<p><a href="https://www.artblocks.io/artist/emi-kusano?utm_source=infosite&amp;utm_medium=inconversation&amp;utm_campaign=melancholic_magical_maiden&amp;utm_content=artist_name">Emi Kusano</a> is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tokyo, Japan. She employs AI to merge past and future aesthetics, challenging our perceptions of art and technology. She holds a degree in Environment and Information Studies from Keio University, Tokyo, Japan and is a part-time Lecturer at Tokyo University of the Arts.</p><h4><strong>Jordan Kantor: Hi there, Emi. It's great to speak with you. Before we get into talking about your debut Art Blocks project </strong><a href="https://www.artblocks.io/project/493?utm_source=infosite&amp;utm_medium=inconversation&amp;utm_campaign=melancholic_magical_maiden&amp;utm_content=project_page"><i><strong>Melancholic Magical Maiden</strong></i></a><strong>, I am hoping you can share a bit about your personal journey and creative history. How did you first get into making art?</strong></h4><p>Emi Kusano: I was raised by artist parents and always believed I'd become an artist as well. However, seeing their struggles, I gave up on going to art school and instead chose to attend a university to study business and design. Still, I always found joy in creating things: I was a street photographer in high school and formed a band called “Satellite Young” in college, dressing as an '80s idol and singing about modern tech.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://production-cms-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Satellite_young_album_cover_75e6c4caa4.png" alt="Satellite-young_album cover.png"><figcaption><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_Young"><i>Satellite Young</i></a> (サテライトヤング, <i>Sateraito Yangu</i>) debut studio album released on April 5, 2017.</figcaption></figure><h4><strong>JK: Wow. I am sure there are folks who will want to look up your career as a pop star! How did you then channel that creative drive into the digital realm, and how did you discover the blockchain as a medium for art?</strong></h4><p>EK: I became aware of the blockchain in 2021, and it was a revelation that expanded my artistic horizons. The pandemic was pivotal, and, one of the silver linings was to unveil the potential of digital art for me. It came about kind of by happenstance when my eight-year-old son Zombie Zoo Keeper created an artwork that went viral after well known people (like Steve Aoki) bought it. This introduced me to a new network of artists, builders, and collectors worldwide. In 2022, I co-founded a web3 anime studio called “<a href="https://www.galverse.art/">Shinsei Galverse</a>,” that was focused on making iconic anime. Over the last year or so, I’ve deeply delved into post-photography using generative AI.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://production-cms-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/synthetic_reflection_3_4e3a682fd0.jpg" alt="synthetic reflection 3.jpg"><figcaption>Emi Kusano, <i>Synthetic Reflection #3</i>, 2023.</figcaption></figure><p>Around the same time, I developed an interest in coding art and began <i>Melancholic Magical Maiden</i> with the creative coder Sayo towards the end of 2022, taking over a year to release. I’ve learned a lot from working in this space, and thanks to collector support have been able to engage full time in creative endeavors. I am really drawn to the interdisciplinary, cross-sector nature of this space, which can draw in participants from entertainment, art, fashion, and more to innovate using the blockchain. This synergistic element of the blockchain resonates with me deeply.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://production-cms-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/493000000_b2efca15fc.gif" alt="493000000.gif"><figcaption>Emi Kusano, <i>Melancholic Magical Maiden #0,</i> 2024. <a href="https://www.artblocks.io/collections/curated/projects/0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069/493/tokens/493000000">Live view</a>.