Velum: Latin for curtain.

Inspired by the question: What do you get if you blend the visual DNA of two mid 20th Century artistic movements into a 21st Century generative art algorithm?

The original ideas evolved by Abstract expressionism and Pop art tell very different stories in the history of post war American art. My approach however is more about just stealing from the visual lexicon of mark-making that characterizes these artistic movements ignoring much of the contextual conversations around them . When I started out building my first primitive for Velum I was picturing in my mind something that looked more like a gestural paint-stroke typical of abstract expressionistic painting. Adding Pop art stylized outlines to the structures however separated them from the background and gave them a floating quality. Liking this effect I quickly forgot about my first idea of making paint strokes to explore the emerging curtain-like elements and found ways to make them dance.

Velum #0

A photon is a particle representing a quantum of light. Because it travels at the speed-of-light, time and space as we understand it do not exist for this elementary particle. The Big Bang was less than an instant ago for the photon and yet it has already traversed the cosmos. Time and space to it is what? It's hard to say. The word non-dual comes to mind.

Some components in Photon’s Dream look like images from an electron microscope. Other parts have a more cosmic or planetary vista. Juxtaposing both creates tension and intrigue where the boundary between fine texture and grand architecture becomes blurred.

The expression ‘One in all: all in one’ is somehow embodied in the wavefield primitives used to make this art. Art that aspires to create both holistic simplicity and the mystery of deep complexity. The quasicrystal and hyperbolic geometry employed here are subjects to the artist that express what is beyond macro and micro, internal and external and ultimately self and other.

Photon's Dream #46

Photon's Dream #100

Photon's Dream #168

Velum #13

Fontana is Latin for fountain. 

This project is a playful attempt at abstractly capturing the flowing movement of a fountain using precisely drawn elements that evoke a static and considered rendering of a subject that is in constant flux. The visual language is reminiscent of hand-draughted technical drawing, a precise and methodical practice that progresses at a radically different pace to the flowing and capricious movement of water. To increase this tension between dynamic motion and static mechanical process I wanted the surface textures to appear worn and aged like a drawing that has spent its life in the bottom of a mechanics drawer. This process of abrasion and discoloration is occurring on yet another scale of time adding complexity to the references of time passing. 

Woven into the very fabric of Fontana is a fully generative solution for creating color expression. This means there is no reliance on preset palettes with every output being an entirely unique color articulation of the color story I want the project to reveal as a whole. Far from being random I attempted to create an approach which produces colors that evoke early 20th Century art and design media. With this intention I wanted  outputs to look like they could be working drawing artifacts from this period of time.

Fontana #177

Fontana #104

Vibrant, colorful and energetic forms coupled with a sense of disorder, decay and discoloration. Synthetic cartoonery and ridiculous geometry combined with deep organic texture and waveform entrail-like artifacts. In this visual story I can see a landscape at the edge of a bizarre world both simultaneously jubilant and menacing. A place where the last remnants of structure and order are in the final stages of disintegration. Think alien Disney world being pulled apart in the event horizon of a black hole, being stretched and scrambled into an abyss of eternal entropy.

Wonderland Entropy

Fontana #195

Fontana #316

Fontana by Harvey Rayner | patterndotco

Velum #80

Velum #22

Velum by Harvey Rayner | patterndotco

Vibrant, colorful and energetic forms coupled with a sense of disorder, decay and discoloration. Synthetic cartoonery and ridiculous geometry combined with deep organic texture and waveform entrail-like artifacts. In this visual story I can see a landscape at the edge of a bizarre world both simultaneously jubilant and menacing. A place where the last remnants of structure and order are in the final stages of disintegration. Think alien Disney world being pulled apart in the event horizon of a black hole, being stretched and scrambled into an abyss of eternal entropy.

https://medium.com/@harvey.rayner/wonderland-entropy-a-short-form-generative-at-series-by-harvey-rayner-df0e416699f6

Photon's Dream #271

Photon's Dream #174

Photon's Dream by Harvey Rayner | patterndotco

At times my artistic process may look more like scientific research than making art. I build software tools to test my concepts and to make empirical observations. The subjects I study through my visualization algorithms are geometric objects that belong to a class of quasicrystals which also have similarities to structures seen in electromagnetic fields. The variables I am changing are harmonics and waveforms that combine to create wave interference patterns. These emergent structures provide the melodies, harmonies and rhythms of my artistic expressions. Simultaneous to this is always an intuitive movement, born from silent meditation and an impulse not to know where I am going or where I have already been.

