About SellFable

Documented by Rotterdam-based artist Daniël van Nes a.k.a. The Archivist, SellFable is a haunting, post-digital universe where technology and human expression collide. A “Machine Noir” world steeped in the shadowy allure of film noir and the existential edge of sci-fi. Here, soul-searching automated beings and charcoal sound drawings become fragments of a larger narrative.

Through illuminated engravings, interactive installations, animations, and live rituals, Van Nes merges the physical and digital into dramatic, otherworldly environments. His work probes the tension between humanity and technology, inviting audiences to question identity, reality, and our accelerating world. As The Archivist, he guides viewers through these threshold spaces, blurring the line between observer and participant.

SellFable operates as an independent art practice, continuing to expand as a living, evolving universe supported by a community of patrons through Patreon and select public presentations – enabling ongoing experimentation and a direct, personal connection with audiences.

Featured at: Cross Comix (Rotterdam), Tetem (Enschede), Urban Nation (Berlin), STRAAT Museum (Amsterdam), Street Art Museum (St. Petersburg), and beyond.

SellFable at Cross Comix (photo by sethpicturesmusic)

Testimonials

”...What we see today in the Chronicle exhibition is not just a survey of pencil drawings, illuminated engravings, paintings and sculptures. It is a Chronicle of the era we are in: the transition from human to... who knows? And the artist manifests himself as the one who records this for posterity, a true archivist, as it were. He watches, observes, documents and notes it for eternity. As a human being, he observes what it is like to be a future transformed human being. something that we archaeologists thus also do, but in reverse.

History repeats itself. But the way it repeats itself is different each time. As humanity, we tend to behave cyclically. Everything comes to an end, but there is also a beginning again. We humans too looked different it 30,000 years ago. There were several kinds of people, homo sapiens, i.e. us and the Neanderthals. We had more hair, lived in tribes and knew our place in the cycle of life. About 500,000 years ago, our species was not around and 15 million years ago, we were called Proconsul, a species counted among the first primates. But what will we look like in another 30,000 years?

Does humanity still exist, and if so in what form? Will we continue to live in a virtual world where just about anything is possible, and if so, will there still be anything left of what we now call humans? And what place will humans have in it? Will we then know who God or the One is and what drives us? Do we have feeling or is feeling and intuition just that which lives on in our virtual existence?

I would like to invite you to be immersed in this world of transition and experience what humanity will be preserved in the digital universe.... or not.

- Drs. Nathalie de VisserArchaeologist

”What touches me in your work is that there is a certain dynamic in it and at the same time, peace. When I look at it and then feel that peace, I am drawn into the work and it is as if there are so many more layers that you cannot see right away, but rather feel. That touches me emotionally, even though I find it hard to put that emotion into words.

- Yvonne

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