</figcaption></figure><h4><strong>JK: The radical interdisciplinarity of your approach to working on the blockchain is apparent, and super exciting. Can you talk a bit about how your creative process has evolved, and how </strong><i><strong>Melancholic Magical Maiden</strong></i><strong> fits in?</strong></h4><p>EK: Technically, generative AI has reshaped my creative process. I’ve produced numerous AI-based works, and in collaboration with Sayo, we’ve efficiently learned to use this tool to realize our vision in post-photographic works, music, videos and installations. From an artistic standpoint, a through line in all of this is my interest in addressing Japanese culture and identity and I seek to portray the depth and complexity of our culture, which I think can often be overshadowed by its pop culture image. <i>Melancholic Magical Maiden</i> marks my creative coding debut, and the process was profoundly intricate. Figuring out how to embed meaning and my narrative into code was fascinating. The project has taken over a year, undergone 28 revisions (!), and incorporated a lot of valuable feedback from many more veteran artists in this space. Honestly, there’s still endless scope for improvement. In terms of subject matter, <i>Melancholic Magical Maiden </i>deconstructs elements of 1990s Japanese animation, exploring themes of femininity and societal pressures within these narratives. Specifically, it tackles how the “magical girl” genre, in which young heroines battle using magical powers, has continually evolved. It is complicated though, for while it has provided empowerment, it has also occasionally perpetuated gender stereotypes.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://production-cms-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/493000001_9cad1bdf68.gif" alt="493000001.gif"><figcaption>Emi Kusano, <i>Melancholic Magical Maiden #1,</i> 2024. <a href="https://www.artblocks.io/collections/curated/projects/0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069/493/tokens/493000001">Live view</a>.</figcaption></figure><h4><strong>JK: It is really interesting how your examination of these themes has moved across your work in music, AI, and now generative art. In terms of this project, what should collectors look for in the series as it is revealed? And Is there anything specific you’d like to share that would help viewers approach and appreciate your work?</strong></h4><p>EK: I hope they enjoy each piece’s nostalgic aesthetics in their simplicity. The color palette is reminiscent of the 1990s, and I’d be delighted if they appreciate the animation’s movements. Really, I just encourage an open mind and curiosity. I hope viewers might research some of the references and relate them to themselves. Also, I am intending to invest proceeds back into further expansion of the project and plan to make installations and physical works.</p><h4><strong>JK: Are there any recent accomplishments you’d like to share?</strong></h4><p>EK: 2023 was the turning point of my art career. I participated in a Christie’s x Gucci auction in collaboration with Claire Silver and toured with Bright Moments. I’m honored to exhibit my project “Neural Fad: AI dreams Nostalgia” at the <a href="https://www.mot-art-museum.jp/en/">Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Contemporary Art</a> until early March 2024. This spring, I’m excited to have a solo exhibition at Expanded Art in Berlin.</p><h4><strong>JK: I am sure folks will want to keep up to date with all these things and more. What is the best way for people to follow your work?</strong></h4><p>EK: Sure. People can follow me on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/emikusano">@emikusano</a>, Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/emiksn/">@emiksn</a>, and subscribe on <a href="https://deca.art/emikusano">Deca</a> for notifications on new releases.</p><h4><strong>JK: Thank you so much for bringing </strong><i><strong>Melancholic Magical Maiden </strong></i><strong>to Art Blocks, Emi. We are looking forward to seeing the project unfold on February 28, 2024.</strong></h4><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Top image: Tomofumi Usa, <i>Portrait of Emi Kusano</i>.</p>

