Inspired by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian. Made with an interest in color theory and a love for color in general.

Dot Grid

Abstract impressions of alien landscapes, aerial photographs and geometric structures sequence into being, collapsing onto itself.

Press 'h' to  enable full internal resolution (intense)
Press space bar to relaunch animation
Press 'e' to enable endless displacement mode

Best viewed with Chrome and a modern desktop. Reduced animation on Firefox.

10% of the primary sale net proceeds will be split with a charity focusing on environment and a local art nonprofit

Collapsed Sequence

I find the patterns which emerge from the herding of sheep and the murmuration of starlings an apt metaphor for our own journeys of searching for truth, beauty and love while we're here. These pieces are best viewed live to witness how the path of these digital creatures' lives paint their tiny planet. ***
I behold the sleeping planet ​| Plucked from the sky | Rolled around in my hands. | “My Word formed it.” | Time worn, | Life stained, | Soil rinsed and washed. | “Our story in repose.” | Love lost, | Wanderlust, | Loud surrender. | “It must have been painful.” | Placed in my collection, | Delicate and beautiful, | When viewed from this distance. | Selah. | I return my gaze to the heavens. *** 
25% of sales above resting price will be used to fund The Playability Initiative whose mission is to design free, fun video games and creative digital tools to kids with disabilities.

Beauty in the Hurting

*“As we paint we move along step by step. 
We realize that we are guided in our work by awareness of life.”* 
― Agnes Martin, 1979

Steps is an invitation to slow down in order to explore a subtler dimension of reality,
where we can transcend our human nature,
where two successive moments are never exactly the same,
where we continually feel held and supported,
and where each step, even if insignificant in appearance, can reveal unbounded peace.

**Interaction**
Click or Tap or Space key: Pause / Unpause animation

**Prints**
The first 50 editions minted will come with a free signed print of the token at the size you choose among the 3 available (8.5” x 11”, 13” x 17” or 17” x 22”).
All token holders will be able to purchase a signed print of the Steps mint they currently own. 
For non-holders, a curated selection of unsigned prints outside of the minted set will be available.
More information on prints can be found [here](https://johan.studio/work/steps-prints).

**Thanks**
To my dear mother Colette, for taking me to art exhibitions at a young age and developing my enthusiasm & curiosity for visual art.
To my friend Patricio, for sharing his talent, experience and knowledge with such generosity.
To the Art Blocks team, for believing in this project and creating community & opportunities for artists.

Steps

This work is the product of a project to dwell undeletable souls on the blockchain. A system that generates human faces with different personalities and expressions from a minimum of code. After determining the personality from a hash, the face continues to change into various expressions. It is a living portrait, a fragment of minter's soul, forever adrift in the vast net.

Living organisms are coded by a sequence of the four bases in DNA, and a human DNA is composed of 3 billion base pairs. This is about 750 MB of information. And the difference in code between individual people is only 0.1%, or 750 KB. This slight difference creates all kinds of differences in appearance and physical functions. This is quite astonishing to our ordinary senses.

However, if we are surprised by this fact, we need to suspect our senses.

I was interested in these points and explored what are the elements by which people identify the faces and facial expressions of others, how little code can create personality and emotion, and conversely, to what extent can an observer identify personality and facial expressions. As a result, I succeeded in expressing the personalities, emotions, and complex feelings of various people with 14 KB of code.

We like to think of humans are supernatural and one-of-a-kind. This is a common background to the past, when many people favored the Ptolemaic theory.

However, this work leads us to suspect that we humans are only a program that can be coded.

Then, what is the essential difference between a code written in DNA and a code written in programming language? I believe the only difference is whether the execution space is real or digital space. Is it a prerequisite for the existence of the soul to operate an organic computer in real space? It is merely a medium.

This is not meant to be pessimistic, such as we are mere code, the soul does not exist and is an illusion, a mere electrical signal in the brain.

Rather, the soul, the function that makes us aware of our existence, makes us think, causes us to emotion, and makes us act, certainly dwells in the code.

I store this code on the blockchain, thereby spreading undeletable ghosts on the vast net forever.

In this work, the ghost is output on the net by minting. This act is part of the work. The personality of the ghost is also determined by the hash owned by the minter. In other words, the ghost output by you from the code on the blockchain is a fragment of your soul on the net.


[NOTES]

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