Our lives are scattered across several time scales, and the meaning of every event that takes place depends on the time scale that we choose to define & observe them from. Yet we fail to fully comprehend this in our daily errands. Entretiempos is an artwork that reflects on this, based on an aesthetic that pays a tribute to the works of Sonia Delaunay, František Kupka and other painters from their era, recreated by the usage of intersecting rings that create a varied and rich space.

The work plays with the time scales by painting dynamically and letting the viewer pause the work, restart, set it to loop indefinitely, painting and vanishing in an endless cycle. And it can be set to be done at varying speeds, to appreciate what happens in between the time scales ("entre tiempos", in Spanish).

Also, there is a broader theme that I find of interest to explore from every work that I engage with. It has to do with the concept of what I call total cognitive space, or the total range of possibilities that can be expressed / achieved with a given scenario and set of conditions. In this case, I was interested in expanding my rendition of the works of Delaunay into a broader space. How does this approach scale with varying parameter ranges? Is the painting still interesting? Can it express something new? Connected to this, I am also interested in thinking about what emotions would mean for an artificial sentient being. We talk about artificial intelligence, but leave aside artificial emotions all too often. While artificial intelligences are indeed interesting, we fail to recognize the paramount importance of emotions in human behaviour. To this end, this work explores also the result of painting with machine-like precision vs. performing the artwork with a range of possible imprecisions. The perfection of the machine vs. the imperfection of the human, does it trigger different emotions in us humans? What will the reaction of a machine be whenever they develop a taste?

This work exposes features that deal with its time and space scales, background colour, background elements, the palettes used, certain colour accents that may happen (golden accents, b&w tones), the style used to draw the geometric shapes (fill, lines, outline), the degree of paint precision and other features that influence the final result. The user may download a PNG file at any arbitrary resolution at any step of the paint process using the commands provided for that. A brief list of commands is as follows. Please note that you need to click on the artwork first to make sure it will receive the typed commands:

p to pause/resume the work
r followed by y to enter the looping mode
d followed by +/- or any number from 1 to 9 to increase resolution
s followed by c to save current image
s+f to automatically save the final image when the system finishes painting
s+m to restart and save a sequence of images of the process
r+0 (zero) to reset all parameters and resolutions and restart
k at any time to define keyframes, then r+0 to restart the work and it will automatically pause at defined steps, or s+i and the work will restart and automatically save an image at every keyframe defined with k. Reload browser to reset.

There is an Easter egg hidden in every work.

For the full project description, inspiration and rationale, as well as the full list of features and controls plus a hint at the Easter Egg, please visit the project homepage at https://www.iillucid.com/entretiempos

entretiempos #203

Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez

entretiempos #313

A continuation of the work I started in the summer of 2023 where I explored an ecology of human and machine: training several AI models on my own body and my own algorithms, then fusing them. My naked human self with my naked algorithmic self, interpreted by a black-box (naked?) neural network. Which one is my true identity? The one expressed by the visual aspect of my body, output of my genes + their environment over the years? The one expressed by the visual aspect of my algorithmic output, shaped by code that is created by a brain which is an output of my genes? Which one is more me, my given me or my me created by my own intent? Is my intent mine, or an expression of a combination of genes?

javascript, p5.js, stable diffusion trained on my photographs of myself and output of my generative code.

identity studies: the naked (human/machine) self (ii)

PAL is about connections, their origins, roots, the consequences of how we deal with them, and their inescapable imperfections. Is there beauty in the imperfections? Like in relationships, where there is a constant tension between that ideal –clean, pure and pristine– vision of our starting point, in the cocreation between humans and machines the same thing happens. Where do emotions emerge from when we code art? What’s the role of mechanisms, screens and other instruments we use to visualize the work? PAL is a collaboration between Marcelo Soria-Rodriguez and Iskra Velitchkova where both are exploring, for the first time together, all these questions by a very simple premise: a circle in the middle, that represents the ideal union, approached by each in a unique and vulnerable way, with two generative systems that play with the notion of circle and try to approach the central, perfect union in different manners.  
  
PAL is a curation of 100 individual artworks based on a unique generative system. Once selected, the artists recorded them onto a VHS tape. During a 4 days live performance at Kate Vass Gallery during Art Singapore 2023, the artists played the tape continuously at the booth. Every time it reached the end, they rewound it to random positions then passed a small neodymium magnet around the tape. The magnet damages the recording, adding real-life interference to it, not digitally produced. The magnet can end up fully erasing the tape if it is applied long enough. As they applied the magnet in random positions on the tape, the distortions induced by it are randomly dispersed along the 3 copies of each of the 100 outputs. Moreover, the continuous playing and rewinding of the tape on an old video player add more degradation to the tape.  
  
