Joshua Bagley is a generative artist living in western Massachusetts. Drawing inspiration from both science and nature, he creates art using code and relies heavily on experimentation in his creative process. In 2021, he left a job in engineering to follow his passion for generative art. Joshua studied aerospace engineering at the University of New Hampshire. His previous Art Blocks releases include Dreams, Ecumenopolis, and Spotlight.

Jordan Kantor: Hi, Josh. Great to speak with you. It is a pleasure to welcome you back to Art Blocks with Spaghetti Bones, your fourth release on the platform. Since you’ve already had a conversation with Jeff Davis last year in advance of your previous curated project Dreams, I was hoping we might cover some new territory this time around. Can you start by telling us a bit about your two subsequent projects Ecumenopolis, and Spotlight, from 2021 and 2022, respectively? One of the exciting (and potentially nerve wracking!) aspects of releasing on-chain generative art is that no matter how much you’ve iterated the algorithm in advance, you have no idea what will comprise the works in the series until the random element is introduced through the minting process. With some distance now, can you describe the experience of seeing these three previous projects come to life?

Joshua Bagley: Hi Jordan, it’s great to be back! I created Ecumenopolis shortly after Dreams came out. While I was making Dreams, some of the patterns I was seeing in the test outputs reminded me of strange, crooked, wobbly cityscapes. With that inspiration, I took the Dreams algorithm as a starting point and expanded it to create otherworldly planet-wide cities.

‍Spotlight was something completely different. I got the initial inspiration while looking at how light refracts through glass. I wanted to try to recreate that effect using code, and see how far I could push that physics-based system into abstraction.

Releasing these projects on chain can definitely be a nerve wracking experience, but that’s part of the fun of this art form. Something that has always drawn me to generative art is the exploratory/discovery process of rolling the dice and generating something completely new. So when a project finally gets released after staring at it for so long during development, it takes on a new light. It’s like I get to re-discover the project for the first time, watch collectors put together sets, create pairings between projects, and be surprised by different outputs just like I was.

JK: You have included a couple of outputs from Dreams here. Can you tell us a bit about why you chose these particular ones?

JB: The first image, Dreams #629, is an output that closely resembles some of my earliest tests: those outputs made me want to push the algorithm further. I find that it can sometimes be easy to lose track of your initial idea when developing and expanding upon a project, so when that one came out, it was a nice reminder that I didn’t change things too drastically from what made me love it initially.

The second image is one of those outputs that genuinely surprised me. When I saw it, I didn’t fully understand exactly how it came to be. Even though I had generated thousands of outputs on my own during the development of the project, I find I still get to be surprised when the final project is released. Aside from the fact that they represent each end of my process, they’re also two of my favorite outputs aesthetically; I love the way they look. #629 is a dramatic artwork that feels like someone took a knife and sliced through the center of the canvas, spilling out color and distorting the space around it, while #268 looks like very distorted buildings with protrusions that make me feel a bit of vertigo.

JK: Thank you so much. I know people are always interested to hear what artists see in their own work, and it is illuminating to see an output that represents the beginning of your process, as well as a one that took even you by surprise. So, to the matter at hand, please tell us a bit about Spaghetti Bones.

JB: Spaghetti Bones foregrounds a technique I’ve been obsessed with and working on since I started making art with code. It’s a method of replicating complex patterns found throughout nature, similar to differential growth. Some naturally occurring examples of this type of pattern are found in cabbage, lichen, and brain coral. Every output is a simulation of a growing organism. It begins as a small shape, which, over the course of the render, grows into a complex form of continuous curves. As it grows, it traces itself onto the canvas, as if leaving behind a snapshot of its life journey, much like rings on a tree. By limiting how much these traces can overlap, I’m attempting to give each outline its own space on the canvas, to highlight that specific point in the “life” of this simulated organism.

JK: Can you tell us a bit about the process of working on this algorithm? Are there any test outputs you’d be able to share to illustrate steps in your process of iteration? 

JB: The core of this algorithm is a simulation of a growing organism. Since I first learned this technique back in late 2022, I’ve continued to iterate and expand upon the idea and it even shows up in my last project, Spotlight. Spaghetti Bones was born from one of the many experiments I’ve done with this technique. I wanted to find different ways of showcasing the movement and growth patterns in a static image.

At first, I was tracing an outline of the shape as it grew continuously on the canvas, isolating different steps of the growing process using color. I decided I wanted to minimize the amount each outline could overlap one another on the canvas, which ultimately was the idea that changed the algorithm from an experiment to inspiration for my next project. By isolating each outline on the canvas, and creating line breaks in areas where outlines overlapped, complex patterns started to emerge. I paired those patterns with the color methods I had been using earlier, and worked towards finding the right balance of each attribute.

JK:  Thanks for those insights into how you refine a project. Now that it’s finished, what should collectors look for in the series as it is revealed? What are you looking forward to?

JB: During the development of this project, I often shared outputs with names that represented what I saw in the artwork (this is how the name of the project was created!). Spaghetti Bones is an algorithm that creates images that are both organic in shape and graphic in its color and line style. These two ideas pair to create abstract artworks that can take on many forms, and I look forward to hearing what other people see in each output! Below are two outputs with distinctive individual features.

JK: Thanks for that. I am sure folks will keep an eye out for that feature list. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak again, Josh. We are really looking forward to seeing the whole range of what the Spaghetti Bones algorithm will create. Is there anything else you are working on that folks might be interested in, and how might they follow its progress?

JB: I’m always experimenting with new ideas, and whenever I make something new, I can’t wait to share it with others. I also plan on creating more pen plots soon, and you can follow along on my socials @gengeomergence on Twitter and Instagram.