Democracity is inspired by the diorama of the same name at the 1939 New York World's Fair which depicted a utopian city of the future. This piece satirizes the concept showing that the optimism of the 1930's did not account for the problems of the future brought about by climate change such as flooding. This piece is fully interactive with the best way to experience it being to explore and try to understand the stories that the different city layouts are trying to tell you. Note the cities are tileable meaning you can easily edit them together visually (Example: bit.ly/3yWCHvn). Controls: Click & drag to pan, Scroll wheel to zoom in and out, "c" - Change camera mode, "r" - Reset camera positioning, "p" - Toggle auto-pan, "z" - Zoomed out view, "t" - Toggle background transparency, 1-4 - Change detail level.

Democracity

## The Concept

Ad Extremum Terrae explores visual storytelling in a form of generative art. The project tells a story of the tragic end of all existence in a distant universe, long since forgotten. Any given individual output depicts a passing moment, captured during the final breath of each dying world. The once peaceful landscapes were torn apart, deforming and reshaping their natural geometries and thus the reality itself in a surrealistic fashion.

Each image is drawn to vaguely mimic a pencil-like texture. Firstly to remind of something familiar and subsequently emitting a peculiar and eerie feeling. Did this event happen and was it witnessed by a carbon-based life-form?

The project invites the viewer to ponder the different scenarios of what might have transpired in the past that lead the universe to its doom. Although one interpretation can be deciphered from the partially corrupted transmission below, it is not necessarily the true explanation.


The only thing that is known, is that all life ceased to exist in this ancient universe long time ago. Its tale lives on, but only as a memory and as a reminder to us all that life can be fragile and fleeting, albeit beautiful and precious.

## The Story

*”If anyone listens .. …. recording …. ….. ….. .. a warning …. …. will happen .. your world. We didn’t …. …. .. our universe, ……. we drained … ….. resource ….. .. couldn’t sustain … life …. any longer. The great collapse .. moments away … this will .. … end .. our story. Do not …… our mistakes. Most importantly … …. prevent ….. …. ……… ….. world .. … ……. ……… at any cost. This is our final transmission.”*

Just as the transmission ends, a sudden flash of dreamlike images flashes through your mind, leaving a vivid imprint. These were the final moments of an ancient, distant and long forgotten universe. The rush is too much to handle and you faint. You wake up and immediately start looking for the recording but it's gone. You remember everything as clear as day, but was it just a dream?

## The Details

There are several main scenes, which depict the specific stage that the end has advanced to. The predominantly or entirely black and white and the muted palettes give a sense of silence and solitude. Meanwhile other palettes disturb that calmness. Some palettes remind of colors in nature, but most are chosen and used in unnatural manner touching the style of expressionism.

Pressing "s" saves a screenshot at any point during the rendering. Pressing "p" pauses and unpauses the rendering. Pressing up or down arrow increases or decreases the drawing animation speed.

Ad Extremum Terrae

Nucleus is a procedural crypto-art project, mathematics moves points around a nexus point like subatomic particles around a nucleus, forming accidental geometric patterns. The appearance and movement of each token is driven by a unique hash, no two are the same. Best viewed in motion as a live script.