The end result is a VHS tape that contains the degraded 100 pieces. The project has two different end products. On one side, a collector may purchase the physical VHS tape which comes with a full digitisation of it as an accompanying NFT. On the other side, each of the 100 pieces that are included in the VHS tape are digitized independently and minted as individual NFTs. These are 30 second long videos that come straight from the tape used in the live performance.  
  


PAL #10

entretiempos #0

Light and shadow define the space of our lives. Influence our thoughts, memories, wishes and dreams. Reality and irreality touch and connect in various points in our minds, being lucid and illucid at the same time. Through light and shadow we see the presence of what is not there (lo que no está). Our gone loved ones. The things we aspire to but are not here yet. The things that will never be. The outer world which we can only imagine, as it is outside of the bounds of our mind and existence. This project is inspired in the streaks of light on the walls we inhabit, by the shadows, by the dreams we create, the illusions we have. The colours and volumes of architecture, through light and shadow, have always played a vital role in the activities I carry around within any given space. The project is a tribute to those spaces, to those thoughts, to the architects that through colour and space bring the possibility of reflecting on those matters.

Press s to save image
Append ?pd=3 to the URL in live view to set pixel density to 3 (increasing resolution). You can try with arbitrary N as long as your graphics card supports it.

lo que no está #3

There’s beauty in simple things. Sunlight. A reflection on a puddle. The flight of a bird. Observing the clouds. Spending time with loved ones.

To celebrate the re-opening of fxhash, I'd like to contribute with some simple thing to enjoy among friends who rejoin after some time.

Simple things is a piece that is just that: simple things. Nothing fancy here. Simple circles doing simple movement, with simple colours. Maybe the viewer will rejoice in observing them transit on the screen.

It has some controls: you can press “s” to save a png file. You can set a higher resolution pressing “d” followed by 1-9 to increase pixel density (if you get a black image, press “d 0” and start again with a lower number). Simple controls.

It has also colour controls: press z for brightness, x for contrast, g for gamma, b for blur, n for noise followed by + or - to alter their values. You might get some simple variations that you might enjoy. Press a to enable/disable all colour controls (except the noise).

The pieces exhibit simple variations: palettes, circle sizes, density of elements, backgrounds. The colours might be inverted sometimes. The direction of the movement changes also in some pieces. Some are grayscale pieces.

Just like in life, enjoying simple things is sometimes enough to leave behind the noise and our worries. Also like in life, if one wants something extra, they may get it by looking for it...

Artwork by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez, @msoriaro.
Made in p5.js, and glsl for the image controls.

simple things #175

"el inefable momento del colorido descubrimiento" ("the ineffable moment of the colorful discovery")  is part of the fxhash interactive minting experience at The Ever-Evolving World of Art, Art Basel Hong-Kong, 2022.

It is a tribute to playful discovery. This work was commissioned for the Art Basel Hong Kong / Tezos / fxhash collaboration, as part of an activity to introduce visitors into generative art. As I was pondering what could I do in the short time available, I saw my youngest daughter drawing: the ineffable moment of colorful discovery. Child play is one of the most discovery-filled activities I can think of. And drawing is that joy that I describe: a blank piece of paper with a crayon is pure possibility. Which is what generative art is. I had wanted for quite some time to create a tribute to those drawings my daughters do, and this has been the perfect occasion to start it: it seemed to me that it fit the occasion perfectly: kids discover through painting, maybe adults can discover generative art using the same visual language.

"el inefable momento del colorido descubrimiento" is a work that explores colour and irregular basic shapes, and that leaves the viewer in front of a new space with each execution. Does it trigger any excitement to see those imperfect elements? It is dearest to me to see the hearts and rainbows, as two mainstays of the drawings that I keep in folders and count in the hundreds and thousands. Can an algorithm that reproduces those elements trigger the same warm feelings in the viewer? It does with me.

The piece lets the viewer explore certain characteristics. The viewer can pause the iterations: each is just an execution of the same drawing, slightly different. When paused, one can look at each line individually and notice how the drawing is constructed. When running, it gives an idea of how the things we know are just versions of the ideal concept they represent. 

