them not only on a screen. Also, the work consists not only of the separate images, and their represented information, but also their interconnection and broad image production. These parts of the work are legitimate to present the visual images in specific visual properties. And that can also be traditional media.
I see NFTs as another development form of the digital medium. Then my work uploaded as NFT becomes images that exist only as digital images also when they are not viewed on a screen with a device.
But I share with many viewers that "something" is missing while experiencing NFTs on a screen. This "something" that I miss with NFTs keeps making me perceive "Contemporary art" as uncomfortable. And this "something" triggers me to work on it.
I think, and also to include a viewer, it is much more interesting to ask the question in which context an NFT as artwork should exist. For myself, it is important how you experience an artwork. Questions like how the NFTs can be displayed both in digital and reality are questions that I am investigating. They complement the work so that it can be ascertainable by a visitor.

Let's talk about the future. Do you have any exhibition or collaboration you would like to share with our readers?

I started a collaboration with the idea to organise a space that will also become a curated site for NFTs. Currently, there are different networks that support imitated spaces on a screen for NFTs owners. Such imitated spaces mainly reflect the imitations of institutional architecture or homes. But of course, there is no rule to follow that you have to copy a pre-customised architecture. In fact, the space can be customised to the needs of an artwork. So one idea of this space is that the organised space should support the idea and the aesthetics of the work.

And lastly, where do you see yourself and your art five years from now?

It is hard to say where I will see myself five years from now, as technology is developing so fast and moreover the software as well. As I intend to use open-source softwares, I hope that in a few years, there will still be free new softwares available.

Related Interviews