Crystal Juice 1

Rarible

Composites are artworks created using the 'Composite Builder’.

Two distinct approaches can be taken when creating composites. The first approach is driven by pure creativity, enabling collectors to freely experiment. Alternatively, collectors can adhere to strict joining rules, which, when achieved, can transform the composition into what is referred to as *Black Dragons*.

At its core, the project revolves around fostering a sense of co-creation and inviting collectors to feel like an integral part of the creative process.

Throughout his journey, Harvey has been heavily influenced by mathematics and geometry, which have gradually become the foundation for the co-creative process. The motives behind incorporating dragon imagery and Eastern aesthetics can be traced back to Harvey's profound encounters with Buddhism and its impact on his artistic inspiration.

Quasi Dragon Studies #353

Quasi Dragon Studies #655

Quasi Dragon Studies by Harvey Rayner

marfaMESH is an event-driven generative art experiment that took place over the course of Marfa 2023, Sept 21st to 24th. To participate attendees were required to download the marfaMESH app developed by Shane Richardson (Breath You, Ouroboros) and wear a NFC Card lanyard powered by IYK. Scanning other peoples lanyards built a social graph of interactions that created personalized artworks for each participant that evolved throughout the event. When scanning, the app prompted users to take a picture from which colors and basic forms were abstracted and fed into the emerging artwork. Interactions ‘nodes’ are clustered based on eleven key geo locations and there is a night day mode based on time of last interaction.  The project’s primary objective was to serve as an icebreaker to help bring about connections between people that wouldn’t have met otherwise. 

It is hoped that this project is an example of how generative art can be used to create highly personalized art chronicles of an event. Art that helps to preserve memories and create a treasured artifact that’s an extension of the ticket stub or merch item we are all familiar with. It's my belief that generative art has inherent properties that enable it to provide a new class of art that is part infographic; memorabilia; social graph; personal story and proof of participation. I can see a future in which a person's inner and outer worlds can be expressed in an evolving, responsive and interactive artwork. These life-artworks may meld in real time with life-artworks from friends and family or as large community expressions. 

A global expression of all the data collected will be created and auctioned as a one of one in the coming year. While it might seem that the individual outputs in this series will have the greatest value and meaning to the co-creators, a single collective expression of the event may have more value and meaning to art culture as a whole. Profits from this auction will be reinvested into the continued exploration of this approach of which marfaMESH has served as a compelling early proof-of-concept.

