Inspired by the physics behind electrical motors and alternators, Rotor projects varied shapes in circular motions to convey the ever turning, invisible magnetic fields that make elements go around. At a more basic level the work also explores how polygonal shapes can morph into circular sections and vice-versa.

With a subtle hint to information theory, the animation automatically pauses at a very specific moment (depending on traits) whereas the evolution thus far is condensed and captured into the still thumbnail. While the thumbnail possesses lower entropy than the full animation, studying it can reveal many of the traits a mint has and, once familiar with the collection, enable imagining its plausible history and future.

After clicking on the artwork, the following commands are available:

* Press 'p' to resume the animation after automatic pause (there's more coming!). Press again to pause / resume.
* Press 'a' / 's' to alter depth perception
* Press 'z' / 'x' to bring elements closer or farther
* Press 'c' to constrain the work
* Press 'r' to restart

Bonus: put on some tunes, hit different patterns of a, s, z, x to the beats, and allow yourself to envision the rotor become vinyl.

Rotor

When feeling stuck, go back to your roots. Rinascita is the legacy of Essenza, rebirth through epiphany. A celebration of gratitude, joy, and family. In a sudden awareness of the raw greatness of life.

Rinascita

Compression has been the driving force behind the image-based internet since the early 90s. No compression, no Netscape, no social media, no NFTs. The JPEG compression has specifically enabled photography-based imagery on the net. It has always served that purpose and over time become the de facto default for showing high quality imagery online. But compression always leaves a trace, which has become the lens through which the network sees the world of uploaded images.

"A painting is not a picture of an experience, but is the experience." ― Mark Rothko

JPEG tries to create an image programatically fully expressing that signature compression. An image that is like empty made from barely nothing, yet fully present in its blazing appearance. A work deeply material, expressing itself through the language of code and codec only. This is not a JPEG depicting an image. The JPEG is the image itself.

Delving into the depths and peculiarities of the digital, tethered to art history, JPEG found its way to the surface. Generated color fields are utilised to trigger the compressing algorithm, resulting in a world of raw visual entities. Where the abstract expressionists cut out the depiction in painting, aiming to let the artist convey pure emotion, JPEG cuts out the artist's emotion and lets it emerge from within the algorithm. Carefully you could categorize the work as *compressionism*. An art form where the machine speaks in its own raw language, but nevertheless makes a direct touch to our human heart.

JPEG is a collection of generative images in the JPEG file format. The work tries to break with the idea of the fixed file format, therefor creating the JPEG entirely from code using no image material whatsoever. The individual JPEGs are generated responsively at the moment of viewing based on the token hash as a random seed. You can literally drag the JPEG out from the browser window.

JPEG pays tribute to interface culture, and as such the work is responsive and not scaling. When the work is resized, the work is again rendered and compressed. When viewed smaller, details will disappear, yet the composition stays recognisable. It’s like stepping back to see a work from further away. The choice of color wanders from monochromatic tones to the brutality of complete randomness and everything in between.

In honour of the blockchain and the web, the work is written in vanilla JavaScript, using no dependancies, and generates a standard JPEG. This way the file is downloadable, aiming for a materiality that comes as close as possible to the standard browser.

JPEG

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.

Through Curved Air

**Nära explores the connections that make us human.**

Nära (close or near in Swedish) is a celebration of friendships and relationships throughout our lives. How some of them are small, fleeting and ephemeral while a select few become lifelong bonds. The work examines the intricate graphs that are formed by these connections. Graphs are all around us and have existed for as long as we have been human. From early settlements of hunter-gatherers and nomadic tribes to the internet of today. It's all graphs.

Nära allows the viewer to explore and experience these graphs as a metaphor for the organic, organised chaos that is life. Shapes connect from one node in a graph to the next, sometimes spilling over, doubling down and creating layers of intricacy. Imperfection is embraced and Nära exposes the chaotic and unpredictable elements of life. 

The artistic vision of Nära is to highlight and expose graphs in a tactile manner that allows the viewer to see the whole graph, but also engage with the details and texture.  In doing this, Nära attempts to bring a novel contribution by pushing the boundaries of graph representation and introducing an emotional dimension to this oftentimes rigid and scientific discipline. By treating graphs as a metaphor for relationships in life, they become an integral part of the concept and an important artistic tool. 

Nära takes inspiration from the De Stijl movement in reducing the world into a deliberate expression in its smallest form and builds upon the use of shapes imbued with meaning in the works of Hilma af Klint. These ideas are expanded on by accepting that what is deliberate must also relinquish some control through the pseudo-randomness of generative art. This invites reflection on the balance of control and chance in our lives. 

_Through Nära, you are invited to reflect on the connections in your own life and on the significance of the relationships that define us as human beings._ 

To interact with the script:
- Press 's' to save.
- Add the following to the URL:
  - pd=x, where x is a number to control the resolution via pixel density (useful for rendering high resolution stills)
  - rs=x, where x is a number to enable and control the rendering buildup animation.

Border

Size

Edge Treatment

Graph Creation

Perspective

Palette

Colouring Strategy

Topology

Shape Family

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. Any excess posted funds are reclaimable once the auction reaches settling price, such that the net payment for any purchase is equal to the lowest price paid for a token on this minter.

Art Blocks Presents

Nära

Tengil

About Nära

Tengil

Algorithmic edition of 280

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More in Art Blocks Presents

Rotor

Sebastián Brocher (CryptoArte)

Rinascita

Stefano Contiero

JPEG

Jan Robert Leegte

Through Curved Air

Jacob Gold

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