Anticyclones are a weather phenomena.
They pierce through darkness to instill peace and calm. Their planetary scale reminds us of how little we are and how powerful they can be.

High pressure, rotation, air flow… The "Anticyclone" series is an artistic exploration and interpretation of those concepts.

The rendering borrows its aesthetics from traditional and organic media like paper and crayons, to lend an analog/archival look.

"Can a computer draw like a human?"
The question is asked and challenged once more through "Anticyclone".

[Press the left/right keys to explore the different steps building the final image. Bottom/top for the first/last step. Can be intense for your machine]

Anticyclone

Ways of knowing...
Ways of seeing…

I can trace the origin of *Pre-Process* back to a Saturday afternoon in 2003 when I was sketching—first on paper, and then with code. I began by drawing circles, then connecting their center points, and then placing the circles in motion as coded animation. At that time, I was focused on *ideas* and not *images*—specifically, on dynamic systems and the ways a set of elements relate to each other within an imagined environment. I was working through questions about how to experience these systems and what might be an ideal (or interesting) way to engage with them. 

The ideas and code from this session later became the core of much of my subsequent work: including the foundation for the *Process* series of software, prints, and installations and the more recent *Process Compendium* works. *Pre-Process* pulls these origin points back into focus, develops them with what I’ve learned in the intervening years, and puts them on the blockchain to be archived. I consider the project a Rosetta Stone for my practice. It asks fundamental questions about the relationships between process and end result, including: Where is the aesthetic focus of a generative system? Is it deep within the code or within the picture the system creates?

Ultimately, *Pre-Process* emphasizes experiencing the origin of the system and then transitioning with it as it seeks, but never finds, equilibrium. The system is built around Element 1, the first that I created for the *Process* series:

*Element 1: Form 1 + Behavior 1 + Behavior 2 + Behavior 3 + Behavior 4
Form 1: Circle
Behavior 1: Move in a straight line
Behavior 2: Constrain to surface
Behavior 3: Change direction while touching another Element
Behavior 4: Move away from an overlapping Element*

*Pre-Process* is the origin of a long journey that I’m still on. It continues to ask essential questions and to encourage me to explore possibilities. Through it, I came to realize that I was ultimately more a picture-maker than a conceptual artist, or, the way I like to think about it,  I’m a “conceptual artist” with a small ‘c.’ I want the energy to be with the system (the ideas) *and* the surface (the picture) in equal measure. More directly, the work exists *between* the instructions, the performance and interpretation of the instructions, and the resulting images.

Pre-Process

Abstract typographic elements slide together to create new characters. In some compositions, a single character is featured. In others, characters string together to form words and sentences, which the algorithm shapes into often-familiar layouts.

The type designer Gerard Unger said “it is almost impossible to look and read at the same time”. Asemica invites you to look without the burden of legibility.

Created by Emily Edelman, Dima Ofman, and Andrew Badr. Command-S to download a vector file. Live token best viewed in Chrome.

Asemica

Ori is an art series that draws inspiration from paper folding to create deeply abstract and highly contrasting imagery. The loose interpretation of origami dynamics quickly dissolves as physical rules are bent and reimagined.

An artifact of this process is the distinctive fold lines, which symbolize the Yoshizawa-Randlett diagrams that serve as instructions for Origami. The practice of Kirigami (folding and cutting paper) is also represented and is occasionally visible as highly destructured forms.

Contrasting the precision of the folding engine is a spray paint simulation that gives the image its color. Paint is applied with a wandering nozzle, sometimes overflowing past boundaries and dripping downwards. Inspired by the freeform nature of graffiti, the spray paint layers are chaotic and unrefined.

Note: The spray paint simulation may take many seconds to fully render.

After the render is complete, press any key to destroy the artwork.

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 #260

LoVid

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Casey REAS

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Emily Edelman - Dima Ofman - Andrew Badr

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