A Map is a score for a new world...
 
Maps is a generative script stored on the blockchain. Each mint generates a unique svg using a seed hash.
 
The initial inspiration for Maps was the idea that graphic notation can create a variety of different outputs for music.
 
This led to using sprites, a form of graphic notation that gives a sense of how things move without being animated, as the layout to explore each world. 
 
Each Map uses variable colors and patterns to generate different environments. By mixing 10 different elements, new biomes are named ( i.e. scorched forest, dune ocean, etc… )
 
These environmental elements are represented by color ( HSL ). different base and accent environments were picked to be mixed and matched freely. 
 
Maybe an NFT can be an instruction for something non-digital, too… The different colors are also matched with pantone chips so that each SVG can be easily printed.
 
The method for generating the pattern is called dithering, which is both inherently as much a digital process ( i.e. bitmapping ) as it is a physical one ( i.e. halftone ). The script uses a modified Floyd–Steinberg dither algorithm to approximate the light between each pixel and create unique patterns.

Maps

Augury is a festive collection ranging from vast sorbet-colored landscapes to dense pattern iterations.
 
Augury remixes frames from LoVid’s red, green, and blue (RGB) luminous moving image work. For over two decades, LoVid has been making audiovisual works using custom-built handmade analog video (and audio) synthesizers. In addition to moving-image media, LoVid’s outputs capture stills (frames) from generative video and incorporate these into digital collages, textile designs, wearable works, prints, and more. An essential part of LoVid’s process involves translating signals and experiences from one medium into another. This conversion/interoperability appears critical for living in an interdisciplinary, intermedia, intersectional mixed-reality world.

With Augury, LoVid continues exploring on-chain processes that are inspired by the mechanism and aesthetic of analog synthesis.This collection builds upon LoVid’s first analog video synthesizer-inspired collection: Tide Predictor. Each output in Augury grabs frames from the Tide Predictor algorithm (using a unique new hash) and arranges them on the screen based on a set of instructions, possibilities, and limitations.  The generative compositions in Augury are therefore both procedurally related to and visually reminiscent of quilting, tapestry pattern designs, and tactile weaving. They use visual elements that LoVid often employs in static works: mirroring and repetitive looping, abrupt changes in intensity and detail, overlapping recycled patterns, and a colliding playful mix of lines and signals buzzing in different directions. 

The rules applied in Augury are primarily set around placing variable levels of density on the borders, the edges of the work, creating a sense of dynamic movement and discovery. Focusing the viewer’s gaze outside the center encourages shifts in perspectives, literally and symbolically. Augury is inspired both by the ideas and aesthetics in the Pattern and Decoration (P&D) movement and Glitch art. 

P&D emerged in the 1970s as a response and challenge to a predominantly white male aesthetic that dominated the artworld and historically marginalized art forms and practices of women and people of color. P&D took a feminist approach by shifting the conversation around crafts and decorative arts, placing them on an equal canonic level with western-style paintings. Augury expands this conversation to generative art and challenges hierarchies and relationships to status, economy, and desire. 

Glitch art refers to artifacts that were created by machine error, intentionally or by chance. Glitch as an art form originally emerged as a response to and celebration of loss in signals “fleeting artifacts that momentarily offer a glimpse into the inner workings and complexities of storage, display, and communication technology” (Iman Moradi, 2009). In Augury, LoVid incorporates a color palette, textures, and shapes inspired by both digital glitches and inherently unstable analog outputs. Aesthetically and viscerally, Augury finds beauty in discarded marginal dysfunctionality. 

This collection’s title, Augury, refers to the practice of interpreting omens/predicting the future based on the behavior of birds. Complex systems and environmental signals inspire and require attention. LoVid’s Augury harnesses and embraces this chaos, the turbulent flow of data, to bring you a sweet and colorful feast for the eyes, food for thought and beyond!

Augury

a floating spawn has appeared ... this site hosts a garden of spawns ... each generated from a unique seed that determines varying conditions for how they're made.

spawn

Nucleus is a procedural crypto-art project, mathematics moves points around a nexus point like subatomic particles around a nucleus, forming accidental geometric patterns. The appearance and movement of each token is driven by a unique hash, no two are the same. Best viewed in motion as a live script.

Nucleus

Attempts at perfection are destined to fail. This project embraces the impossibility of perfection in human execution and digitally simulates these imperfections.

In his abstract minimalist work, visual artist Wouter Kalis steers away from meaning. Horizontal black and white paper strips are placed on colored paper panels and one strip dictates the placing of the next. However, each attempt at perfection ends in failure. These mistakes have now become the signature of his work and contribute to the depth of content.

Digital representations of minimalist art can be executed to perfection but are less interesting to look at. In this project, artist Wouter Kalis and his son, software engineer Rosco Kalis, together attempt to recreate the human touch in digital art, the imperfection. 

The project displays computer-generated digital works similar to the physical works made out of paper. The colors of the digital panels are directly derived from the colors of the paper used for the physical work. The digital works can thus be reproduced using real paper. Please see the project website for details if you're interested in purchasing a handmade physical reproduction of your NFT.

Art Blocks Presents

Maps #41

john provencher

More in Art Blocks Presents

Augury

LoVid

spawn

john provencher

Nucleus

Hjalmar Åström

Imperfections

Kalis

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