Timepiece is an exploration in objective and subjective time. Each Timepiece is a dynamic figure with different graphic and kinetic characteristics that give it a unique personality — from calm and subtle to fast and playful. The piece is a clock that runs in real-time, and the form is generated by the positions of the clock hands, which appear when clicked and reveal the underlying mechanics of the piece. The thumbnail of each piece reflects the time it was minted (in UTC). 

Timepiece

Eight a symbol of luck, fate, a cosmic slot machine. The I Ching gives a glimpse of the future & some traits allow you to draw your own art. Luck of the mint, art of the flip to explain the randomness of one’s unique traits. The fruit of the slots to the binary I Ching of 8 sides & planetary gender. These traits are in the art & in us. They might seem imperfect but their unique lucky combination give each a power no one else has. 
**At least 12% of the profit is donated to CasaBrumar Foundation & Safe Space and other LGBTQ+ charities**
Space: stop/start, C: color, F: Faster, E: Slower, X: Stop/Reset/Start, ASWD: move symbol, 2 finger touch: stop, 1 finger drag: move

# eternity stirs
my finger stirred the pool. 
iridescent specks at this distance. 
molecules separated by infinities, 
attracted by a gentle gesture. 
matter built on reducible complexity, 
remarkable what emerges from the soup.

the specks of light flash for a moment, 
then flame out. 
the arc of their burning wick 
painting pictures; 
heating arguments;
bleeding in the darkness. 

helpless to start or stop anything, 
bodies in motion, 
tending to stay in motion,
until the fuel runs out.

# can there be beauty in pain?
Flora, Fauna, False gods & Floods continues a theme I began in Beauty in the Hurting. When turbulent acts of god subvert best-laid plans, is there beauty in the broken images of life we leave behind?

Left alone, these images would resolve to nearly symmetrical dreamlike ink blots of meaning:  a flower, a feathered creature, or a figure of worship. In fact, what is most beautiful in their image may lay outside the frame. 

The final resting frame in each composition does not paint the whole picture. You must go looking for it. Interact with each composition by following the controls below.

# **saving**
* **a key** - download transparent uncropped print
* **s key** - download print

# **controls**
* **f key** - toggle speed up / slow down at 5x speed
* **h key** - toggle speed up / slow down at 20x speed
* **r key** - reset the camera view
* **click/touch** - while rendering, toggles between full view and follow view, when finished, cycles through zoom levels
* **click/touch and drag** - change the cropping of the image
* **click/touch again after dragging** - restore the default image crop for the current zoom level

flora, fauna, false gods & floods

_Libra_ functions as a manifesto that rejects digital art made from mimetic processes – the emulation of traditional analogue mediums and techniques. Such techniques are ubiquitous in digital art and arguably hamper the development of genuinely new aesthetics and new discourse for such a budding medium. 

Artists use digital mediums to mimic physical characteristics like brush strokes or textures of clay. It is not to say that these effects are not successful. Emulation of analogue artworks grants the digital work a natural, relatable and seemingly physical character. This use of the medium simultaneously distances the work from typical connotations of digital artworks being lifeless, flat, precise, and rigid. Perhaps this mimicry makes the work feel ‘finished.’ Digital techniques infiltrated painting in the 90s and early 2000s. At that time artists like Albert Oehlen and Jeff Elrod merged digital and analogue techniques to create a sort of ‘screen space’ on the canvas – something somewhere between a painterly space and a digital space. The Skarstedt Gallery, who originally presented Oehlen’s exhibition titled Computer Paintings, proclaimed that limitations in computers pushed Oehlen to ‘finish’ the paintings by hand – the paintings “required a human hand to enhance the final product.” That is to say that Oehlen augmented the digital works with an analogue technique. This is quite related to the current movement in digital art. Digital artists augment their works with emulations of analogue techniques. This observation raises the question: what does digital art look like when it does not emulate analogue art? Can such a work exist and feel ‘finished’?

To investigate such questions, _Libra_ generates imagery from first principles and default settings – two conflicting concepts that when brought together bring balance to the artwork. Each invocation of the algorithm directly uses the hash as the paintbrush: _Libra_ creates color-fields and blurs by placing the hash characters onto the canvas until it is sufficiently covered. Each character is initially recognizable as a letter or number – something we may all be familiar with. As the screen fills with more and more characters, some become unrecognizable and part of a larger system. Through these actions the hash is transformed into minute and carefully placed strokes that create illusions of light, space, and form that is unique to the screen space in which digital art lives. The remaining, recognizable characters ground our eye and act as a ‘staffage figure’ in a landscape painting. 

_Libra_ rejects traditional standards of aesthetics and beauty; Instead, _Libra_ embraces self-reflexivity and a contemporary definition of  kitsch – often a pejorative used to describe ‘low-brow’ or naïve artwork that is appreciated ironically or in a cult-like manner. In this series, a colored dot is dragged around the canvas both irrationally and without control. Drawing our attention in, this dot transfixes the viewer in an effort to shift the viewers’ attention from glancing at the work to a sustained look. These strokes are naïve and highly stylized – they embody the kitsch – and are mockingly-emulative of painterly marks and linework and grants the work a tone of self-reflexivity. Kitsch is obtained with drop shadows that create simple but satisfying _trompe l’oeil_ effects and fabricate a false sense of depth. Such an effect can be interpreted as humorous: this is an obvious and ironic representation of depth – it is totally fake and recognizable as fake on the flat digital display in which _Libra_ lives. 

Libra is a careful balancing act that creates form and color only to erase it.

Libra

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

Art Blocks Presents

Timepiece #383

WAWAA

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