Interview with multidisciplinary artist Emi Kusano. In this conversation, we hear more about her project, Melancholic Magical Maiden, her artistic practice, and the discovery of the blockchain as an artistic medium.

In Conversation with Emi Kusano on Melancholic Magical Maiden

<p>Ben Kovach is an artist who focuses on building emergent generative work with a natural feel. He lives in Burlington, VT with his wife and two-year-old daughter. I had a chance to chat with Ben about his background in generative art in advance of his upcoming Art Blocks project <a href="https://www.artblocks.io/collections/curated/projects/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/204"><i>Edifice</i></a>.</p><h4><strong>Jeff Davis: Hi Ben! It’s great to speak with you. How did you first get into making art?</strong></h4><p>Ben Kovach: I’ve been drawing since I was a kid. My dad used to have a stack of books about drawing—I remember flipping through those a bunch when I was very young. As a teenager, art took over my life as I had some amazing teachers who really pushed me to express myself creatively. During that time, I primarily focused on pen drawings and paintings. Interestingly, most of my work around that time was either highly chaotic or followed some sort of rule I self-imposed. For example, I made a series of portraits in pen and ink that were drawn using only horizontal and vertical lines. I also dove into digital art around that time, playing with fractal generating programs and making abstract visuals in Photoshop. I went to college for an art degree but quickly pivoted to computer science and math as I found my early art courses uninspiring and creatively draining.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://production-cms-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Manufactured_Turbulence_Ben_Kovach_border_fd50e25c97.png" alt="Manufactured Turbulence, Ben Kovach_border.png"><figcaption>Ben Kovach, <i>Manufactured Turbulence</i>, 2020.</figcaption></figure><h4><strong>JD: That’s really interesting that you moved from art towards math and computers. I was actually the opposite as an undergraduate, starting with math and eventually pursuing art. So when did you bring art back into the equation to start pursuing generative art?</strong></h4><p>BK: I’ve had an interest in procedural generation for years. I have built lots of little projects like a Conway’s <i>Game of Life</i> simulation and a Julia Set visualizer before putting a name to what I was doing. What really kicked it off was seeing Tyler Hobbs talk at Strange Loop in September 2017. Some of his work looked hand-drawn to me, and this had my head spinning. I didn’t know algorithmic art could look so natural, and I had to try it. I spent the flight home setting up my Processing environment, then made one generative sketch per day in October. I called this <i>Digital Inktober</i> and started posting on Twitter. People seemed to respond well to these sketches, so I kept going. Nothing amazing came out of it, but that month of work gave me a solid foundation on which to build. I remember some people being impressed with some flow field work I <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/generative/comments/7zeqqe/paths_through_a_unit_vector_field_two_ways/">posted on Reddit</a> and thinking “okay, maybe I’m onto something.” Not long after, I started moderating the generative subreddit with Aaron Penne and Tyler and some other folks. Just living in that world. It was a lot of fun.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://production-cms-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Ben_Kovach_Modular_1_2019_7e7735ff3d.png" alt="Ben Kovach, Modular, 2019."><figcaption>Ben Kovach, <i>Modular</i>, 2019.</figcaption></figure><h4><strong>JD: Then how did you discover NFTs and crypto art?</strong></h4><p>BK: The first NFT project I remember hearing about was <i>CryptoKitties</i>. I never really got into it, but I thought the idea was pretty cool. I started taking crypto art more seriously when a bunch of artists I knew began posting on hic et nunc. The way I’ve always sold work is through 1/1 prints, and that was going okay, so I kind of ignored it and stuck to prints for a while. Eventually one of my friends directly reached out and told me I should mint some of my work just to see what happened. That was my <i>Luminary</i> series, which I minted in August. The experience of selling an NFT immediately felt like a more natural fit for my work than 1/1 prints. Soon after, I discovered Art Blocks and artists like DEAFBEEF doing creative things with code on-chain and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://production-cms-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Luminary_Ben_Kovach_2678534c73.png" alt="Luminary, Ben Kovach.png"><figcaption>Ben Kovach, <i>Luminary</i>, 2021.</figcaption></figure><h4><strong>JD: How would you say your creative practice has grown over time?