The Digital Lapidarium — Berlin · Potsdam
Stone,
bronze
& code.
Thirty years of sculpture, from Carrara marble to on-chain form. A catalogue of works that move between permanence and impermanence.
Enter the collection
The Digital Lapidarium — Berlin · Potsdam
Thirty years of sculpture, from Carrara marble to on-chain form. A catalogue of works that move between permanence and impermanence.
Enter the collection
Vestibule — the practice
Sculpture, here, is not a static object but a process — oscillating between physical presence and virtual imagination. The works explore transience, identity, and the influence of technological systems on the human condition.
Trained as a Master Craftsman in stone and refined over two years in Carrara, the practice now spans ZBrush, photogrammetry, XR and AI-driven form-finding. Drawn to states of tension and transition — the fragmented, the unfinished, the dissolving — each piece is meant to touch, disrupt, slow down, and invite reflection.
Saal I — stone, bronze & public work
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Vitrine — turn the work yourself
Bronze cast from a digital model · limited edition
The same file that drives the mill drives this view. What you turn here is not a photograph of the sculpture but the sculpture itself — the mesh that was carved, cast and patinated.
On a phone, the AR button places the work at full scale in the room you are standing in.
“Hansen’s sculpture unites tradition, present and outlook — modes of artistic work that exist side by side with equal rights.”
Anke Zeisler, Curator — Berlin · 25 symposia, four continents
Saal II — parametric sculpture · 2023–2026
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The core of the current practice: neoclassical busts meeting Voronoi lattices, honeycomb shells, time-strata and striation fields — twenty-three works from the 2023–2026 archive. AI-assisted and ZBrush-modeled studies that function as working proposals — selected works in preparation for physical execution in marble, bronze and sandstone, 2026–2027.
Saal III — virtual sculptures
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Saal IV — the media room
Minted since 2019, collected on SuperRare and Ninfa, held in the Museum of Crypto Art and the Whale Collection. Selected works are licensed to Loupe Art and stream in living rooms worldwide via Amazon Fire TV. Here, ancient mythology meets futuristic technology — and AI serves as design intelligence, distilled by a sculptor’s eye.
Cabinet — new series · 2026
SCHNITT:STELLE
Nine black stone heads, each opened by a single cut revealing gilded circuitry — the incision as interface.
Limen · Galea · Concha · Moles · Velamen · Visor · Reliquum · Apertura · Canalis
ANIMA DIGITALIS
Nine marble busts whose interiors open onto living circuitry — the classical portrait with a digital nervous system.
Oculus · Nexus · Vortex · Pontifex · Gravitas · Lucidus · Vestibulum · Index · Terminus
The Sculptor — Nils Hansen
Nils Hansen learned his craft in the late 1990s — a German master sculptor's workshop, then two years in the quarries and studios of Carrara. Thirty years later he still cuts stone, and has spent two decades extending that craft into ZBrush, CNC, AR and blockchain. None of these tools replaces the original skill; they extend it.
His works explore transience, identity, and the influence of technological systems on the human condition — drawn to states of tension and transition: the fragmented, the unfinished, the dissolving.
Annex — Hybrid Sculpture Lab Berlin
Hybrid Sculpture Lab Berlin is the studio behind this collection — a platform for exhibitions, artistic research, and education at the seam between classical sculpture and digital form-finding. The Lab curates hybrid exhibitions such as Beyond Matter — 6 Sculptors in Hybrid Space, develops its own production tools, and supports artists and institutions in digitising sculptural practice: 3D scanning, CNC, AR, and on-chain publishing.
The Lab builds on two decades inside the 3D industry itself — at Autodesk, and in Mercedes-Benz’s AR/VR innovation teams — now translated back into sculptural practice. None of these tools replaces the original craft. They extend it.
Digital form-finding taught from the sculptor's side of the workbench: clay logic instead of software logic, from the first digital sketch to the CNC-ready file. No prior 3D experience required.
The course — eight weeksArchive — selected record