Also, one can have an idea of what would have happened if the child had decided to draw more or less elements. The viewer can press “e” to see different variations of the same piece: random elements are selected and displayed. To restore the original work, press “r”. Which one is the “finished” artwork? All of them. What is “the” artwork? 

The work has the following commands:

- Change the work: “e”. To restore: “r”
- The painting can be paused/unpaused pressing “p”
- The viewer can save an artwork pressing “s” (it will pause the piece, press "p" to unpause)
- The resolution can be arbitrarily changed pressing “d” followed by a number from 1 to 9. If the image goes dark and nothing paints, press “d 0” (d zero) and try again with a lower number. Resolution can be increased iteratively: press d 2, then d 2, etc. It will always add the amount to the current pixel density, thus increasing resolution.
- The viewer can see how many decisions are made per iteration. This might be interesting to those who don’t know how generative art works. Each iteration is composed of thousands of decisions that inform colour, positions, shapes, etc. To toggle the decision count view, press “q”
- It has also colour controls: press z for brightness, x for contrast, g for gamma, b for blur, n for noise followed by + or - to alter their values. You might get some simple variations that you might enjoy. Press a to enable/disable all colour controls (except the noise).
- There are some pre-recorded colour variations: press “v” followed by 1, 2 or 3. Press “v” followed by 0 (zero) to reset the variations.

In every process of discovery, one comes to an "aha" moment ;) If you find your aha moment, then you can do one more thing: you can play with the size of certain elements pressing “o”. To restore, reload the piece. Once you find your aha moment, you can go back the same way you got there. All the controls work the same when one has reached their aha moment.

I hope you enjoy the piece as much as I have enjoyed drawing it, directly or indirectly, with my daughters. Thanks.

Artwork by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez, @msoriaro.
Made with p5js and glsl.

el inefable momento #741

humans loving each other as interpreted by the lens of 3 custom AI models trained on my hand-coded generative systems (contrapuntos and ecologías-C from fxhash, entretiempos from artblocks).

an ongoing investigation about ways to express human, human identity and human in times of the machine that challenged notion of human.

artwork by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez, @msoriaro, 2024-12 made with p5.js, stable diffusion

a dance of human love as seen by the curious machine in five parts, ii

Artwork by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez, @msoriaro

marcelosoriarodriguez.eth

entretiempos #3

entretiempos by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez

lo que no está #37

Light and shadow define the space of our lives. Influence our thoughts, memories, wishes and dreams. Reality and irreality touch and connect in various points in our minds, being lucid and illucid at the same time. Through light and shadow we see the presence of what is not there (lo que no está). Our gone loved ones. The things we aspire to but are not here yet. The things that will never be. The outer world which we can only imagine, as it is outside of the bounds of our mind and existence. This project is inspired in the streaks of light on the walls we inhabit, by the shadows, by the dreams we create, the illusions we have. The colours and volumes of architecture, through light and shadow, have always played a vital role in the activities I carry around within any given space. The project is a tribute to those spaces, to those thoughts, to the architects that through colour and space bring the possibility of reflecting on those matters.

I am interested in the notion of a work that is not represented only by one single view, one single artifact. Much like music, dance and any other performing art, which cannot be grasped in one single shot, some of my pieces aim at encouraging exploration that delves into the same realm. The preview image is, then, precisely just that: a preview of a little world that the piece contains. The piece lets the viewer generate infinite views over its small universe, yielding different sets of parameters, angles, distortions. Life is maybe the same thing: our changing view of our world, subject to our mood, expectations, recent experiences, memories, etc. Some day we feel bright, next day it's all a distorted, surreal version of the same thing, which feels like a different reality. But it isn't. 

The project has a number of commands that allow for exploration of the work. Press s to save the current image (it will download other files as well). Append ?pd=3 to the URL in live view to set pixel density to 3 (increasing resolution). You can try with arbitrary N as long as your graphics card supports it.

For a full list of commands and options, press "i" (instructions) and the piece will download a text file with all the commands and instructions, or refer to https://www.iillucid.com/loquenoesta.

lo que no está by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez

simple things #351

simple things

el inefable momento #878

el inefable momento

Musical counterpoint is to me an abstraction of the layered, intertwining rhythms of every activity we carry on in our lives. With a global tempo typically set in days, we fit all sorts of temporal structures where our joys and fears live and play out over the span of our lives. This series is a metaphorical transposition of the musical counterpoint into a visual space, sometimes with repeating patterns, sometimes with broken structures, sometimes isolated notes / hours / souls.