</strong></h4><p>BK: This is a tough one. I guess I’d say that I now spend much more time with my work before calling it complete. Early on, I’d come up with a quick sketch, post it around, and move onto something new. Over time, I started spending much more time with other artwork, books, and research papers. Generally slowing my pace a bit. For <i>Edifice</i>, I bought a bunch of heavy body acrylic paints and spent several evenings just playing with them for the sole purpose of finding colors to sample for palettes. That sort of slower, methodical approach to art making has become more commonplace in my work as I’ve gotten deeper into it.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://production-cms-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Good_Night_Ben_Kovach_border_cb709cdb0d.png" alt="Good Night, Ben Kovach_border.png"><figcaption>Ben Kovach, <i>Good Night</i>, 2018.</figcaption></figure><h4><strong>JD: Any recent accomplishments you’d like to share?</strong></h4><p>BK: My artistic effort has been laser focused on <i>Edifice</i> for the last several months, so I don’t have a ton of recent artwork related accomplishments to share from that time span. Minting <i>Edifice</i> #0 is a monumental achievement for me, and I’m very proud of that. I’m also proud of my writing and StrangeLoop talk from 2018 “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZNTozzsNqk">A Box of Chaos</a>.” I find knowledge sharing very difficult but equally rewarding.</p><h4><strong>JD: Alright, well let’s get into </strong><i><strong>Edifice</strong></i><strong>! What was your inspiration for the project?</strong></h4><p>BK: I have a vague recollection of watching one of those demo videos from SIGGRAPH or something showing a simulation of a ball flying through the air and tearing through some cloth. I wanted to emulate this process, but in a generative work. The result of this initial exploration was my piece <i>Good Night</i> in 2018, which has this industrial feeling that I immediately fell in love with. I’ve used this algorithm in several pieces since then, but I knew there was so much more I could do with it. Art Blocks was the perfect opportunity to stretch the system to its limits using all the tools I’ve built up over the past four years, and I think I’ve done that.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://production-cms-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Edifice_Ben_Kovach_204000000_border_e8978c29f8.png" alt="Edifice, Ben Kovach_204000000_border.png"><figcaption>Ben Kovach, <i>Edifice #0</i>, 2021.</figcaption></figure><h4><strong>JD: What should collectors look for in your Art Blocks project as the series is revealed?</strong></h4><p>BK: The core algorithm produces these little explosions in a lattice—the way those are laid out has an emergent effect at the micro level, so keep a close eye on the details. Some of my favorite results appear minimalistic at first glance, but harbor small details that I think are really special. I highly recommend viewing the output in as large a size, and as dense a screen, as possible. Additionally, there are some color scheme variants that are not tracked as features. These can have dramatic influence on the work as a whole, especially depending on how much symmetry the piece has. I enjoy watching the pieces animate, particularly when there is no symmetry involved. Pay close attention to this and you may catch a glimpse at the algorithm driving the work. <i>Edifice</i> is a highly variable system, and even though I have generated tens of thousands of works-in-progress pre-release, I am consistently surprised by some of the outputs. If viewers find something in a piece that surprises them, I would love to hear about it.</p><h4><strong>JD: That’s awesome. Yeah, I’m really looking forward to seeing everything that comes out of the minter. Is there anything else you’d like to share to help people better understand your art?</strong></h4><p>BK: Most of what I do has some grounding in the analog world. I use physical simulations a lot. I don’t typically gravitate towards pure geometric work, but prefer to try to emulate the natural inconsistencies of the real world. For that reason, I’ve always put a lot of emphasis on detail work in my art. I always encourage people to view my work in as large a resolution as possible, because those details are what define it. I lean heavily on texture and try to make sure that things look good even viewed in large sizes, screen or print. I have written a few articles about my workflow and general thoughts on generative work as well. You can read <a href="https://bendotk.com/writing/what-makes-generative-art-hard">What Makes Generative Art Hard</a> and <a href="https://www.kovach.me/A_Story_of_Iteration_-_Generating_Blotch.html">A Story of Iteration—Generating Blotch</a> on my website. I plan to write a deep dive essay on the <i>Edifice</i> algorithm after the drop to give everyone a shared understanding of the intricacies of the work.</p><h4><strong>JD: And what’s the best way for people to follow your work?</strong></h4><p>I can be found on <a href="https://twitter.com/bendotk">Twitter</a>, that is probably the best way. Additionally, I have a <a href="https://bendotk.com">website</a> where I host my portfolio and occasionally write about generative art. You can subscribe to my mailing list there, which I send updates through infrequently. I occasionally mint 1/1 NFTs on <a href="https://foundation.app/@bendotk">Foundation</a> as well.</p>

