Using single Cyrillic character typography with an inspiration from Soviet era punch cards, technology and mentality to some extent, _Such A Lovely Time_ is part of an ongoing obsession of creating visual complexity from the most basic shapes while retaining a sense of order in appearance. This sense of structure is something that holds true to most of us individuals, communities, nations. However disorganised or frail one may be on the inside one often makes a substantial effort to appear structured, ordered. In other words our orderliness stems from the perception of that very orderliness.

The themes explored in my work are often a bi-product of my echoic memory in which I often pick up on background movie dialogues and tend to remember them by associating a colour and feeling to them. This in turn becomes an artistic direction, drawing inspiration from the sets, colours, location, time period, soundtrack, language and so on. The soundbite and evoked emotions guide the exploration and creation process.
More often than not the line from the movie becomes the title for the piece, as is the case for _Such A Lovely Time_.

_Such A Lovely Time_ has a number of simple traits that when combined create intricate compositions.
- Three different styles (Grid, Punch Card and Mixed) set the foundation.
	- The Grid style is based on a simple grid of elements with varying levels of density.
	- While the Punch Card style is essentially also a grid, it has a different rhythm to it, at times very sparse with isolated clusters, at other times those clusters and elements are connected together almost resembling sheet music. In some instances the Punch Card can be very dense almost to the point of saturation.
	- The Mixed style is a blend of the two aforementioned and introduces a higher degree of variations and somewhat unexpected results.

- There are 16 palettes, each one of them named after a city. The colours are extracted from personal travel photos to those cities before being fine tuned.

- The Cyrillic glyph is the centre piece of the composition, sometimes bold and in the foreground, at times fragmented and sometimes even hidden, as if an invitation to the viewer to look closer and explore the many layered details.

- The other traits that make up the piece may have less depth in their meaning but add to the overall amount of graphical variations.

Each iteration of _Such A Lovely Time_ is a generative attempt at technical aesthetics.

Created by petitsapin (Dominique McKerl Dautheribes).

Such A Lovely Time

In this optical parade, motion is created from the harmonious expansion and contraction of colorful bars. Click to pause. *Photosensitive seizure warning: These artworks contain flashing colors and moving patterns. Dutch auction starting at 2 Eth and proceeding through the following tiers every 5 minutes until a resting price of .5 Eth is reached: 2 -> 1.5 -> 1  -> .5

Parade

"Facets" is a study in intersections of polyhedra and interactions of light.

Polyhedra are distorted and duplicated around a symmetry axis, intersecting and merging into a great diversity of forms. These forms are rendered in a light simulation with different colors and material properties. The sharp edges of the shapes carve out light and space, casting soft shadows, glows, and reflections.

We can move the camera, zoom in and out, and change our perspective. From above, we may see a perfectly symmetrical figure. From below, we may see a grand constructivist sculpture. Zooming in, we see a geometric composition of polygons and gradients. Zooming out, we see the entirety of the form sitting in an endless void. We can turn on the animation and see the shapes shift and fold in on themselves. We can pause the animation and see a new permutation of the shapes. I invite you to manipulate the controls, reframe the composition, and share a new perspective.

(During interaction, the image may appear grainy and blurry due to incomplete rendering. This is necessary to keep the renderer running as smoothly as possible for the best experience.)

• Animate: Long press or three finger tap or press A
• Rotate: Drag (TrackPad: scroll)
• Zoom: Scroll or pinch (TP: pinch or ctrl+scroll)
• Pan: Drag with middle button or two fingers (TP: shift+scroll)
• Reset: Double press
• Animation Speed: press 1-9

Holders will have access to special minting features based on their tokens, please see project website for more details.

Facets

"Seadragons" is a generative catalogue of imaginary sea creatures from Syngnathidae family. Each seadragon belongs to one of the real Weedy, Leafy or Ribboned species, while the patterns and the small leaf-like appendages are an artistic interpretation. The dragons are rendered in real-time allowing you to watch them slowly drifting in the water or moving your mouse to nudge them slightly.

This project is a continuation of my long term fascination with using code to recreate forms and patterns occurring in nature. By using a range of non-photorealistic rendering techniques I strive to document those explorations as if they were actual sketches, posters or biological illustrations of the encountered specimens. Algorithmic variations of their patterns, sizes, colors, poses, complexity and surrounding seaweed present in each artwork are only a minor drop compared to the diversity observed in natural environments. 

15% of profits will be donated to oceana.org for protecting and restoring the world’s oceans on a global scale. Another 10% will be donated to givewell.org.




Seadragons

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)

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