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

The Eternal Pump

View Cards are generative abstractions of high-rise buildings. Based on the programmable artwork View Program, each View Card contains a randomized seed that selects one of 9 different window patterns, 4 different atmospheric conditions, and an overall color scheme based on 4 different reflections. Click on the Live View of the artwork to display your settings!

View Card

Today the base orbiter has started to move. Oscillating harvesters had the ability to generate an enormous amount of self-sustaining energy. They seem to establish parallel communication in resonance with cosmic frequencies but I find myself unable to decode the signal into anything meaningful.

R3sonance

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.

JPEG

Radiance explores the combination of simple line patterns structured at different scale to produce unique connected geometric forms. Resulting shapes can vary from minimal to organic and intricate with an underlying modulation of line spacing radiating from center.

Art Blocks Presents

The Eternal Pump #9

Dmitri Cherniak

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