Interview with generative artist Ben Kovach,who focuses on building emergent generative work with a natural feel. In this conversation, we hear more about his project Edifice, his artistic practice, and discovery of NFTs and the crypto art world.

In Conversation with Ben Kovach

<p><a href="https://www.artblocks.io/artist/piter-pasma">Piter Pasma</a> is a generative artist from the Netherlands. I had an opportunity to speak with him about his deep background in creative coding and his upcoming Art Blocks project&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artblocks.io/collections/curated/projects/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/173"><i>Skulptuur</i></a>.</p><h4><strong>Jeff Davis: Hi Piter! It’s great to speak with you. I’m anxious to learn more about your history, how did you first start getting into art?</strong></h4><p>Piter Pasma: I've always been drawing a lot, especially cartoons. I think this definitely helped build my visual design skills and confidence. Knowing how to draw also helps me to program a computer to draw, although that's more relevant for my rayhatching artworks than this release.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://production-cms-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Desirotron_Piter_Pasma_2b25d0c031.jpeg" alt="Desirotron, Piter Pasma.jpeg"><figcaption>Piter Pasma,<i> Desirotron</i>, 2021.</figcaption></figure><h4><strong>JD: And then when did you start using a computer as a creative instrument?</strong></h4><p>PP: I started coding when I was nine, my second program was a GOTO10-style sequence of rotating dashes across the screen. In 1997, I started democoding. The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visual art, and musical skills. I have released four prize winning 4k demos. They were released at demoparties, which are kind of between festivals and like LAN-parties, except nobody's gaming, everyone is making art or socializing. Over a thousand people in a big hall, each with their own PC, and a huge cinema screen and giant speakers for showing the demo competitions.</p><p>Demoscene links:</p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYopuMRVN6Q">youtube.com/watch?v=DYopuMRVN6Q</a></p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv-gHBz4hgw">youtube.com/watch?v=gv-gHBz4hgw</a></p><p><a href="https://demozoo.org/sceners/17360/">demozoo.org/sceners/17360</a></p><p><a href="https://tweakers.net/geek/179762/duitsland-erkent-demoscene-als-cultureel-erfgoed-waaronder-kunst-van-nederlander.html">tweakers.net/geek/179762/duitsland-erkent-demoscene-als-cultureel-erfgoed-waaronder-kunst-van-nederlander</a></p><figure class="image"><img src="https://production-cms-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Scribbles_Piter_Pasma_7a33defa64.jpeg" alt="Scribbles, Piter Pasma.jpeg"><figcaption>Piter Pasma,&nbsp;<i>Scribbles</i>, n.d.</figcaption></figure><h4><strong>JD: And then that sounds like a natural pathway towards generative art.</strong></h4><p>PP: Yes, while participating in the demoscene, I also became aware of generative art. I subscribed to the eu-gene generative art mailing list for a few years in the early 2000s, but everything seemed to me at the time to be very experimental and conceptual. There were some very interesting discussions, as well as characters, on that mailing list. However, at the time they seemed more interested in conceptually generative aspects of the art, and my interest was, and still is, in creating aesthetically impactful generative art. I have a background in computational science and machine learning. I've been playing around with creative code ever since, but mostly keeping it to myself. I didn't know what was out there. It was not until summer 2019 that I started posting my works to Instagram, which were incredibly well received and quickly got me some recognition. I also discovered all the other amazing generative artists out there.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://production-cms-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Hyperplane_Microplane_VX_5_Piter_Pasma_e2bc1e6d2b.jpeg" alt="Hyperplane Microplane VX-5, Piter Pasma.jpeg"><figcaption>Piter Pasma,&nbsp;<i>Hyperplane Microplane VX-5</i>, n.d.</figcaption></figure><h4><strong>JD: How would you say your creative practice has changed over time?</strong></h4><p>PP: After I sold my first digital artworks to a Danish Festival (which unfortunately didn't happen due to the pandemic), I bought my plotter. It completely changed the way I approached my art. A plotter is only able to draw lines and is unable to erase previous lines. This is very different from the way a generative artist draws in, say, p5js. I wanted to play with SDFs, the mathematical functions that describe the 3D shapes in my projects, but I couldn't use shaders, because you can't plot those :) So I wrote a program that I call a "rayhatcher"—it creates hatched drawings of the 3D forms defined by SDFs, using raymarching.</p><h4><strong>JD: Wow, that is pretty impressive stuff. Any other recent accomplishments you’d like to share?</strong></h4><p>PP: At the start of 2021, Genuary, the generative art month took place. I was lead organizer for this project, kicking it off and collecting thirty-one amazing code prompts for people to produce a generative art piece every day, for a month. I had a lot of help from the amazing people at Generative Artists Club, brainstorming the prompts, helping out with the website, editing and promotion. Genuary was a huge success, I estimate at least 100 people must have actively participated. Not all, but an impressive amount managing the full thirty-one days of dailies. I can generally say that participating was a lot more effort than putting it together, but it was a lot of fun. Doing a month of dailies is also extremely good practice for a generative artist. I saw many people "level up" a few notches, so to say. I'm going to start with the organization of Genuary 2022 soon, hopefully. But it'll be a while before you'll hear much about it. I might do a few calls for code prompts, we can use all the inspiration :) I also created a high quality 176 byte PRNG and offered it to the AB community to use in their scripts. It's been used in quite a number of projects by now, because it's very small and provides easy to use, high-quality random numbers.