Leaning into a retro 70s groove, the perfect art for your space-pad. The input is simple, just two tiles, but how they're rotated and placed, that's the magic.

70s Pop Series One

These shapes are nothing more than rectangles and lines.

And yet...

There is a concept in painting called 'pentimento', the presence of earlier forms or images that have been painted over. These could be changes that the artist made deliberately, or mistakes that they were able to cover. Sometimes as the paint fades, the pentimenti will be revealed, but often they will remain unseen.

The challenge is to recognize the pentimenti that influence the canvas, but cannot be found there even at the base layer. These are scattered throughout the years of the artist's life.

'Thoughts of Meadow' is a generative system that distorts a chess-like grid into complex shapes. Many of the outputs give the illusion of immense three-dimensional structures using simple geometric principles. It is an attempt to represent the concept of 'pentimento' through the rendering process. Each layer builds upon the complexity of the previous one but also covers it. If you look closely through the gaps in the grid, you can see the incremental changes that took place.

In that sense, this project is a reminder for myself of where I'm from, an incredibly small town called Meadow, and the gratitude I feel for the years I spent there. The first layer of my life's pentimento.

As always, I doubt this project would exist without the work and observations of Vera Molnár. Squares were certainly made for her, I just appreciate being able to borrow them once in a while.

Thoughts of Meadow

Inspired by traditional Chinese architecture and Chinese painting, this project uses algorithms to generate window lattices with different patterns and blossoms and trees with different postures. Together with the possible rain and snow scenes, they constitute a corner with oriental aesthetic charm. These scenes are dynamic, such as slowly moving window frames, tree-growing, raining. We can imagine being indoors, watching the shaky tree shadow outside the window, or looking into the window from the same perspective as the current picture. Maybe we are looking into memories, maybe we are looking into hopes, anyone can write their own poems.

Through the Window

Departing from generative art’s focus on the size and variety of algorithmic outputs, Coalition contains just 36 geometric creations. Every mint is composed of unique combinations of line, shape, and color, making them artworks unto themselves. However, just as significant as the individual mints is the larger series of which they are each a part. When viewed collectively as a 6x6 grid, the 36 tokens make up a larger, single artwork, the titular Coalition. Patterns and palettes that exist across different tokens come together seamlessly in the Coalition, allowing users to recognize their mint as an indispensable element of the coherent whole.

By highlighting the inextricable relationship between the single set and its 36 components, Coalition suggests that storytelling must play a vital role in the future of generative art. The medium’s current emphasis on long-form algorithmic exploration has come at the expense of narrative craft. While long-form algorithmic exploration has produced groundbreaking artwork and will continue to do so, our project urges practitioners and collectors to consider generative art’s capabilities outside of replicating the look of analog media. Instead of attempting a mimesis of old modes of production, Coalition foregrounds the stories about human experience that emerge when artists free their code from the burden of replicating paint and paper. We ask, does the “art” in generative art refer to the algorithm, or the outputs?

To encourage artists and collectors to value storytelling and limitation in their NFTs, Coalition doubles as performance art. While the set is limited to 36 mints, a 37th is available for purchase. The collector who buys the final token will find only an error message. The algorithm self-destructs after mint #35. Read about why we chose to do this [here](https://medium.com/@generativeartworks/from-reservation-to-coalition-the-stories-that-generative-art-can-tell-d5466e7ba15b).

There can be no avant-garde because everything has been done.
—Pedro Friedeberg

Coalition

Sudan
Omdurman
Brown dust, hot air
Broken system, broken roads
Sweet sandalwood incense rising in smoke
Ladies wrapped in every color and every pattern
Morning milk tea with cookies out under the mango tree
Hopeful graffiti of revolution on every street wall
A thousand guests, a million cups of coffee
The two Niles converging at one point
Mixing, sorting, moving on North
I will leave for my home soon
But I won't forget
Omdurman
Sudan

This piece was made while I was visiting Sudan and during the time I started meetings to build a school using the charity money collected from all the amazing collectors of Sudfah.  I was inspired by the contrast between the ubiquitous dirt and broken system of Sudan and the beautiful colorful culture and people.  The colorful forms represent to me both the long flowy garments of the ladies and the smoke and aromas rising from the unique incense and perfumes of Sudan.

25% of the proceeds will be donated toward building a school for an underdeveloped community in Sudan.

Art Blocks Presents

70s Pop Series One #17

Daniel Catt

More in Art Blocks Presents

Thoughts of Meadow

Eric Davidson

Through the Window

Reva

Coalition

Generative Artworks

Sandaliya

Melissa Wiederrecht

Art

Company

Learn