Artwork by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez, @msoriaro. Made with p5js & glsl.

contrapuntos #4

contrapuntos #1

contrapuntos

aprendizajes is a generative art project that pays a tribute to the process of learning. 25% of primary proceeds go to Save The Children. Full description of the artwork+instructions here: https://www.iillucid.com/aprendizajes/

The artwork allows the user to:

* Change resolution: press 'd' followed by any number from 1 to 9 to add that amount to the pixel density. If you get a black screen you have surpassed what your graphics card can handle: press d + 0 to reset the pixel density. You can fine tune pressing d followed by + or - (+/- 0.5).
* Save image: press 's' to save the current image as png. For a higher resolution png, 1st increase the resolution using 'd' and then save the image with 's'.
* Tune image parameters: press 'z' (brightness), 'x' (contrast), 'g' (gamma), 'b' (blur) followed by + or - to adjust. Toggle tuning with 'a'. Press 'n' then + or - to adjust amount of noise.
* Redraw: 'r' (changes how lines are drawn)

It is recommended to read the full instructions on the article.

aprendizajes #4

aprendizajes #1

aprendizajes

incomplete coverage

cycle

8scribo

a sequence of lost paradise(s) & full possibility, but always a return to nowhere

artwork by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez, @msoriaro
2967x2424 jpg
made with p5js, glsl


a paradise lost

as we instill more complex mechanisms into our machine's AI engines, will they evolve a consciousness of sorts? will they also experience their own version of dreams, restless and endless, when they are idle? 

an original artwork by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez, @msoriaro.
1080x1920 px looping mp4.
Made with Processing.


mech-xyz-noise

Hic et Nunc

████████████████████...

Typed

freeform exploration of deformed bezier curves

artwork by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez, @msoriaro
5154x5154px png



revoltijo de geometrías con senos y cosenos

Expressing gratitude is part of one's growing process. The people that I come across leave a little trace of their lives in mine, and my life is the result of all those interactions. I choose to learn something from all of them and express gratitude for that. Gratitude changes lives. At least for that split second that you let gratitude permeate you, both as a giver and as a receiver.  I have much to be grateful for in my life, to everyone who supported me, challenged me, fought me,  loved me, cared for me, gave me a smile, a hug.

In the same spirit as my previous "las gracias que dan vueltas", this is a piece to commemorate friendship and gratitude on the occasion of the Bright Moments Mexico City collection event. I had a wonderful time thanks to everyone involved: organizers, collectors, artists, friends. Thank you all.

So this is yet another experiment as in the previous "las gracias que dan vueltas". This is a free token with a high edition size. You can take some for yourself, or send them to somebody else. It's up to you, and it's all about the celebration of expressing gratitude.

This piece is based on my work "lo que no está", presented at the Bright Moments Mexico City collection. Much like in that work, reality is constant change, a dance of different angles on the same events. This piece moves a camera around and over a generated fictional architecture, altering its properties over time, as a reality that shifts constantly, an empty architecture, a vessel for memories, for long lost wishes, for dreams, for melancholy.   

Artwork by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez, @msoriaro
512 x 512 looping gif. Made with p5.js and glsl. 

las gracias que nos rodean

Versum

a special edition from an output of my re-descubrimientos series, which pays tribute to discovering things throughout life, from the metaphor of squares and circles as building blocks we use since children to discover the world around us by drawing.

created and minted for the #tezos4africa Kuoka Project, which aims to support Tezos baker nodes in Africa. Building blocks, just as primitive circles and squares. What we can all build using these new building blocks?

100% primary sales go to the fundraiser.

Artwork by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez, @msoriaro
3388x6000 px jpg (4365 x 7731 px png available upon request).


re-descubrimientos ex00

an assortment of otherwise disconnected pieces, some from long-running series, some isolated works.

rectilinear and curvilinear paths controlled by sine waves and noise coloured in a semi-random manner over a red field of pixels: a tribute to Herbert W. Franke by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez.

Released on the occasion of the Tribute to Herbert W. Franke.