marfaMESH #203

marfaMESH #178

marfaMESH by Harvey Rayner

Covehithe #10

Covehithe #20

Covehithe Longshore Drift

# Algorithmic Expressionism and the Landscape of Madness #
# . #
## Landscape Inversion ##
This project began with a whimsical idea: to invert the convention of landscape painting on canvas—one of the most ubiquitous motifs in art history. Instead of painting a scene or vista onto the canvas, I imagined an algorithmic domain shaped by the flowing material properties of the canvas itself. 
# . #
## Mark Making and the Digital Surface ##
Bold gestural markings within this algorithm also evolved into a way of defining scale and movement in the landscape. They serve as a bridge between the illusion of receding depth and the true flatness of the digital surface. For centuries, bold brushstrokes—evidence of the painterly act—have created intentional tension between illusionism and the physical reality of the canvas. The gestural marks in this series, although complex and layered, are still clearly derived from rudimentary vector-based primitives. Preserving the evidence of a digitally native process is my reinterpretation of this same artifact found in representational painting.
# . #
## Gesture and Abstraction ##
Algorithmic mark making reminiscent of human gesture is not really abstract. They are more representational of artifacts created by the human skeleton in the creative act. Through this association gesture seems to have a direct expressive path to our deep human emotions. When gestures become incoherent and turbulent, something in us feels this as a kind of violence. Although Amplitudes of Canvas started life as gently flowing landscape-esk forms, the use of gesture became stronger and the spectrum of movement and expressive power of the work ramped up considerably. The addition of the floor plane reminded me of Victorian hospital rooms. In some of these works emerged the traces of an asylum, a container for the more extreme gestural madness appearing at the out edges of the algorithm's expressive space.
# . #
## The Infinite Sketchbook of a Mad Person ##
Outputs are like sketches in the sense they are only glimpses into the totality of the algorithm. They are never fully crystalized. They are like the outflow of a mad person because the insane often get caught in loops, obsessing over the same patterns. Through their interaction with the world, the patterns get expressed in varied ways, each time new, but recognizable as belonging to the same behavior. The mad person compared to the average person thus has a limited range of functionality and adaptability. The algo can only explore a tiny space of possibilities compared to say the space of all art. It is still an infinite space, but not all infinities are equal.
# . #
## Expressionism and Madness ##
It seems likely that expressionism has been linked to madness in the past, both academically and by the casual observer. De Kooning’s Woman paintings have a ferocious presence and are wonderfully disturbing. Alcoholic, bad tempered Pollock expresses a destabilizing frenetic power. Rothko, who was the counter type in the movement painted sacred meditative works, but killed himself. Rothko was on record as saying he wanted to paint the deep human emotions. This has always been my hope. I feel I consistently fail, but make tiny steps towards that goal. It is not at all obvious how to progress when working in the domain of abstract art. I do feel however, that when literal representation in Art is set aside there is a more direct path to the human heart for those artists who achieve it.
# . #
## Text as Texture ##
The cursive writing in these works are entirely algorithmic. There is no meaning, other than the meta meaning of something that looks like Pseudo notation. In the course of building the project I tried numerous ways to introduce the texture of writing into the work without finding a way that satisfied me. Text adds a textural depth to the work that’s hard to create in any other way. The writing also looks like the scribing of a mad person which seemed to tie in nicely with the emerging feeling of madness in some of the outputs. I call these bands of cursive texture - Notes from the Asylum.
# . #
## Algorithmic Process vs Skeuomorphism ##
Creating surfaces that look worn and discolored might be seen as skeuomorphic, however I feel there is an honesty to this type of treatment because objects in real life are also typically aged in an algorithmic way. Usually through a repetition of partially constrained movements and patterns of specific interactions. The intrinsic visual properties we find comforting and fascinating in antique surfaces can be created in generative art in a very direct and authentic way. When I remove these layers of textural distress the underlying work is often somewhat unapproachable and cold. I feel the compositional flow is also softened and unified by the addition of algorithmic distress. Transitions are easier to visually digest and the overall visual variety and interest of the surface is increased. Perhaps what’s more important is there is a sense in which the art has settled into the physical world and has had interactions with it. Of course this is a lie but every story we tell in art is a lie. When creating the distress marks I am careful to leave the simple circle and line primitive building blocks at a scale that makes it easy to see on close examination how the art is constructed. This reveals the truth about the lie and creates visual tension between the illusionistic and abstracted mark making.
# . #
## Recursive Curation ##
Amplitudes of Canvas uses this new type of structure that enables me to evolve the algorithm over a long period of time without losing outstanding outputs from the previous versions. It's a little like the fx(hash) Open Form model, but only I am in control of what gets bred. All the breeding also happens prior to release within my studio. Every part of the algorithmic journey is contained in the single algorithm so I can put it fully on-chain and make it work within the very solid, but quite constrained Art Blocks infrastructure. Recursion refers to the fact I can use social WIP sharing to help steer new versions in the algorithm's evolution. If and when I share something that both captures my audience's attention and excites me I can capture the visual DNA of that output and use it as the basis to breed new children without losing previous outputs and version possibilities.


Amplitudes of Canvas #231

Amplitudes of Canvas #56

Deco Echo by Harvey Rayner

These generative outputs (also referred to as ‘tiles’ by the artist) serve either as individual pieces or as building blocks for creating more complex composites. Tiles can be arranged in the composite builder to generate these composites, which can then be minted. There are no limitations on the number of tiles one can mint, allowing for endless creative possibilities.

Two distinct approaches can be taken when creating composites. The first approach is driven by pure creativity, enabling collectors to freely experiment, by combining diverse tiles that are not tied to particular rules. Alternatively, collectors can adhere to strict joining rules, which, when achieved, can transform the composition into what is referred to as 'Black Dragons.'

At its core, the project revolves around fostering a sense of co-creation and inviting collectors to feel like an integral part of the creative process.


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