n.stevik fka Nicolas Humbert brings a post-gdr perspective into the observation of nerd and internet culture. Currently his focus is on chronically online leftism, through merging of the Lovecraft mythos and the history of socialist states.
n.stevik fka Nicolas Humbert work centers around a self-critical yet uplifting view on otaku/nerd culture with his current focus being online leftism spefically Marxist-Leninism and it’s derivatives. He does this with overlapping the Lovecraft Mythos and the history and aesthetics of the Marxist-Leninist movement starting with, for instance, the attire of the bolsheviks, the weaponry of the Soviet State and socialist realist art, to the 68-movement in West Germany and life in the GDR, up until the current state of the movement represented through heated twitter discussions, brutal memes and by merging into geekier culture like the Karl Marx Anime made by the Chinese State or Fallout New Vegas Communist Game Modifications. Besides visual collages and video pieces, stevik uses sound and music as a tool to recontextualize anything into something steady and transcendent using for example micro-samples of internet memes, field recordings of natural hums, radio noises and video game devices to compose and peform music. One of his avatars is the dj/producer persona Blue Stork, in which he explores the vast world of agressive club music genres and their use of sustaining bass/kicks, in which he sees a connection with minimalist drone music. He obtained a Meisterschüler degree in Fine Arts at the UdK Berlin in 2020.
an mshaped cave
HD Video / 05:14 min / 2019
“an mshaped cave” is the inner monologue of a character role-played by the artist set in the environment of the video game Fallout New Vegas which is set in a post-nuclear-war-world in Las Vegas and it’s surrounding areas. In a post-apocalyptic world, the narrator wants to build a socialist commune inside one of the many abandoned vaults previously used as privatized bunkers against nuclear weapons. The particular vault chosen by the narrator, was also used as a lab for experiments on flora. Due to a horrible accident, almost all citizens of the vault were killed or mutated, but through time, the vault became a beautiful biosphere of flowers and plants. In their monologue, they search for an m-shaped cave in the deserts of Nevada, a place of reference to a modern day mystery of a hiker who potentially disappeared in the same cave. By combining a fictional Las Vegas and Nevada with its real world inspired places portrayed in the game together with the narrator’s interest in communism, youtube and other media from the old world, stevik tries to imagine a possibility of a socialist new beginning after the end of the world juxtaposed onto a place partially still holding on to its past capitalist glory. This piece was first shown at the group exhibition Well Prepared at Wiensowski & Harbord Bunker in Berlin, 2019.
stevik & grappa
HD Video / 19:41 min / 2019
“stevik & grappa” investigates the possibilities of exhibitions and galleries in online spaces, in this case in the Garry’s mod video game mode DarkRP and the standalone video game Occupy White Walls. DarkRP is a roleplaying-game of cops and robbers but with the possibility to take jobs, rent virtual spaces and conduct business for in-game currency. There stevik attempted to make galleries with pieces made by him and/or other players using the in-game building tools and it’s 3d assets. Bits and pieces of the gaming sessions are documented in this piece alongside footage of stevik’s gallery in the game Occupy White Walls in which making galleries is the main goal compared to DarkRP. Through looking at both games and their differences as tools of art making, exhibiting and architectural gallery building in a non-institutionalized environment, stevik unearths the differences but also the similarities of the (petit-)bourgeoise art world and the proletarian inhabitants of the virtual worlds and their understanding of art.