Nucleus

~~~~~~~~~~~  Simple, Pure & Uncut Noise, straight from the Hash ~~~~~~~~~~~ 

HashCrash is an ode to the book SnowCrash, written by Neal Stephenson. This book had a very big influence on the crypto and NFT culture. Long before NFT's or concepts like the MetaVerse were used, Stephenson already described the things we are living with today. For example, he introduced the concept of HyperCards, digital items that could be exchanged and sold in the MetaVerse.

One of the main concepts in the book is what is called "SnowCrash". This is a digital drug that can take over the minds of people, turning people into puppets to be controlled by their master. The drug was represented as a type of visual noise that could bring the viewer into a trance state. Like SnowCrash, NFT's have quite some effect on our minds and body, the addictive behavior and price rushes of NFT’s evoke in people clearly something that has resemblance to how certain drugs work. 
HashCrash plays in a cynical way with this concept of a digital drug. 

By simply representing the pure input hash-data and mapping it  to color, geometric figures appear. By mirroring and cycling through the numbers, the structures behind the random hash string come alive. What seems as a simple noise pattern, can reveal whole worlds to explore for the ones that look closely. The fast paced representation of the hash data can evoke different feelings from relaxation to panic. 


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  Cheap, fast & powerful  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

* No customized rarities for this one. What you see is purely translated randomness from the transaction hash.

** Stare at the center closely in live mode for guaranteed breakthrough within 10. minutes

*** Use with care, do not watch when sensitive for strobing lights.



HashCrash

An audiovisual series that explores the paradoxical nature of our over-connected world.

We are objectively moving more and more into the digital world. Increasingly connected through technology, and while it’s undoubtedly clear there are a lot of advantages to our interconnected world, it also seems to feel more dystopian. Soon we may no longer be able to realize what is objectively real. As if the more connected we become; the deeper we explore the possibilities of technology; the further we move away from the lives right in front of us. When was the last time you took time to observe a leaf falling from a tree, carried on the wind? Watched a beautiful sunray coming through a window? Listened to a gentle piano tune for a while? It feels like the whole world is collectively forgetting to enjoy moments like these. (Dis)connected tries to emulate the sentiment of those moments, while contrasting it at the same time with a darker, nostalgic undertone.

(Dis)connected is a series that invites you to take your time to really appreciate each piece. The visual artwork has soft swaying analog cables on a breeze,  with a play on light in the background, as if days are going by. Cables, for decades now have been used to connect appliances, transmitting either electricity or data. The cables in (Dis)connected are clearly connected to something and leading somewhere, but we do not know to what or where. 

The long form generative auditory work complements the soft swaying of the cables. At times the generated soundtrack is soothing, nearly meditative, at other times it becomes slightly off-tune and the sine wave changes. Forcing the viewer into the disconnected sentiment. The entire piece purposely glitches at times, disturbing both the auditory and visual state. Asking you to take a look at your own reality both in the digital and the physical realm.

For color palettes works from both traditional and crypto-native artists resembling the sentiment of (Dis)connected were incorporated. You may recognize palettes utilized by Van Gogh, Rothko, Picasso, XCopy, Grant Yun and more. There are also a handful of custom palettes that aren't related to other artists.

One of the artist inspirations for the work was Ryan D. Anderson, who creates incredible moody animations often accompanied by piano music. Ryan really has mastered the duality of soothing animation and music in a usually quite dystopian or nostalgic world.

On a technical level, where (Dis)connected is really breaking new ground is in the melodies. Most generative art series working with sound use none or fairly simple music theory. The melodies in (Dis)connected are created by first selecting one of 60 different scales (a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch) and combining them with one of 16 different chord progressions (a chord progression is a succession of chords). Every beat, the chord is matched to the scale and during the beat musical notes that fit that chord can be played as well. The number of notes varies per beat, per melody and per piece. For each piece there is a generative main melody which is repeated throughout the piece and between each main melody a new custom melody is generated. In essence creating a musical piece that can play into infinity, together with the animation, and will continuously sound slightly different. It's also worth noting that the entire work is coded in vanilla JavaScript, meaning no external libraries were used.

Most browsers don't support the auto-playing of sound. Once your piece has loaded in tap, click or press any key to start your (Dis)connected piece. As the animation can be quite heavy there is an option to set a "hq" parameter in your URL (you do this by adding "index.html?hq=false" at the end of your live URL), especially on mobile or high DPR screens (e.g.: retina screens), it is recommended setting hq to false.

Art Blocks Presents

(Dis)connected #22

Tibout Shaik

More in Art Blocks Presents

Democracity

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Ad Extremum Terrae

uMathA

Nucleus

Hjalmar Åström

HashCrash

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