FOCUS is the second project in my ‘Zenerative’ series of Zen-inspired generative art, following [Ensō](https://www.artblocks.io/project/34). 

The algorithm can produce interactive pieces that are elegantly minimal as well as artworks featuring complex patterns that explore visual illusions and artificial space. FOCUS outputs span three responsive aspect ratios, each of which have three possibilities for the central shape - or focus. Drawing inspiration from the Zen art tradition of doing more with less, the limited palette consists of black, white, and five colors. This palette both constrains possible outcomes and allows the creation of unique perceptual interactions. Except in extremely rare scenarios, each piece 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.

As a gift to my collectors, FOCUS has a free-to-claim, 100% on-chain, generative SVG companion project called [deFOCUSed](https://matto.xyz/project/defocused/). (Thank you!)

FOCUS

pseudomods is a visual study on eurorack modular synthesizers, and other histories of control surfaces. abstract panels open to interpretation, possessed by an outside knob-fiddler.

pseudomods

Inspired by observing projections of light through a glass cup, Spotlight is an abstract exploration of how light interacts with various shapes and forms in 2D space. It has a strong focus on texture and the use of real world physics as generative rules.

3000 photons spawn on a blank canvas with set direction and velocity. Hidden on the screen, an arrangement of shapes populate the space. When a photon collides with the edge of a shape, it either reflects off or refracts through its surface, changing the photon's direction and color. These photons leave small circles along their path...the only drawn element in the artwork. This painting of light both reveals the hidden forms below and ties their chaotic arrangement together. The resulting image captures the motion and evolution of the light, generating beautiful gradients and layers, and creating the illusion of depth, shadows, and highlights. 

Press 's' to save a snapshot of the canvas, and 'd' to reveal outlines of the shapes.
This artwork renders live, from a blank screen to a filled screen. It may take a while to fully render. Best viewed in extra high definition.

Spotlight

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.

Pointila

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.

Art Blocks Presents

FOCUS #334

Matto

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