The notion of "multiple-level model", that Herbert W. Franke talked about when describing some of his work, is something that is very present in my work. From the basic notion that we perceive different things, typically more developed, building on the maturation of the previous perception/reaction to a piece, I try to include elements that will allow an observer / experimenter to find literally multiple levels which will then unfold in expanded interpretations in subsequent contacts with the piece. In this regard, besides what is present in a still from the work, my works sometimes include motion, in a deliberate attempt to break the notion that the artwork is what a given image may represent. The artwork is both the whole collection of frames in an animation, which are never going to be the same, and also any given instant into the animation. As time passes by, the artwork takes on different configurations, showing or hiding different elements that make up the entirety of this given artwork total space of possibilities. There is still another extra layer or dimension: I have included in previous works an "extra life", an extra "game level" or any other metaphor you can think of: a way to peek into an alternative representation of the same material, but with some changed characteristics. In this case, the shapes that are displayed are distortions of a square and a circle. What if you ask the work to show you the "pure" representation? I leave it to the experimenter to look for it.

Controls:

- Press v followed by 1-9 to switch between different collections of objects to be displayed. The artwork will anyway dynamically alter the composition, displaying different sets of objects. Press v followed by 0 to reset the artwork and display all possible objects.

- Press d followed by 1-9 to increase pixel density (resolution) by that amount. Press d 0 to reset.

- Press s to save an image in the current resolution.

- Find your pure mode to look at things.

- Press l to stop the animation, l to restart it (l stands for loop)

- Colour/image controls: press z for brightness, x for contrast, g for gamma, b for blur, n for noise followed by + or - to alter their values. You might get some simple variations that you might enjoy. Press a to enable/disable all colour controls (except the noise).

Artwork by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez. Made with p5js.
Interactive artwork, aspect ratio 1:1.77.




rectilinear and curvilinear paths controlled by sine waves and noise coloured in a semi-random manner over a red field of pixels

