Quilted landscapes in homage to the desert. 51% of the minting sales proceeds from Patchwork Saguaros will be donated to the Nancy Rockland-Miller Scholarship fund, held by The Kent State University Foundation. To learn more, please check out my introduction blog post for the project: https://bit.ly/3tGPVd3

Patchwork Saguaros

Generative music in 40-140 bytes on-chain. ByteBeats are miniature functions that synthesize audio (and video) via bitwise operations (&^|<<*+/%>>). Because bits form groups in powers of 2, 4/4 beat-driven music emergently self-organizes. Each function in this drop is itself randomly generated, grouped into six families of composition and four families of visualizers. Some ByteBeats loop, some generate new patterns indefinitely. Some are for headbanging, some are for climbing forever through oceans of phase cancelation. (Instructions: click to play ...)

♫ ByteBeats

This project explores the highly mathematical world of Islamic geometric patterns.

Islamic design is one of the world's great artistic traditions, but not much is known about the methods used by artisans in centuries past to construct them. One of the first attempts to formalize the geometry behind Islamic patterns was E.H. Hankin's seminal 1908 paper "Polygons in Contact", which remains a key technique today. Our project combines the approach described by Hankin with transformations of designs found at real-world historical sites.

Two Mathematicians avoids traditional ornamentation and colouring. It seeks to find beauty in the geometry of the patterns themselves, embellishing only with subtle combinations of basic line and dot shapes. Its two archetypes contrast the precision and order found in Islamic patterns with the informality of a rough draft. In that, it reflects the personalities of its creators, alternating between the obsessive need for order and exactness, and the embrace of just winging it.

Controls:
- Zoom in or out with scroll wheel, or arrow up/down. 
- Press 'i' to see the underlying structure.

Two Mathematicians

In Zen, ensō is a symbol that represents elegance and enlightenment. It is typically painted by hand in an uninhibited way, allowing for unexpected and beautiful results. Inspired by sumi-e (ink wash painting), this project mimics the practice of painting an ensō in ink by utilizing p5.js. Each generated image uses values from a unique transaction hash to determine paper, brush, ink, the quantity of ink held by each bristle, how quickly the ink flows, and more—all with the goal of creating a simple yet serendipitous painting.

Ensō

«Ottocento» is a collection of generative portraits of fictional historical figures. The series starts by exploring the nuances of the male figure as represented in the 19th century («Ottocento» in Italian). Further chapters of the project, focusing on different identities, are planned. The illustrations, drawn by hand and then converted to digital, constitute an ironic portrayal of the society of that era. The portraits, all in the same three-quarter view, reference the typological projects of German photographer August Sander.

Individual features and expressions are combined through the controlled randomness that generative art affords, deliberately blurring clear visual distinctions between nationalities, roles, and social classes. The result is an «Esperanto» of human types with an uncanny familiarity. Is that a poet? A salesman? An aristocrat? A farmer? Unlike Sander’s project, «Ottocento» doesn’t force any labels on the characters, eventually leaving the interpretation open to the viewer.

Art Blocks Presents

Patchwork Saguaros #36

Jake Rockland

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♫ ByteBeats

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Two Mathematicians

BY MA

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Ottocento

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