Nicolas Moulin uses photography, sculpture and video, combined with digital techniques, to construct landscapes and produce gigantic architectures. He sources his references in 20th century artistic currents, such as Russian Constructivism, German Expressionism, Ultra-Modernists and science fiction authors. His central axis of artistic research is related to the urban mythologies and technologies that have governed society for more than a century. In the video Nachdatch, the lobby of a building is totally recreated in digital imagery with no concern for realism. The pared-down architecture, recalling modernism, was inspired by buildings designed by the architect Paul Rudolph. The space is very minimalist, in rough black and white concrete, and in spite of its grand size, the artist has made it a confined space, evoking a basement or a bunker. Accompanied by a repetitive soundtrack, Nicolas Moulin composes a fixed shot in which the presence of the off-screen space is sublimated. In a nocturnal atmosphere, we sense an almost threatening presence. The building is swept over with blinding beams of light, giving the spectator the impression that a strange presence is hovering above the site. The real source of the light is enigmatic, it infiltrates via openings in the ceiling. The architecture is accentuated all the more, revealing itself in fragments, as the beams light up the floor or the face of a wall. The artist compares this effect to that of car headlights streaking across the ceilings of city apartments at night.
Nachdatch can also be appreciated as a succession of abstract light motifs reminiscent of experimental cinema; and the work on light/dark contrasts and shadows evokes the chiaroscuro of German expressionist cinema. Spectators find themselves in the position of an observer of an empty space, gradually managing to make out its contours. The video becomes almost hypnotising, in a similar way to Bryon Gysin’s Dream Machine, which was one of the artist’s sources of inspiration. The Dream Machine is made up of a slotted rotating cylinder equipped with a light bulb at its core. When the light traverses the openings in the cylinder, the frequency of the rays of light that emerge from it is such that spectators who stare at it feel immediately relaxed. It also procures visions for the user when positioned in front of the machine with closed eyes. Through his use of video and computer-generated images, Nicolas Moulin calls on the spectator’s imagination, which can invent an artificial or solar source for this light that sweeps randomly over the space. Nachdatch is best viewed in relation to another work by Nicolas Moulin, Datchotel Ryugyong, 2007, the reduced-scale model of the Ryugyong Hotel of Pyong Yang in North Korea; a skyscraper in pyramid form over three hundred and thirty metres tall, built during the Cold War with the aim of surpassing Western constructions. However, its construction was abandoned in 1992, leaving an armed concrete shell on site. The model of this ambitious project presents a poetic meditation on human constructions. Nachdatch could be a view from the inside of this phantom hotel, without windows or interior decoration.

 Priscilia Marques