By Clem Shepherd
Together, Vini Naso and Love Hultén bring a digital moment into a tactile medium with the Dissrup NFT visualiser. In doing so, they unite ephemerality and perpetuity; a seemingly paradoxical state that is actually rather commonplace under another name: memory.
The pair introduce the world to the possibilities of phygital artwork with their NFT visualiser, which takes intricate analogue technology, and fuses it with cutting edge 3D design to create a one-of-a-kind installation. The visualiser features new artwork, I Miss You, designed by Vini Naso to respond to the possibilities of a new medium.
I Miss You freezes a single instant: an embrace between two people, revealing its intimate details to us in exquisite detail. The piece uses classic iconography—we can’t help but think of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden—coating it in the artist’s signature pastel foliage to create a digital rendition of a multi-tiered, halcyon world that feels both ancient and futuristic. The Dissrup NFT Visualiser 1.0 by Love Hulten showcases artwork by Vini Naso, 2021.
We begin our journey into this space up-close, exploring the undulating landscape of what is revealed to be two bodies intertwined in a stolen moment of refuge from the passage of time. As the clip unfolds, we gradually move further away, allowing the bigger picture to take form. Finally, we see the statuesque couple, caught in a spiraling embrace, hovering over a serene body of water. They float in isolation, and as they linger in the air, we are able to take a brief moment to survey their pristine environment, before we are taken back into the miniature intricacy of their floral bodies.
I Miss You captures the essence of those perfect moments that are all too fleeting. Vini is able to petrify this transitory intimacy with a faithful clarity that stokes the envy of a nostalgic mind; we yearn for these moments in full definition, and with I Miss You we get exactly that. A memory is immortalized for us in crystal-clear detail, to be viewed indefinitely.
Love Hultén is able to bring this impossible frozen moment into the real world, offering us a uniquely tactile vessel for the intangible. Buttons and a dial afford us godlike control over the event: we are able to cycle between individual frames of it, or even freeze it as a still image. With I Miss You the NFT becomes a means of connecting with the artists and their work on a deeper level. We manipulate their art with our own hands, we watch it react to our gesture, we affect the way it unfolds. This is an incredibly powerful thing, bringing us in intimate proximity to the artists’ through a completely new medium.
Within the world of Vini Naso and Love Hulten’s artwork, the fuzzy vagaries of memory are made clear. Just as the digital camera gave us the power to freeze moments and claim them for ourselves, perhaps the NFT in its phygital form is a taste of an even greater power to salvage the treasured details of moments in the past.
I Miss You is a tribute to the nostalgia we all experience when we reflect on treasured memories and the people we share them with—it is a timeless souvenir from a place we have all visited.
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