***Crypt***
Crypt is a labyrinth of sound, image, data, and code. It is an enigma. Once solved, it is also a gateway.

Crypt is a multilayered piece of generative art, one that unfolds into something else, then unfolds again. It contains artworks within artworks, found by puzzles inside other puzzles. One leading to another. At the center is a gateway. The gateway opens another world. That world is an Alternate Reality Game filled with cryptic histories, untold stories, and physical treasures hidden all over the world. 

To begin, some hints. The solution to the first puzzle is a three-part key. It leads to another layer. Here is a room of sorts. An escape room. Viewable from three angles. In the room are eight code-words. They lead to the way out. Collaboration is essential.

At the bottom of Crypt is another key. It unlocks a world. It unlocks Cyclops.

To confirm your solution to crypt and claim your reward please visit: https://cyclopsgroup.art

***Cyclops***

Cyclops is a networked performance, collaborative narrative, and alternate-reality-game designed to be played by groups of people working together across the world. Set in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the game begins with a series of audio tracks. Some tracks are musical compositions, others are filled with odd voices reading letters and counting numbers, others still resemble nothing more than noise and static.
 
Each track is, in fact, a puzzle of increasing complexity. As players work together to solve them, a narrative about early research into psychological operations, mind-control experiments, and an alternative history of the internet age begins to emerge. Over the course of the game, players come across - and are invited to collect - a series of artworks specifically created for Cyclops players. To find these artworks, players must identify and follow up on clues provided within the game. Cyclops is a world within a world.

Crypt

Departing from generative art’s focus on the size and variety of algorithmic outputs, Coalition contains just 36 geometric creations. Every mint is composed of unique combinations of line, shape, and color, making them artworks unto themselves. However, just as significant as the individual mints is the larger series of which they are each a part. When viewed collectively as a 6x6 grid, the 36 tokens make up a larger, single artwork, the titular Coalition. Patterns and palettes that exist across different tokens come together seamlessly in the Coalition, allowing users to recognize their mint as an indispensable element of the coherent whole.

By highlighting the inextricable relationship between the single set and its 36 components, Coalition suggests that storytelling must play a vital role in the future of generative art. The medium’s current emphasis on long-form algorithmic exploration has come at the expense of narrative craft. While long-form algorithmic exploration has produced groundbreaking artwork and will continue to do so, our project urges practitioners and collectors to consider generative art’s capabilities outside of replicating the look of analog media. Instead of attempting a mimesis of old modes of production, Coalition foregrounds the stories about human experience that emerge when artists free their code from the burden of replicating paint and paper. We ask, does the “art” in generative art refer to the algorithm, or the outputs?

To encourage artists and collectors to value storytelling and limitation in their NFTs, Coalition doubles as performance art. While the set is limited to 36 mints, a 37th is available for purchase. The collector who buys the final token will find only an error message. The algorithm self-destructs after mint #35. Read about why we chose to do this [here](https://medium.com/@generativeartworks/from-reservation-to-coalition-the-stories-that-generative-art-can-tell-d5466e7ba15b).

There can be no avant-garde because everything has been done.
—Pedro Friedeberg

Coalition

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

A simulation of me sketching 100 variations of the same idea. My focus and attention to detail wane with each successive drawing as boredom, frustration, and feelings of inevitability begin to sink in. By the end I find myself repeatedly asking: What's the point of it all?

Pointers

Inspired by the bright lights of the big city, Time Squared is an homage to New York City, brought to life through the magic of prime numbers. 

A key problem that we wanted to solve with this project is allowing visually impaired individuals to enjoy our art. As a result, these artworks feature a first-of-its-kind screen reader which contains a detailed description of the colors, movement, size, and structure of the artwork. You can activate it by enabling a screen reader such as ChromeVox and hovering over the artwork. 

Use any key to pause the artwork, or click to make it full screen. Photosensitive warning: These artworks contain flashing colors and moving patterns that could trigger seizures for people with visual sensitivities.

Art Blocks Presents

Crypt #9

The Cyclops Group

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