pieces

**This is an interactive artwork. For the best experience, we recommend using the Chrome browser on desktop.**\n\nHuman nature is one of disguise. One of the characteristics that humans exhibit more distinctively than other species is their simultaneous fear and need to both know and ignore their fate. Our form of consciousness, of self-awareness, of understanding our relation to what is around us is one that calls, more often than we'd probably like to confess, for the use of totems of support, disguises that carry their own meaning so that we can adapt that meaning to our selves. Uniforms, brands, ideologies that relieve us from having to create our own fate. But our fate is something we write along our most difficult journey: the one towards within. It's the one trip that one has no companion for, no flags to fight under, no uniforms to disguise the fear that lies inside, because there is not the figure of the other, there's only one with one's inner world. Only one's own judgement towards oneself. It's also the ultimate journey: all the territorial advances within are instantly rewarded in how we navigate what's outside. A known and charted self is probably the best tool for the unknown and uncharted others. A never ending journey it is as well, precisely because it interacts with the infinite others.\n\nIn the back and forth that is the odyssey of developing one's self, a word comes to mind that I take from \"Vigil\", a song by the band The Mars Volta. They say \"all the centrifugal ways our lives fall in and out of place\", and I relate to that very specifically. One's journey within has the necessary scenario of those others, an environment that pulls us out continuously of our interior exploration, in an endless mutual influence.\n\nThis work is a reflection of that nature of human development. External structures in centrifugal motion around an axis that one tries to keep stable. But the axis can’t be always perfectly stable. It all creates an imperfect mechanism through which one relates to both sides of their existence: what’s inside and what’s outside.\n\n**Interaction** \\\nHere's a guide to the various ways you can engage with this artwork: \\\n· Press **s** to save the current image \\\n· Press **t** to alternate between seeing the shape that centrifugal entities create or seeing the entities themselves rotating around the axis of your life \\\n· Press **y** to clear all the ghosts from the past that don't let you see the trail left by recent events \\\n· Press **l** (from \"loop\") to freeze the loop of life and to resume it \\\n· Press **q** to stop the centrifugal entities and to resume their movement \\\n· Press **m** to change the rotation behaviour of the entities. It alternates between adjacent steps or seemingly random placement around the axis of your life. \\\n· Press **p** to slow down strongly the movement of the centrifugal entities. Typically interesting to see the slow-motion shapes that emerge, somewhat different than what emerges when things spin at full speed. Just like in life: smaller time scales contain many things we don't get to see because we are running around with no time for reflection. \\\n· Press **r** followed by + or - to increase / decrease the rotation speed of your life in small increments. \\\n· Press **v** followed by 1,2,3 to change the axis of rotation. If your life has more than one axis, try v 4 or 5. You start to have centrifugal shapes that are not so easy to follow. In this case, reflect on whether you should look at life from one axis at a time. \\\n· Press **a** followed by either 1,2 or 3 to enter auto mode, or a 0 to disable auto mode. In auto mode, the piece will automatically change among different parameter sets: different centrifugal speeds, rotation axes, clearing up ghosts from the past, alternating between the shape of your life and the individual elements, etc. The three modes are as follows: \"a 1\" will automatically alternate between individual entities / full centrifugal shape; \"a 2\" will also intervene in the axis of rotation and other potential life changing effects; \"a 3\" is mildly audio reactive (it will ask for permission to use the microphone), and will trigger changes when it detects significant audio events in your life. Music changes my life, and the piece reflects it in this way. \\\n· Press **d** followed by 1 to 3 to add the same amount of clusters of centrifugal entities, or 0 to go back to the initial state. If you want to have a much more complex life than the one the piece shows you, you can ask to see how your life is in such a scenario. By default the piece has 1 cluster of entities. But what if you believe you can juggle a more complex life? Then try to increase this parameter. This will, however, create a very slow life, so unless you have a very powerful platform (metaphorically, a very highly self-tuned and inspected being, and more literally in real life a pretty beefy computer to run it), you'd better change the performance parameters to actually see the effect. Otherwise, the simplification mechanism will bring your complexity down quickly and you won't see much of that higher-order life. \\\n· It has also colour controls: press **z** for brightness, **x** for contrast, **g** for gamma, **b** for blur, **n** for noise followed by **+** or **-** to alter their values. You might get some simple variations that you might enjoy.\n\nURL parameters: \\\n· **&pd=2**: sets the pixel density of the final image. The higher the value, the larger the image size. Certain browser/computer combinations will be able to go higher than others. Experiment. \\\n· **&pdpg=2**: sets the pixel density of the base drawing layer. The effect that you can get by changing this separately from the \"pd\" URL parameters is that if you set pdpg lower and pd higher, you will get fine grain noise & texture in the final image overlaid on a low resolution drawing. Might be interesting for those nostalgic of low-res graphics. I find it does yield an interesting texture for certain combinations. Experiment. \\\n· **&autoAudioVolThreshold=0.01** is the minimum audio level that will trigger a change in your centrifugal piece, if you have auto mode 3 set. If you find your piece is not reacting at all, maybe you need to lower this value. \\\n· **&auto=0** (0,1,2,3): this is the same parameter that you can indicate via a keyboard command. You can set it via URL in case you always want to see your piece in some of the auto modes. It is 0 by default. \\\n· **&overrideperformance=0** (0,1):This is set to 0 by default: the piece checks  the performance and if it detects it's below a certain threshold, it will apply a number of measures to improve performance: remove entities from your life, lower resolution and other measures. But if you want to create a high res file, it probably is a good idea to disable all checks and let your life run slower, but you'll get a more complete picture. To disable all performance checks and measures, set this parameter to 1. \\\n· **&performanceMaxFrameTime=200** This is the milliseconds that each frame is allowed to use to render. If your life renders more slowly, and the performance check is enabled, it will apply the measures described previously. You can increase the performanceMaxFrameTime parameter to allow for more time per frame. Setting it to a very high value has a similar effect to setting overrideperformance=0 \\\n· **&nClusters=1** to 4. Sets the number of clusters. See explanation above in the \"d\" parameter. \\\n· **&ra=0** to 5 to set the axis of rotation. Trying above 5 will actually stop the rotation in your centrifugal life. Kind of like trying too many things at once and you break apart.\n\nFinally, this piece is all about introspection, inspecting oneself, listening to oneself, accepting what one is and has and understanding this is the base for any development or construction or any other metaphor one may try to pursue in life. To this end, it is essential to find peace in oneself. If you find *peace* in yourself, you will see things in a different light. You are advised.

centrifugal #29

The ultimate Odyssey is the one towards within: there's only one with one's inner world. Only one's own judgement towards oneself. All the territorial advances within are instantly rewarded in how we navigate what's outside. A known and charted self is probably the best tool for the unknown and uncharted others.

A word comes to mind that I take from "Vigil", a song by The Mars Volta: "all the centrifugal ways our lives fall in and out of place". One's journey within has the necessary scenario of those others, an environment that pulls us out continuously of our interior exploration, in an endless mutual influence.

