This work is the product of a project to dwell undeletable souls on the blockchain. A system that generates human faces with different personalities and expressions from a minimum of code. After determining the personality from a hash, the face continues to change into various expressions. It is a living portrait, a fragment of minter's soul, forever adrift in the vast net.

Living organisms are coded by a sequence of the four bases in DNA, and a human DNA is composed of 3 billion base pairs. This is about 750 MB of information. And the difference in code between individual people is only 0.1%, or 750 KB. This slight difference creates all kinds of differences in appearance and physical functions. This is quite astonishing to our ordinary senses.

However, if we are surprised by this fact, we need to suspect our senses.

I was interested in these points and explored what are the elements by which people identify the faces and facial expressions of others, how little code can create personality and emotion, and conversely, to what extent can an observer identify personality and facial expressions. As a result, I succeeded in expressing the personalities, emotions, and complex feelings of various people with 14 KB of code.

We like to think of humans are supernatural and one-of-a-kind. This is a common background to the past, when many people favored the Ptolemaic theory.

However, this work leads us to suspect that we humans are only a program that can be coded.

Then, what is the essential difference between a code written in DNA and a code written in programming language? I believe the only difference is whether the execution space is real or digital space. Is it a prerequisite for the existence of the soul to operate an organic computer in real space? It is merely a medium.

This is not meant to be pessimistic, such as we are mere code, the soul does not exist and is an illusion, a mere electrical signal in the brain.

Rather, the soul, the function that makes us aware of our existence, makes us think, causes us to emotion, and makes us act, certainly dwells in the code.

I store this code on the blockchain, thereby spreading undeletable ghosts on the vast net forever.

In this work, the ghost is output on the net by minting. This act is part of the work. The personality of the ghost is also determined by the hash owned by the minter. In other words, the ghost output by you from the code on the blockchain is a fragment of your soul on the net.


[NOTES]

Press C to turn canvas on/off
Press S to save image

GHOST IN THE CODE

This project explores the highly mathematical world of Islamic geometric patterns.

Islamic design is one of the world's great artistic traditions, but not much is known about the methods used by artisans in centuries past to construct them. One of the first attempts to formalize the geometry behind Islamic patterns was E.H. Hankin's seminal 1908 paper "Polygons in Contact", which remains a key technique today. Our project combines the approach described by Hankin with transformations of designs found at real-world historical sites.

Two Mathematicians avoids traditional ornamentation and colouring. It seeks to find beauty in the geometry of the patterns themselves, embellishing only with subtle combinations of basic line and dot shapes. Its two archetypes contrast the precision and order found in Islamic patterns with the informality of a rough draft. In that, it reflects the personalities of its creators, alternating between the obsessive need for order and exactness, and the embrace of just winging it.

Controls:
- Zoom in or out with scroll wheel, or arrow up/down. 
- Press 'i' to see the underlying structure.

Two Mathematicians

Center pivot irrigation is a mainstay of the American farm. Like giant inkjet printers, they have painted verdant circles onto landscapes since the 1950s. The artists of this piece grew up in America’s breadbasket near the birthplace of the center pivot, surrounded by the nostalgia of the Family Farm. These were years of innocence – free from concerns of water shortages, chemical leaching, and economic controversy. The tension between childhood times and today’s environmental reality is a canvas for re-envisioning center pivots: they are fundamentally giant drawing machines. What happens when water is rationed? …when they are free to draw? …when they behave unexpectedly? Your token serves as the instructions for these machines—instructions that either constrain or liberate the machine to paint fantastical scenes.

Watch the project teaser video, learn more about the rationale, and see example mints at https://centerpivot.art/

Additional controls interact with each other and have varying impacts during different periods of the animation. Experiment to create and save a new variation of your mint!
'Arrow up' increases evaporation
'Arrow down' decreases evaporation
'Arrow right' increases overspray
'Arrow left' decreases overspray
'.' begins sunset; neon colors emerge depending on when initiated
'/' shows pivot mechanisms only
's' saves screenshot

Center Pivot

Aithérios explores the notion of ethereality as seen through the transformation of our thoughts and memories.
Thoughts that emerge from our foggy inner state coalesce and become concrete by our minds. At the same time, memories that were once so tangible to us fade into the recesses before their eventual oblivion. Thoughts and memories share an intimacy within the labyrinth of the mind, sometimes they work together to cover ground beyond the horizon of what is understandable.


Aithérios

Rapture is a series exploring magical seals overflowing their boundaries, gradually dissolving into the surroundings. It is imagined as abstract iconography for a fictional mystic religion. Rapture is the conclusion of a system I have been working with and perfecting over several years and it is the first time that it is presented completely autonomous. The series consists of computationally heavy art pieces, with calculations happening while the seal shake to contain its powers. 25% of the proceeds from this project will go to the preservation of the Ecuadorian rainforest Bigai through Randers Rainforest Wildlife Foundation.

Rapture #718
Thomas Lin Pedersen

features

Rapture #718.css-1wclmit{display:none;}@media (min-width: 768px){.css-1wclmit{display:inline;}} • .css-ymsk1t{white-space:nowrap;font-weight:400;}Thomas Lin Pedersen

features

Rapture #718
Thomas Lin Pedersen