Who Is Niels Nicola?

Niels Nicola Pauls is a Dutch artist with a background in product design. He works across software, sculpture, and designed artifacts, interested in the invisible structures of technology, data, internet culture, and networked life. Moving between new media art, data visualization, and poetry, his practice translates these systems into intimate forms — things to read, hold, experience, or notice, bringing a personal and poetic approach to questions of nostalgia, scarcity, language, and perception.

Residual Protodermis (2026) — sculptures scaled and reworked from Bionicle, a Lego theme discontinued in 2023, alongside months of tracked resale prices — treating sentiment that's outlasted play as worth that keeps accumulating — graduation project, ArtEZ Design Art Technology.

Radar Vision (2024) — ski goggles fitted with a radar sensor and LED strip, exploring what it would mean to navigate the palpable fabric of reality through an invisible technology instead of sight — exhibited at Papierfabriek Nijmegen.