**FOCUS** is a 1000 image meditation, and it is my second release of Zen-inspired generative art, following [Ensō](https://www.artblocks.io/project/34).

This algorithm can produce images that are elegantly minimal, as well as images featuring complex patterns that explore visual illusions and artificial space. Inspired by the Zen art tradition of doing more with less, the limited palette consists of black, white, and five colors. This both constrains possible outcomes and allows the creation of unique perceptual interactions. Except in extremely rare scenarios, each token can provide a wide variety of visual experiences through its interactive features: use up and down arrows to adjust the pattern recursion factor, left and right arrows to adjust the midpoint count, ‘h’ to hide or show the central shape, and ‘s’ to save. FOCUS is best viewed live and full screen.

FOCUS has a free-to-claim, 100% on-chain, companion generative art project called deFOCUSed. It's a free gift to my collectors. (Thank you!) [More Info](https://matto.xyz/project/defocused/) | [Claim Site](https://defocused.matto.xyz/)

FOCUS

Balletic is a generative art animation created by digital artist Owen McAteer, aka. Motus Art.
In this piece, a grid of rotating blocks move together in a mathematically choreographed dance to reveal hidden patterns, shapes and flowing figures.

Exploring soft fluid motion in a hard fixed grid of blocks to a two-tone minimalist design, the piece comes to life in dance, conducted by the combination of several algorithms, easing curves and timing modifiers all working together.

Balletic

An interactive experience inspired by the classic breakout game. Destroy all the orbiting barriers and reach the core, while creating your own unique melody. Controls: Click to start. Left and right arrow keys or Mouse/trackpad to control the baton. P to pause. Look out for power-ups!

celestial cyclones

A collection of on-chain, generative cumulonimbus teenagers, ready for their class photo. A fun follow-up to NimBuds (Art Blocks Project #10). 

Created using vanilla javascript, each unique NimTeen features random hair, colors, eyes, mouths, acne, bodies,backdrops and more. Each with its own personality.

NimTeens

Pointila explores what happens when you combine the meticulous dots reminiscent of Pointillistic painting techniques with the channelled randomness of generative art, whilst also examining how subtle changes in parameters can paint similar forms in different styles.

Pointila is designed for display and interaction. Clicking on a live mint will trigger an animation loop between the primary and secondary palettes, click again to pause. Press 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 on your keyboard to change glitch state. Press S to download a high resolution print.

Pointillism emerged from a collision of art and science in late 19th century French painting. Developed by Georges Seurat, his appeal to science, rigour and order built upon the broken brushstrokes of the Impressionists, as painting began to reckon with the emergence of the new technology of photography. Unbeknownst to Seurat, this response to one technology would foreshadow another – that of digital displays and pixels.

Rigour and order was manifest in the distinct dots of colour that give Pointillism its name. From a distance, the eye mixes these dots into vibrant, luminous scenes. This optical mixing bears a striking similarity to the way pixels work to display images on screen for us today.

“It’s done mechanically?” was a question posed at an 1894 Neo-Impressionist exhibition. The answer then was no. Pointila is both more and less mechanical than the Pointillist work that provoked the question. More, in that the hand of the artist has been replaced by the work of the computer – an extension of Seurat's efforts to remove the free hand of the artist. Yet less, with the ultimate position of each of the millions of dots decided randomly, unknown to the hand of the coder.

The Pointila algorithm first divides the canvas into columns. It then traverses the canvas dropping dots along those columns. From just a handful of layers, landscapes emerge. They take on a variety of forms: from rolling plains and steep canyons to jagged peaks and dreamy moors. Some are sharp and tense, others hazy and ethereal. They are coloured with handpicked palettes and animated with bold glitches – a nod to the shared optics of Pointillism and pixels.

Subtle changes in initial parameters give rise to similar landscapes painted in different styles. Faint echos, perhaps, of the different styles we see from Seurat in the numerous studies related to his masterpiece Un dimanche à la Grande Jatte.

Art Blocks Presents

FOCUS #64

Matto

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