_Alan Ki Aankhen_ is an exploration of other-worldly cityscapes in the visual aesthetic of Fahad’s distinct style with pen and paper. The title, translated as _Alan’s Eyes_, alludes to Alan Turing’s machine intelligence test - a thought experiment foreshadowing a moment in which we can no longer differentiate between the real and the artificial. Though first proposed in 1950, the topic feels especially relevant today, as even our creative practices are being carried by shifting technological tides.

The algorithms and decision-making encoded into this generative art project intentionally imitate Fahad’s approach on traditional mediums - composition rules, textures, and overall themes. The visual elements are inspired by Fahad’s memories from his nomadic life. You’ll find intricate windows from Rajasthan, massive Egyptian pyramids rising from the horizon, a density of civilization only seen in New York, and the moon - a comforting and shared sight no matter where you stand.

Alan Ki Aankhen

Is code art? Autology is a study of not only how we interpret art, but also how art can interpret itself. Each piece has its source code embedded imperceptibly within the image itself. Hence the source code is literally part of the artwork. With a little sleuthing, one can derive the source code from the image and vice versa in infinite recursion. Click 's' to save the image and then visit https://steganon.com/autology.html to decode it. Or if you are feeling technologically adventurous, try to develop your own tool to do the same.

Autology

This project symbolizes generative artists united by the common idea of Art Blocks. Each panel on the block is a small generative art piece with several random parameters that live their own life while simultaneously being part of the composition. 

Each art contains one letter of the words ART BLOCKS. A collector who possesses all nine letters becomes a member of the TBOA club.

The Blocks of Art

WaVyScApE
wave flow vibrate oscillate swing waft drift float undulate surge meander...

is it landscape?

after years of living in cities, on a trip through the alps, i’ve been immersed in a beautiful landscape. i was shocked by this vastness, depth, rhythmic beauty...
soft rolling hills that gently swing into each other, to the depths of overlying rugged ridges, followed by billowing cloud banks, this kind of loving frequency!
was it then when the theme “landscape” became a constant companion of my work? maybe.

nevertheless, it's not my ambition to create landscape illustrations. rather, through the joy of playing with code, many different abstract structures led me to this sort of linear turbulence, which can sometimes leave a pleasant impression of “familiarity”. however, an openness that stimulates the imagination has always been important to me.

softly morphing blob shapes traveling horizontally and leaving their trails behind. creating virtual three-dimensional forms, layered over each other, building up staggered fields out of random color sequences of partly pre-defined color arrays. mixed and overlaid with white and greyscale palettes.
when some remaining colorful structures shine through, sometimes, this reminds me of thawing snow in spring, when yellow and green grasses and early bloomers, or lost toys or trash suddenly appear.
sometimes it's the case that when the picture is built up randomly, by chance, a beautiful colorful structure is suddenly overlaid with gray again, an appropriate allegory to the concealing snow or wrapped gifts, or similar things, and for whom i consider the secret to remain hidden.

...

computer-based aesthetics have always had a strong fascination for me.
in the early 90s, during my 2 year residency in new york i used to go into clubs and bars around the East village.  once entered a small place with electronic music playing and animations beamed onto the wall. i couldn’t stop staring at these into-each-other-morphing structures. fractals! this was completely new to me, and i so was stunned!  …waited till the end and talked to the couple who made it. they told me something about the apple-II computer and some software, but i barely understood anything.

it was a pretty cold winter and i lived in williamsburg, so i went over the bridge and had this amazing starry city night around and inside me. i must have mumbled something like: i have to go for it, have to find out, have to start anew again…
the next days, i talked to my girlfriend, and she encouraged me to call around at computer departments. maybe someone would have a clue.

the first call i made was the institute of technology: “hold on, i’ll give you the art department,” and then there was this guy, “yeah, fractals! so you studied art in germany and want to learn something about computer graphics and fractals? come by next monday."
i showed him my catalogs from galerie-gebr-lehmann.de, “this is bauhaus!, i love bauhaus!”. he offered me an internship.

so i started working on an IBM workstation, somewhere in midtown, somewhere between the 30th and 40 floor, in front of 2 large workstations, one wall side completely glassed in, in the middle of all these thousands of block buildings. i stood extremely next to me; “where are you!?, what are you doing here!?” it exceeded my wildest dreams.


...

over the years, working with code has not only become a practical technique, but also a factor that determines the aesthetics itself. or it was even the main reason, when i started with code, using a formal language and principle that's based on algorithmic functions, representing mathematical processes and simulations. which leave behind a kind of the machine's own characteristic design language, representing our culture in its essentials. to me it also offers sort of a meta-level of looking at/into nature.

i'd call myself a code minimalist
fascinated by bauhaus, constructivism and minimalism, i developed many if not most of my processing apps exclusively with basic shapes like circles, squares and lines. sometimes i caught myself doing e.g. programming a shadow only to take it home again after all, since it seemed to be tipping over stylistically somehow.
such as. also in the "flower code" work series, where i developed the blossoms with detailed petal shapes, only to turn everything back again to only work with circles and lines, because i was horrified to realize that it immediately became naturalistic or even kinda cheesy, not what i wanted... 

holger lippmann, berlin nov. 2022
bauhaus small writing

WaVyScApE

LoVid’s signature video work mixes handmade analog synthesizers with digital tools in immersive Red, Green, and Blue (RGB) compositions that celebrate luminosity, chaos, relationships between craft and engineering, and connections between body and tech.
 
Tide Predictor, LoVid’s first onchain generative work, builds a bridge from video synthesizer patches to algorithmic code-derived imagery. This collection is formally and technically inspired by hardware-based image generation, and places experimental moving-image, circuit boards, and electrical signal-based video art at the conceptual roots of generative art.

Tide Predictor is a modular video synthesizer patch model, designed to reflect the analog spirit by working with three channels: RGB. Tide Predictor reimagines NTSC-encoded, oscillator driven electrical current based video synthesis while adding digital randomness/unpredictability, and transformations based on code, along with each mint’s unique content.
 
In the late 19th century, mechanical analog computers used rhythm and repetition to anticipate the rise and fall of water levels. In addition to “tides”, which are low frequency oscillations of the ocean, higher frequency changes or “waves” are frequently discussed in reference to both water and electrical signals. By working with looping - and explicitly addressing the period (=1/frequency) for each RGB color - Tide Predictor extends analogies between the flow of water and the flow of electricity.

LoVid’s Tide Predictor brings these relationships from the blockchain, through your screen, straight to your retina!

Art Blocks Curated

Tide Predictor #42

LoVid

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