Don't fight it. Just respect it. Made by Dmitri Cherniak with Javascript and GLSL.

The Eternal Pump

This collection is a study of identity in the modern digital era, increasingly dominated by NFT profile pictures. We all construct complex identities to project out into the world, perhaps to distract ourselves from facing the real question that is gnawing at our subconscious. "Who am I?" The moment we feel ourselves begin to grasp an answer it recedes further out of reach leaving us in free fall. The good news is there is no ground.

We pay homage to Ukrainian-born artist Kazimir Malevich, founder Suprematism, an avant garde art movement focused on the fundamentals of geometry and the essence of experience. In the same way that artists from this movement explored the supremacy of pure artistic feeling, we explore the pure essence of identity and self-expression. Can we express an identity using  long form generative art with nothing but math and code? What is considered beautiful and desirable?

Taking this further we then explore the concept of Ego Death. Each piece represents not just the aesthetic combination of geometry and faceless human energies, but can be used as a meditation object that will remind the collector of the illusion of self. We have created a new type of pfp project that doesn’t just represent the egoic desire to fulfill ambitions and own scarce luxury goods, but rather is a true expression of one’s soul on the journey to enlightenment. 

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# Interactivity
This artwork contains one important interaction. The viewer is invited to click on the image, at which point it comes to life allowing the viewer to explore his or her identity by moving the mouse. We liken this to sitting down to meditate and asking the question “who am I?”. As the exploration continues, the viewer realizes that the decorative and outwardly expressed aspects of identity are but an illusion and they begin to dissolve.  Eventually the viewer experiences ego death, arriving at a pure black square illuminated by a sliver of light. The light of pure awareness. The viewer realizes he or she is nothing more, and nothing less, than consciousness itself.

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# Features
The algorithm maps color palette variations and meta-structures of the geometries to different human archetypes. The code playfully generates characters for each collector based on a unique moment in time, and the collector’s unique wallet address, which we hope will establish a personal connection with the piece.

Some of the most rare pieces are the most undecorated, representing the highest version of enlightenment that is hardest to achieve through practice. When you dissolve into the absolute there is no more decoration but only the feeling of oneness.

Ego Death

Heavenly Bodies is built out of love for the skies and gratitude to the land. The land has always been home to us, steady ground underneath our feet lending itself to finding roots, family, and community. Our homes are as varied as the lands around us, but the common thread of land runs between us, the base need for being grounded. It connects us to each other, and to ourselves. The ground, in its stability, also supports the potential for more: the absence of limits, the open expanse of the possible. The ground gives us a home from which to reach, to strive, to learn to become more than we are. The sky invites us into a future that stands upon the solid shoulders of the past, giving us the tools we need to navigate our way into the unknown. To be human is to love both these things: the steady known, and the uncertain unknown. As we find our footing, the land will always welcome us home, and the sky will always beckon us beyond: to reach, to dare, to go further.

Heavenly Bodies

Spiromorphs are procedural roulette figures that investigate aesthetic relationships between form, symmetry and rotary motion. Variations are plotted using chained circles that overlay periodic continuous curves on an empty universe. The dynamic engine generates emergent morphologies of different colors and types while producing irregular yet harmonic forms. Charity: 5% of sales will be donated to National Alzheimer’s Foundation, a nonprofit organization helping families who suffer from neurological diseases.

Spiromorphs

"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.




Art Blocks Presents

The Eternal Pump #4

Dmitri Cherniak

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