The Process of Familiarity: An Interview with Nicholas Rougeux
I remember the first time I stumbled across the work of Nicholas Rougeux — it was his painstaking recreation of Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours — and I was absolutely puzzled. What was it? A design project? A historical study? It was far too detailed to be historical research and far too well researched to be a design project. Then his Byrne’s Euclid came out and melted my mind. Now, earlier this month, he released another amazingly detailed project, Illustrations of the Natural Orders of Plants. He was nice enough to let me barrage him with questions via email:
Jason Forrest: What do you actually call this kind of work? How did you get started doing it?
Nicholas Rougeux: I like to think of the projects I’ve done over the past several years as data art — primarily because that’s a term most people can understand with little to no explanation. I don’t intend to put myself on a pedestal by using the term “art” but I use it to indicate that my projects are focused more on connecting with people on an emotional level with visual experiments than on informing or educating them.
I got started with data art back in 2012 with my Routelines posters which showcase maps of cities around the world using only their roads. Back in 2012, this seemed more of a novel idea (at least I thought so) but…
