Inside the computer there’s a digital hand. The hand selects a metal implement, cuts off a slab of clay, and carves into its surface. It wanders like your hand wanders; it carves imaginary contours, sinuous and exploratory. It doesn’t know the end result so it carves lines until it feels content, and then it numbers the piece and stamps its maker’s mark. It fires the slab in a digital kiln (it calls this “minting”) and through this act its art is preserved for millennia. The hand runs its fingers over the textured surface, feeling satisfaction at having spontaneously produced a piece of art so beautiful, expressive, and unique.

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Ceramics is a generative sculpture that mimics the physical expression of carving into clay. Through uncanny naturalistic rendering it challenges our notion of “handmade”. It asserts that the value of handmade isn’t the time it takes to make the work nor the physical materials consumed, but the endless small decisions and serendipitous details that appear along the way, as can be felt in each Ceramics mint.

Despite the handmade nature of Ceramics the outputs cannot be touched. Highly tactile images enchant the viewer to imagine their tangible representations, and leave them to dwell on their perception of materiality — both in the experiential physical world and conceptually-infinite digital space.

Ceramics

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

There are an almost infinite number of ways to wrap a string around a set of pegs. On the surface it may seem like a simple concept but prepare to be surprised and delighted at the variety of combinations the algorithm can produce. Each output from 'Ringers' is derived from a unique transaction hash and generated in Javascript in the browser. Feature variations include peg count, sizing, layout, wrap orientation, and a few colorful flourishes for good measure.

Ringers

A collection of on-chain, generative cumulonimbus buddies. Created using vanilla javascript, each unique NimBud features random wires, colors, eyes, mouths, cloud bodies, and more. Each with their own personality.

NimBuds

Each Construction Token is unique and contains a randomized seed that determines the composition of the artwork. This includes the number, orientation, and placement of rectangles, as well as the color selections. Most tokens are monochromatic, with occasional light or dark variants. In some cases, the script will produce a token using complementary colors.

Art Blocks Curated

Ceramics #42

Charlotte Dann

More in Art Blocks Curated

Anticyclone

William Mapan

Ringers

Dmitri Cherniak

NimBuds

Bryan Brinkman

Construction Token

Jeff Davis

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