</p><p>Genuary links:</p><p><a href="https://genuary2021.github.io/">genuary2021.github.io</a></p><p><a href="https://genuary2021.github.io/prompts">genuary2021.github.io/prompts</a></p><p><a href="https://www.symbiocene.gallery/genuary2021">symbiocene.gallery/genuary2021</a></p><h4><strong>JD: Yes, I discovered a lot of new artists from the #genuary hashtag! Alright, heading towards your Art Blocks project, how did you first discover NFTs?</strong></h4><p>PP: I remember the first time I heard about NFTs were the Rare Pepe's, many years ago. I mainly remember being puzzled about how Bitcoin could allow someone to "own" a JPEG, and mistakenly thought there was something special about the JPEG itself. I became aware of them again as I started seeing Fabin Rasheed experiment with them, but I still didn't get it. It wasn't until Dmitri released&nbsp;<i>Ringers</i> on Art Blocks that I really saw the possibilities here. This was it, the thing I've been unknowingly practicing for all my life.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://production-cms-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Piter_Pasma_Skulptuur_2021_9f857f7b1a.jpeg" alt="Piter Pasma, Skulptuur, 2021..jpeg"><figcaption>Piter Pasma,&nbsp;<i>Skulptuur</i>, 2021.</figcaption></figure><h4><strong>JD: Nice, so you come to Art Blocks and start getting your project ready. Tell me about the inspiration behind&nbsp;</strong><i><strong>Skulptuur</strong></i><strong>.</strong></h4><p>PP: About four years ago I read Inigo Quilez' article about Monte Carlo path tracing. It fascinated me tremendously and I built a CPU-based implementation in Processing. It was very slow. But the outputs were already surpassing my expectations. I was able to practice with the construction of SDFs when working on my rayhatcher that I mentioned earlier. But I was running into limitations with its lighting model, everything running on CPU in Javascript. I knew I was able to get much more photo realistic results using path tracing. So I finally took the plunge and wrote the WebGL2 skeleton code that I needed for MC path tracing, and quickly had a working prototype. I've become fascinated with the concept of uneven subdivisions and their relation to polyrhythms. Inspired by this, I created&nbsp;<i>Algorithmic Sculpture 1</i>. It is the intersection of a stack of three double-shelled spheres, and two rounded cubes. This is analogous to a polyrhythm of 2:3, the hemiola.</p><p>Since I was also on the list for Art Blocks, I started experimenting with generating other combinations of polyrhythms, in grids, using various types of shapes. The results immediately were very promising, and by that time you contacted me, and I had to decide what my project was going to be. I had one other idea, which you may or may not see in a later drop (it's very different), but during a chat with Aaron Penne, we came to the conclusion that whatever I was doing with the MC path tracer was going to be groundbreaking and never seen before on Art Blocks. I really have to give a shoutout to Inigo Quilez for the amazing articles that he writes, such an incredible resource to get onto the path of using SDFs and all the tricks available— learning to craft my own, which are really the secret sauce <a href="https://www.iquilezles.org/articles/simplepathtracing/">here</a>.</p><h4><strong>JD: Awesome, yes we’ve been floored by your outputs since first seeing them. What sorts of features should collectors look for in your project?</strong></h4><p>PP: Be on the lookout for the more unique types of shapes that some of the combinations can yield. During development I've seen some really unique and unexpected forms. Another thing to look out for is emergent effects from the lighting. There are some gorgeous different types of backlighting to be discovered. Sometimes reflective surfaces create caustics on the diffuse ones. Sometimes the sun will frame a form just right.</p><h4><strong>JD: And is there anything else people should know about your project?</strong></h4><p>PP: Take a look at the source code! You don't need to understand it, but just see for yourself how tiny 6370 bytes of text look. That is generating all these shapes. And the photorealistic renderer as well. All these uniquely beautiful images. There's also a greeting list in there for my friends. It is a string at the end, between parentheses, because it is the parameter to the function call that starts the entire program. This is a way of showing that I couldn't have done this without them.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://production-cms-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Piter_Pasma_Algorithmic_Sculpture_1_X_0fde541de9.jpeg" alt="Piter Pasma, Algorithmic Sculpture 1, X..jpeg"><figcaption>Piter Pasma, Algorithmic Sculpture 1, X.</figcaption></figure><h4><strong>JD: That’s so great, some shoutouts built into the code that will live on-chain forever. OK, final bit: what is the best way for people to follow your work?</strong></h4><p>PP: I am currently most active on&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/piterpasma">Twitter</a>, but you can also follow me on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/piterpasma/">Instagram</a>. In both cases my username is @piterpasma. I also have a <a href="https://piterpasma.nl/">website</a>.</p><p><a href="https://artblocks.io/project/173">artblocks.io/project/173</a></p>

