When does a work stop being the representation of our world and become art?
Can we appreciate a work of art without measuring it with our space-time parameters?
In Time Atlas 🌐 the link with our Earth shaped over millennia through the urbanization process is explicit.
Time Atlas 🌐 uses geo-referenced city data intensively and displays it randomly in geographic areas, showing the current time of each city, whether it is currently exposed to the sun, at night or at dusk by changing the reference color palette . There are over 200 cities collected in its monumental internal archive, each with its own latitude and longitude values, UTC and DST time, number of inhabitants.
Each instance shows a square of our land, the cities arrange you in a grid that respects the distances in proportion. The background rotates to the current value of seconds which is the same all over the world. It is potentially composed of 8 geometric elements that can be present with different probabilities.
City clocks can be of 4 different shapes; the length of the pendulum that rotates with the time of the seconds is composed of 5 elements that combine randomly but the length of the pendulum corresponds to the number of inhabitants of that city.
The elements of the composition can be turned off and on again thanks to these keys:
[c] toggle cities
[w] toggle watches
[b] toggle background
Finally, there is the Written Circles variation. It takes up a past work of mine with the same title and in my initial idea it had to be the only aspect of Time Atlas 🌐. The salient feature of the Written Circles display is that it does not have a rotating background but, for each city, the crown of minutes is proportional to the number of inhabitants, therefore interesting moiré effects are obtained in superimposition. 

Time Atlas 🌐

How can intent be communicated when ideas are filtered through a pseudorandom number generator? Simply looking at the output does not make it clear whether a stroke is placed on the canvas because of a decision by the artist or by a roll of the dice. The artist’s hand is more present in the process than the result; they choose the algorithms, tune the parameters, and prune the features. As I experimented with my code, I held a particular idea in mind, but I was uncertain how it would finally manifest. I pursued a visual composition that made me feel a certain way, and the visuals I landed on communicate my feeling better than anything I can put into words. Through Curved Air is about the challenge of communication. Regardless of the medium, I can never be certain that the message I intend to send is the message that is received.

Through Curved Air takes inspiration from musical minimalism, where repetition is used to highlight changes in rhythm and harmony. Every output is created by repeatedly copying a single shape. Each copy only has meaning in relation to the other shapes nearby, and that meaning changes with the context around it. Delicate structures form and are subsequently obscured by further layers, and though they may be hidden, they still affect the perception of the final image. Clicking on the canvas will start or stop the looping mode, where the image is recreated in a slightly different way. New facets are exposed as the composition changes yet remains the same. Just as I spend my days trying to share my inner experience through my art, Through Curved Air uses each shape and each loop and each token hash to attempt to create a common feeling between myself and the viewer.

Through Curved Air also takes inspiration from the paintings of Joan Mitchell. I was drawn to her expressive strokes, vibrant colors, and use of negative space, all of which come together to give a more intense feeling of looking at a landscape than just looking at a painting of a landscape. Her energetic marks clearly communicate that there is a human being behind the art. The marks of generative works are often similarly representative of the underlying process, but instead of drawing focus to the artist behind the piece, they draw attention to the algorithm. To convey human emotion in the way I intended, I had to use a subtler algorithm.

The technical tools to convey this emotion are tools I have been consistently developing in my practice. I love making generative art because I can design a system where I understand how all the components work, but they can still come together to produce a result that surprises me. The algorithm behind the compositional variation in my earlier works Coquina and Primordial is one I continued to evolve, and it rests at the heart of Through Curved Air. In fact, I pushed it further than ever, using it to create the individual shapes that form the building block of each output. This emergent variation permeates the work and results in surprising images that more closely resemble paintings than anything I made previously. I believe the potential for surprise is key to conveying emotion through code. When the possibility space of the algorithm grows too large to understand, the mind wanders to the person behind the algorithm. Perhaps the human element is the struggle to understand, or the struggle to be understood.

Through Curved Air

There are many mysterious waves that surround us, from deep space signals to hidden radio stations. 'Unknown Signals' is a reminder of the fascinating world of radio waves that our eyes cannot catch. Click to stop/start the animation. Press the 'b' key to remove the foreground.

Unknown Signals

Inspired by the inherent multiplicity that goes with the tradition of the dish, Pizza 1o1 is a generative script that is capable of producing over a million unique combinations of a Pizza. 

Prepared and served differently across different countries and communities, Pizza 101 celebrates the generative nature of this Italian delicacy by offering a feature rich project that comes in various different shapes, sizes, sauces, loads of different toppings, a variety of cheeses and almost always some seasoning. 

Just like a card game, where you can pit one pizza against the other for its unique composition. 

Have fun minting.

Pizza 1o1

Is there a life force within art? Can we converse with creative energy? Artists throughout history have posed such questions. When I start creating new generative artwork, I often focus on discovering what’s new that I might unearth within the exploration of a simple algorithm. When the visual outputs start to move me, I love the idea that perhaps I’ve discovered some sort of personality hidden within the confines of the code, waiting for the most unlikely parameter to unlock its emergent beauty. Within that creative journey, I have a hidden agenda. I hope to commune with the voices hiding inside the code. 

*Speak To Me* experiments with layering and interrupting repetitions of basic geometric shapes, exploring their interplay and movement when placed in relation to one another. Drawing loose inspiration from historic art movements such as Suprematism and Constructivism, I’m seeking to investigate the potential of these simple forms to create dynamic and complex visual arrangements. The code generates compositions that are both structured and organic, imparting a movement and energy to the shapes, so they seem to grow and flow like living organisms. Some shapes speak boldly, with clear, directional vision. Some embrace the space between. Within this collection, the differences in those voices are celebrated with intention. 

One night I dreamed of my code in progress, which sometimes happens when I’m immersed in a project. I awoke in the middle of the night with a specific phrase running through my head, got up to groggily scribble it onto some paper, then fell back to sleep. In the morning, I woke up to see the words “Speak To Me”, and I realized that I now had the name of my collection, imparted in a dream.

Throughout the creation of *Speak To Me*, I found myself wondering if there might be a secret life of shapes. Reflecting on the creative process, I firmly believe that there is a dynamic energy inherent in artistic creation that can be considered a life force. As an artist, I view my role as a conduit and facilitator for this energy to manifest in the physical realm. From this perspective, in the case of generative art, I open up the role of creator to share with both the generative randomness of the algorithm and the creative force that inspires its creation. By embracing this philosophy of artistic creation, I’m hoping to both experience and share a more profound and transformative creative journey. I hope this artwork speaks to you as it has to me.

Art Blocks Presents

Time Atlas 🌐 #55

Paolo Tonon

More in Art Blocks Presents

Through Curved Air

Jacob Gold

Unknown Signals

k0ch

Pizza 1o1

KALA

Speak To Me

Lisa Orth

Art

Company

Learn