_There are no artifacts. There are only interpretations._

Glass is about the illusion of simplicity that cocoons us in our everyday existence. A glance at Glass may suggest a foam of bubbles or pebbles under clear water. But on inspection, these simple pictures dissolve. Instead of disks one finds stacked panes of translucent glass, intersecting and overlapping. There is dissonance between fine-scale chaos and the harmony of the aggregate. In Glass, two levels of reality -- panes of glass and the foam of bubbles -- are brought close together in scale, so that our oversimplified impression yields a palpable disquiet.

What appears simple is often anything but. Consider a standard wooden desk. To our eyes, it looks solid and continuous, but we know that it is made of atoms, tiny electrons orbiting nuclei. And these subatomic particles are themselves not like miniature solar systems, but creatures of quantum mechanics, stranger than we can imagine. The vast difference in scale between the atomic and the macroscopic hides this complex reality, but fundamentally it is the same phenomenon shown here.

Glass continues my exploration of emergence. While in previous work I explored how simple systems can create complex, emergent forms, here the interest is in the converse: how coherence is often deceptive, masking a complex underlying reality.

Glass draws on the aesthetic of Shin Hanga artists Hiroshi Yoshida and Kawase Hasui, and abstract expressionist Sonja Sekula. In live view, Glass has ambient motion: the shadows evolve, imperceptibly slowly.

The following variations & controls are possible. You may need to click on the canvas before they are active. For a high-resolution output, use the pixel density controls. For example, on a standard laptop, an image saved at pixel density 5 will be approximately 3200 x 4000 pixels, and therefore suitable for printing at ~ 11" x 13" at 300 dpi.

Variations (require redrawing):

f -- fit-to-screen on/off
o -- outline on/off

Controls:

s   -- save as png
spacebar  -- pause/unpause ( useful to reduce CPU load in Live mode )
b -- border on/off ( useful for printing )
1-9  -- set pixel density (default=2 on retina displays)
+/-  -- increase/decrease pixel density

Glass

CryptoVenetians are a limited release algorithmically generated pixel art collection based on real characters from Venice, CA. Available only to visitors of the Bright Moments physical NFT gallery, CryptoVenetians grant holders exclusive access to IRL events and experiences in Los Angeles. With over 200,000 possible combinations, CryptoVenetians represent the diversity of Venice Beach.

CryptoVenetian

Fake Internet Money is not legal tender, and may not be redeemable or exchangeable with other parties or markets following its initial offering. The Artist is not a licensed or registered money transmitter in any district, state, or country. The Money is not a financial security. The Artist makes no claims of adding any further value to the project. Owners of The Money have no reasonable expectation of profit. Any marketing statements made by The Artist should not be taken as investment advice. The secondary market value of The Money may be highly volatile, and The Artist makes no guarantees regarding its liquidity or stability relative to any crypto or fiat currency. All value derived from The Money is entirely subjective. All code is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License, and is provided without warranty of any kind. In no event shall The Artist be held liable for any damages arising from the code or resulting tokens. The typeface is derived from Shippori Mincho B1, which is licensed under a SIL Open Font License. 30% of proceeds were converted to real money and donated to Give Directly. 

Fake Internet Money

While rotating and morphing, an undercover shape blends in with criss-crossing layers of color blocks.

WARNING: Contains flashing imagery.

Interactive Controls: 
Use the arrow keys (or WASD) to move the undercover shape around the screen
Press F to toggle on/off the flashing color blocks
Press R to toggle on/off the rotation of the shape
Press M to toggle on/off the morphing of the shape
Press C to center the shape on the canvas
Press B to return the shape to its beginning location
Press spacebar to toggle on/off all animations

Undercover

Initially worn by miners and cowboys, roughly half of the world’s population wears denim on a given day, and the range of styles is–literally–endless. A new pair of jeans might be acid bleached, sandblasted, stonewashed, or tie-dyed; it can have hand-sanded rips and tears, followed by visible mendings, patches, intentional paint stains, and more. In an epic attempt to crack the genetic code of denim, Jenim playfully but carefully observes and translates the warp and weft of denim into generative code, weaving unique iterations of irregular, distorted, or hyper-realistic textile crops.

Ironically, imitating aging, a pair of jeans produced today generates more pollution and labor than most average garments. In response, Jenim’s minted iterations go beyond wearables and into infinity. Each year that passes, the color might fade slightly; the rips might expand. Who knows what these artworks will look like ten or even fifty years from now?

Art Blocks Presents

Glass #24

Eric De Giuli

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