Interview with generative artist Piter Pasma. In this conversation, we hear more about his project, Skulptuur, his artistic practice, and the discovery of the blockchain as an artistic medium.

In Conversation with Piter Pasma

<p><a href="https://www.artblocks.io/artist/dalenz">daLenz</a> is a software engineer, hobby photographer, and blockchain/art enthusiast. I spoke with him in advance of his upcoming Art Blocks project&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artblocks.io/collections/curated/projects/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/35"><i>Aerial View</i></a>.</p><h4><strong>Jeff Davis: Hi there, it’s great to connect! Tell me a bit about your background in art and journey to crypto.</strong></h4><p>daLenz: Before discovering on-chain art, my artwork was focused mainly on landscape and drone photography. I love being outside, looking for the perfect scene, time, and weather and framing it into a still picture. I would also take my photographs and retouch them with different methods. One method I liked was to run them through&nbsp;<a href="http://deepdreamgenerator.com/">deepdreamgenerator.com</a> and tweak them until I got a result I liked.</p><p>Following some crypto projects during 2020, I started to get into digital/on-chain art because it allowed me to combine my engineering background with my art skills. I think it was in the beginning of 2020 when&nbsp;<i>ChainFaces</i> launched. I already knew about NFTs from&nbsp;<i>CryptoPunks</i> and&nbsp;<i>CryptoKitties</i>, but things really clicked for me with&nbsp;<i>ChainFaces</i> as it brought my attention to on-chain NFTs/art. The more I looked into on-chain art, I realized that I wanted solutions to generate art which were more lightweight to store them on-chain.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://production-cms-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/Icy_Lake_da_Lenz_5b20749fa2.jpeg" alt="Icy Lake_daLenz.jpeg"><figcaption>daLenz,&nbsp;<i>Icy Lake</i>, n.d.</figcaption></figure><h4><strong>JD: And then how did you connect this idea to generative art?</strong></h4><p>dL: My first contact with generative art was a good time before I entered the blockchain space. A few years ago, I listened to an IT podcast about Vera Molnár and was fascinated by how she developed a simple algorithm to draw artworks. When I started to see the possibilities of that combined with the blockchain, I started to look for art/generative projects in this space and that led me to the point where I am now.</p><h4><strong>JD: Any recent accomplishments you’d like to share?</strong></h4><p>dL: All my recent accomplishments are software engineering projects. For example, I built a “Replicant Preview”&nbsp;<a href="http://arp.lenz.gr/">tool</a> for Avastars, which allows you to mix the SVG traits from different Avastars and create a preview of your replicant.</p><figure class="image"><img src="https://production-cms-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/35000000_e9ec697679.png" alt="35000000.png"><figcaption>daLenz,&nbsp;<i>Aerial View #0</i>, 2021.</figcaption></figure><h4><strong>JD: Alright, let’s talk about&nbsp;</strong><i><strong>Aerial View</strong></i><strong>! What was the inspiration for your project?</strong></h4><p>dL: As I mentioned before, Vera Molnár was a significant influence on my learnings about generative art. I got hooked with rendering rectangles and was inspired to expand this idea with different sizes, color sets and illuminated backgrounds. Ultimately this led to my project&nbsp;<i>Aerial View</i>. My own vision and interpretation of generative-ly rendered rectangles.</p><h4><strong>JD: What should collectors look for in your Art Blocks project as the series is revealed?</strong></h4><p>dL: It’s all about patterns and I hope there is a pattern for everyone. Some will be looking for something simple, without much color or limited rectangles and others will be looking for complex structures that are colorful and diverse.</p><h4><strong>JD: I’m looking forward to your drop! What’s the best way for people to follow your work?</strong></h4><p>dL: You can follow me on&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/daLenz">Twitter</a>.</p><p><a href="https://artblocks.io/project/35">https://artblocks.io/project/35</a></p><p>First published 25 March 2021:&nbsp;<a href="https://beta.cent.co/artblocks/+2hwbw9">https://beta.cent.co/artblocks/+2hwbw9</a>.&nbsp;</p>

Interview with generative artist daLenz. In this conversation, we hear more about his project, Aerial View, his artistic practice, and the discovery of the blockchain as an artistic medium.

In Conversation with daLenz

Jeff Davis: Hi there, it’s great to connect! Tell me a bit about your background in art and journey to crypto.

JD: And then how did you connect this idea to generative art?

JD: Any recent accomplishments you’d like to share?

JD: Alright, let’s talk about Aerial View! What was the inspiration for your project?

JD: What should collectors look for in your Art Blocks project as the series is revealed?

JD: I’m looking forward to your drop! What’s the best way for people to follow your work?

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