# 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

Inspired by Max Tegmark's book Life 3.0, we envisioned what it is going to look like when a general AI starts a media company for the first time. An AI able to create and stream unique content to every human watching. 

Soon though, we realized that there was something else going on.

As the work progressed it became clear that Supermental is a way to question and express much of the friction that we see in NFTs and Web3. Especially around mental health.

While we are firm believers in this new world we do have questions. And we do see red flags.

We often complain that some Web2 companies are causing depression and online addiction. And they are. But while the data and the assets might be free in Web3, are we better off when it comes to our mental health?

In the land of NFTs our online identity now consumes. Not only time, but money and assets. The mimetic status games are no longer confined to likes and followers. Now we deal in tangible value. This expansion of the mimetic scoreboard does not make it easier to live a balanced life. The benefit of being online has just increased dramatically for a lot of people. But it comes at a cost.

How do we ensure that we don’t recreate our mistakes of the past? How do we make sure that online addiction does not become worse? How do we make sure that our mental health is not sacrificed once again.

If we really do own the platforms, the assets, and the memes, it should be in our best interest to create an online environment where proactive mental health is the default UX. 

With Supermental we hope to draw attention to mental health issues in the Web3 and NFT space.

Supermental is made by a duo. My partner wants to stay anon.

Take care,
Jarl Rosenlykke

---------

Controls

- Click on the animation to change your mental state

- Press space to pause and take a deep breath

Supermental

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

# Seedlings

"A young plant, especially one raised from a seed."

Each Seedling grows delicately on a windowsill gazing outside. A Seedling's natural environment–whether a grassy prairie, a rocky mountain, or by a river–is but a memory now, leaving a faded imprint on the canvas' outer border. Some Seedlings resemble trees and flowers, others may appear to be geometric abstractions and fractals–yet all feature interplay between filled patterned regions (leaves and petals) and lines of solid color (stems and branches). Other abstractions also make an appearance: circles representing fruits, stars, or the sun and moon; and a gradient sky with foggy clouds beyond the frames of the window.

## Foundation

The idea for Seedlings was sown in 2019 and was my first foray into Generative Art. It began as a study of fractal trees where each depth level was individually parametrized (angle of rotation, length, etc.). Initially just a hobbyist project in the pre-Art Blocks era, I returned to Seedlings in 2022 to develop it into the longform series, I believe, that most effectively highlights the underlying algorithm's potential. So, I rewrote Seedlings from scratch, turning its simple monochromatic line renderer into a WebGL shader renderer capable of transforming Bézier curves into abstract stems, branches, leaves, and petals with diverse and colorful palettes.

## Inspiration

Having lived much of my life in New York, one of the most urbanized cities in the world, I developed a significant appreciation for green spaces. The city's parks became a refuge from the urban sprawl–where one could touch some grass, breathe fresh air, and pretend they were somewhere else. In an attempt to fill more of my life with green, I placed some plants on my windowsill. The joy they bring my home inspired Seedlings.

Over the course of its development, Seedlings collected many stylistic influences, including Hokusai's trees, Charles Demuth's crisscrossing polygonal regions, and Alphonse Mucha's curves. As such, you will find elements of Ukiyo-e and Art Nouveau across the collection. Seedlings also contains stylistic elements found in my other work, such as ink-like outlining and the concept of shape overlap.

Additionally, I drew inspiration from contemporary longform Generative Art that aims to create complex emergent behaviors from the interactions of a small set of primitives. The structural patterns that form each Seedling are created purely from the probabilistic placement of their branches and petals.

## Dedication

Seedlings has been a labor of love and has particular sentimental value to me as the inception of my Generative Art practice. It feels fitting and very exciting to be given the opportunity to release Seedlings on Art Blocks, the original longform Generative Art platform. Thank you to everyone who helped and supported me during this journey.

Seedlings

Paths is an animated journey across various subterranean and aboveground environments. To fully experience the project, you need to see it in high resolution with a capable GPU. Make sure that your browser uses your dedicated graphics card if any, and that you get a good frame rate. Control keys: 1-4 (change speed), 9 (fill aspect ratio), 0 (original aspect ratio), space-bar (play/pause)

Art Blocks Presents

Paths #431

Darien Brito

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