*Arcadia* is a homage to the fridge-worthy landscape art of our youth. Childhood techniques of creating art are re-imagined by the scribbles of a nostalgic, computer-assisted mind.

**Spacebar**: Skip animation and load final image (useful when rendering in high resolutions)
**Up arrow**: Speed scribbles up (default speed is the highest)
**Down arrow**: Slow scribbles down

Palette

Alternate Paper Color

Border

Scribble Pressure

Scribble Roughness

Scribble Type

Mountain Type

Mountain Jaggedness

Mountain Height

Land Type

Sun Type

Cloud Type

Cloud Density

Has Rocks

Rock Density

Rock Size

Grass Height

Grass Density

This descending auction has a start time of {start_time} at the price of {start_price} Ξ and will exponentially decrease until the resting price of {base_price} Ξ is met.

Arcadia

_Libra_ functions as a manifesto that rejects digital art made from mimetic processes – the emulation of traditional analogue mediums and techniques. Such techniques are ubiquitous in digital art and arguably hamper the development of genuinely new aesthetics and new discourse for such a budding medium. 

Artists use digital mediums to mimic physical characteristics like brush strokes or textures of clay. It is not to say that these effects are not successful. Emulation of analogue artworks grants the digital work a natural, relatable and seemingly physical character. This use of the medium simultaneously distances the work from typical connotations of digital artworks being lifeless, flat, precise, and rigid. Perhaps this mimicry makes the work feel ‘finished.’ Digital techniques infiltrated painting in the 90s and early 2000s. At that time artists like Albert Oehlen and Jeff Elrod merged digital and analogue techniques to create a sort of ‘screen space’ on the canvas – something somewhere between a painterly space and a digital space. The Skarstedt Gallery, who originally presented Oehlen’s exhibition titled Computer Paintings, proclaimed that limitations in computers pushed Oehlen to ‘finish’ the paintings by hand – the paintings “required a human hand to enhance the final product.” That is to say that Oehlen augmented the digital works with an analogue technique. This is quite related to the current movement in digital art. Digital artists augment their works with emulations of analogue techniques. This observation raises the question: what does digital art look like when it does not emulate analogue art? Can such a work exist and feel ‘finished’?

To investigate such questions, _Libra_ generates imagery from first principles and default settings – two conflicting concepts that when brought together bring balance to the artwork. Each invocation of the algorithm directly uses the hash as the paintbrush: _Libra_ creates color-fields and blurs by placing the hash characters onto the canvas until it is sufficiently covered. Each character is initially recognizable as a letter or number – something we may all be familiar with. As the screen fills with more and more characters, some become unrecognizable and part of a larger system. Through these actions the hash is transformed into minute and carefully placed strokes that create illusions of light, space, and form that is unique to the screen space in which digital art lives. The remaining, recognizable characters ground our eye and act as a ‘staffage figure’ in a landscape painting. 

_Libra_ rejects traditional standards of aesthetics and beauty; Instead, _Libra_ embraces self-reflexivity and a contemporary definition of  kitsch – often a pejorative used to describe ‘low-brow’ or naïve artwork that is appreciated ironically or in a cult-like manner. In this series, a colored dot is dragged around the canvas both irrationally and without control. Drawing our attention in, this dot transfixes the viewer in an effort to shift the viewers’ attention from glancing at the work to a sustained look. These strokes are naïve and highly stylized – they embody the kitsch – and are mockingly-emulative of painterly marks and linework and grants the work a tone of self-reflexivity. Kitsch is obtained with drop shadows that create simple but satisfying _trompe l’oeil_ effects and fabricate a false sense of depth. Such an effect can be interpreted as humorous: this is an obvious and ironic representation of depth – it is totally fake and recognizable as fake on the flat digital display in which _Libra_ lives. 

Libra is a careful balancing act that creates form and color only to erase it.

Libra

Generative System 2: In this installment, the token ID hash string is read from left to right to create a bitmap matrix and a color matrix. Both are combined to create an image, which is then used in algorithmic fashion to compose a dynamic visual composition.

Gen 2

This piece began as a formal study in composition using simple layered shapes, but when I started experimenting with animation it took on a life of its own. The final work visualises in form, colour, and motion the tension between social conformity and self-expression. At times all of us are required to keep ourselves under control, so that we can live and work together without having to negotiate a thousand tiny idiosyncrasies. Other times we are free to act as wild as we like, but even within this freedom we often find ourselves expressing different kinds of alignment and harmonisation. Negotiating our lives involves finding a balance between these forces: conformity and harmony on one hand, and expression and freedom on the other. As long as we share space with others, we must always think about how our actions fit in with those of the people around us.

LIA has been making [generative software art since 1995](https://www.liaworks.com), and her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide. This piece extends her signature process of overlapping simple shapes in complex ways, applying a new quality of motion to paint and re-paint the composition, forming hypnotic, shifting patterns of movement and stillness.

*Instructions*
Animation runs automatically - click/tap to pause and unpause

WARNING:
This art work may potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised.

Being Yourself While Fitting In

Ieva [iɛvʌ] is an algorithm that creates a shape in a specific sequence from a random point on the grid and smooths out its corners. Overlapping such shapes creates endless possibilities of combinations that will always remain balanced and aesthetically pleasing.

The title of this project is the name of the investigator who made a criminal case against me for making art. This name occupied a big part of my mind while working on this project. And I decided that it should be perpetuated in art.

You can do the "investigation" for Ieva (because she doesn't want to do it). To do so, you have to click on the art.

**Controls:**

- "click" = investigate
- "space" = automatic investigation

Art Blocks Presents

Arcadia

Zachariah Watson

About Arcadia

Zachariah Watson

Algorithmic edition of 256

Charitable giving

Creative credits

Additional details

Filter (0)

items

No items to display

More in Art Blocks Presents

Libra

Cooper Jamieson

Gen 2

DCA

Being Yourself While Fitting In

LIA

Ieva

Shvembldr

Art

Company

Learn

Art Blocks Presents

Arcadia

Zachariah Watson

About Arcadia

Zachariah Watson

Algorithmic edition of 256

Charitable giving

Creative credits

Additional details

.css-1n7p6r6{fill:var(--color-primary);transition-property:background-color,border-color,color,fill,stroke;transition-timing-function:cubic-bezier(0.4, 0, 0.2, 1);transition-duration:200ms;margin-right:16px;}Filter (0)

items

No items to display

More in Art Blocks Presents

Libra

Cooper Jamieson

Gen 2

DCA

Being Yourself While Fitting In

LIA

Ieva

Shvembldr

Art

Company

Learn

Filter (0)