[To learn more about the partnership between Motus and Wolffia, we invite you to watch the ilumz video](https://owenmcateer.com/ilumz/)

Collaborators working in two opposing mediums create a unique expression of art that neither could create alone. Merging IRL artistic techniques with algorithmic generative coding. Holding focus on creations that are varied, organic and feature human characteristics of spontaneous art work.

In the era of the machine, harmony and humanity shine through ilumz. This is rooted in the artists’ contrasting disciplines, techniques and styles which meld to create a cohesive choreography of abstract, organic, generative art.

The creative spark was a chance meeting of opposites. An abstract multi media artist (Wolffia) with an intuitive, freeform, joyful flair and a keen eye for bold shapes, vibrant colours and varied textures. And a creative coder (Motus) who uses algorithms and mathematics to explore the hidden beauty within numbers. 

Their ilumz brainchild is an algorithm with a human touch and the intelligence to not just replicate painted works but to redraw, reconfigure and recreate. Composition is at the core, so ilumz dynamically builds interaction and divergence into a symphony of shape. This fine balance creates a uniquely natural feel that isn’t overpowered by the algorithm for a distinct aesthetic – call it calm wonderment.

Ilumz is a journey from contrast to cohesion that blurs the boundary between physical art and digital craft. It fuses geometry with incidental imperfections of hand-drawn elements. And it’s full circle as Wolffia and Motus continue to catalyse (and challenge) each other’s thinking. You can see the humanity and the sense of partnership in every ilumz mint.

*“Chance, mistakes, serendipity... from abstract to algorithm we wanted our hybrid physical-digital project to sing of human touch.”*
*Wolffia Inc.*

*“Working out the rules for how shapes interact, collide and overlap to create unpredictable complexity opens so many opportunities to explore.”*
*Motus*

ilumz

Dream Engine is an ethereal art project that allows us to see, hear and touch the heart of the blockchain by exploring its sleeping DNA. It generates an abstraction of sound and vision, enabling  us to 
listen to the blockchain while watching it dream. Dream Engine enhances the unique and subtle differences in each invocation to be as distinct as a retina scan. 
Borrowing an adjacency matrix from graph theory, we locate and connect neighboring nodes while sequencing an evolving soundtrack from each hash code letter. These are color coded and distinct to every composition. 
This piece is not just "on chain", it is "chain native" and exists so the code can render an unrepeatable audio-visual hash signature from the blocks DNA.
Dream Engine also uses psycho acoustic neural frequencies. These resonate in a hypnotic therapeutic musical monolith, with crests and lulls designed to interplay within our own space of creation, meditation ​and dreams. 
Each dream piece is reproducibly generated from its immutable hash. But you can mutate your own composition and use it as an instrument for artistic expression. Click play to engage music. 
Use your mouse, speech or keys to remix. Return clears canvas to create your own dream composition. When paired with sister project, Talking Blocks, 
they will interact creating an audio-visual feedback loop. Dream Engine lives in a dimension where ideas are born. “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” today they do.
For instructions to create in Live Mode and more, visit our website https://www.doreme.xyz


Dream Engine

Prismatic explores color, refraction, and interaction. Every invocation is presented as a still image, but responds to keystrokes with transformations. Start with the arrow keys. Please note: This project is not presented with any features or traits. While features were used in the algorithm in order to introduce variation, each invocation of Prismatic is intended to be experienced as a piece of a whole. The project itself is the prism, each mint is a moment captured as we pass through it.

Prismatic

“…the box was a fascist symbol and the architecture of freedom/democracy needed something besides the box.” - Frank Lloyd Wright.    Freeplan explores the early 20th-century modernist architectural concept “open plan” which indicates the dissolution of rooms and the visual building boundaries. Instead of conventional boxes, freely placed partitions, floors, structures, and other elements create a feeling of space. The transaction hash determines the overall architectural composition, context, existence of components, and representation style. Each iteration is scaled, oriented, and numbered like a proper architectural project.

Freeplan

How can intent be communicated when ideas are filtered through a pseudorandom number generator? Simply looking at the output does not make it clear whether a stroke is placed on the canvas because of a decision by the artist or by a roll of the dice. The artist’s hand is more present in the process than the result; they choose the algorithms, tune the parameters, and prune the features. As I experimented with my code, I held a particular idea in mind, but I was uncertain how it would finally manifest. I pursued a visual composition that made me feel a certain way, and the visuals I landed on communicate my feeling better than anything I can put into words. Through Curved Air is about the challenge of communication. Regardless of the medium, I can never be certain that the message I intend to send is the message that is received.

Through Curved Air takes inspiration from musical minimalism, where repetition is used to highlight changes in rhythm and harmony. Every output is created by repeatedly copying a single shape. Each copy only has meaning in relation to the other shapes nearby, and that meaning changes with the context around it. Delicate structures form and are subsequently obscured by further layers, and though they may be hidden, they still affect the perception of the final image. Clicking on the canvas will start or stop the looping mode, where the image is recreated in a slightly different way. New facets are exposed as the composition changes yet remains the same. Just as I spend my days trying to share my inner experience through my art, Through Curved Air uses each shape and each loop and each token hash to attempt to create a common feeling between myself and the viewer.

Through Curved Air also takes inspiration from the paintings of Joan Mitchell. I was drawn to her expressive strokes, vibrant colors, and use of negative space, all of which come together to give a more intense feeling of looking at a landscape than just looking at a painting of a landscape. Her energetic marks clearly communicate that there is a human being behind the art. The marks of generative works are often similarly representative of the underlying process, but instead of drawing focus to the artist behind the piece, they draw attention to the algorithm. To convey human emotion in the way I intended, I had to use a subtler algorithm.

The technical tools to convey this emotion are tools I have been consistently developing in my practice. I love making generative art because I can design a system where I understand how all the components work, but they can still come together to produce a result that surprises me. The algorithm behind the compositional variation in my earlier works Coquina and Primordial is one I continued to evolve, and it rests at the heart of Through Curved Air. In fact, I pushed it further than ever, using it to create the individual shapes that form the building block of each output. This emergent variation permeates the work and results in surprising images that more closely resemble paintings than anything I made previously. I believe the potential for surprise is key to conveying emotion through code. When the possibility space of the algorithm grows too large to understand, the mind wanders to the person behind the algorithm. Perhaps the human element is the struggle to understand, or the struggle to be understood.

Art Blocks Presents

Through Curved Air #61

Jacob Gold

More in Art Blocks Presents

ilumz

Wolffia Inc. & Motus Art

Dream Engine

REMO x DCsan

Prismatic

Eliya Stein

Freeplan

xnmtrc

Art

Company

Learn