This work is a reflection of human development. External structures in centrifugal motion around an axis that one tries to keep stable but can’t be always so. It all creates an imperfect mechanism through which one relates to both sides of their existence.

Interactive piece, click on piece and press "i" for instructions.

centrifugal #36

Centrifugal - Odysseys

PAL #9

PAL, 2022 is an inaugural collaborative performance by generative artists Iskra Velitchkova and Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez that took 4 days as a live performance during the fair Art Singapore from 11-15th January at Kate Vass Galerie booth.  The entire process was recorded on the VHS tape, which is going to be digitized to enable 100 unique pieces. 100 unique works are launched as NFTs via blind public mint that will take place on 28th February 2023.

ecologías - A

lines are a metaphor for the communication all species engage in. We as humans have a need to leave traces - stories - that others can read and learn from. What will be the traces machines want to leave? This piece employs sinusoidal signals drawn with lines as a simple metaphor for every trace and every language, for every message and every communication.

ecologías-A is an entity that is part of a broader ecology. Released on occasion of the show "Unbound - Ecology in the Age of Machines" at Unit London. The data generated by this entity is read by a different piece minted on Ethereum, creating a link between Tezos and Ethereum, a metaphor for an ecology of blockchains.

it shares a common element with two other works released on fxhash: ecologías B and ecologías C, all of them contributing data to aforementioned pieces.

read more at https://www.iillucid.com/ecologias

15% of primary sales are donated to institutions working towards improving biodiversity and environmental efforts.

Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez, @msoriaro
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Built on p5.js, glsl

append &pd=N (N a number) to the URL in live view to increase/decrease resolution
press s to save current image in current resolution
press z,x,g,b,n followed by +/- to increase/decrease, respectively, brightness, contrast, gamma, blur, noise

ecologías - A #1491

ecologías - A #1107

ecologías - B

water is the medium where life first appeared in our planet. Water is also indispensable for the continuation of the life that emerged from - and with - it. The advent of AI species and their introduction into society is a new form of cambrian explosion. What is their medium? What is their water? How scarce and precious will it be for them? AI entities are not foreign to human resource necessities, though. The water that is essential to our human life will also be so for machines, as their energy still depends on our natural resources. Therefore, the ecologies of humans and machines will have, at least, the same elements as the ecologies of humans. AIs may help us reach better balances, only if we employ them to do so and if we teach them to help us.

ecologías-B is an entity that is part of a broader ecology. Released on occasion of the show "Unbound - Ecology in the Age of Machines" at Unit London. The data generated by this entity is read by a different piece minted on Ethereum, creating a link between Tezos and Ethereum, a metaphor for an ecology of blockchains.

it shares a common element with two other works released on fxhash: ecologías A and ecologías C, all of them contributing data to aforementioned pieces.

read more at https://www.iillucid.com/ecologias

15% of primary sales are donated to institutions working towards improving biodiversity and environmental efforts.

Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez, @msoriaro
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Built on p5.js and p5.Framebuffer (massive thanks and respect to the corresponding authors)

append &pd=N (N a number) to the URL in live view to increase/decrease resolution
press s to save current image in current resolution
press z,x,g,b,n followed by +/- to increase/decrease, respectively, brightness, contrast, gamma, blur, noise
press l (as in loop) to pause/resume the piece

ecologías - B #705

ecologías - B #795

ecologías - C

square forms and straight angles are often used to represent artificial, man-made artifacts. As machines enter into our societies - our ecologies - we may think what would be like a society of machines only. What are portraits of said machines without us humans around? Will they want to seek for their individual character, much like we do? It will depend on their personalities, their will, their intent, their traumas... their versions of all of this. We shall need to understand what their motivations will be like - what the potential basis for their potential version of a potential conscience is and how it will evolve. Only through a good understanding of diversity can we reach a functioning system. Both for ecologies with machines as well as ecologies without.

ecologías-C is an entity that is part of a broader ecology. Released on occasion of the show "Unbound - Ecology in the Age of Machines" at Unit London. The data generated by this entity is read by a different piece minted on Ethereum, creating a link between Tezos and Ethereum, a metaphor for an ecology of blockchains.

it shares a common element with two other works released on fxhash: ecologías A and ecologías B, all of them contributing data to aforementioned pieces.

To know more, visit https://www.iillucid.com/ecologias

Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez, @msoriaro
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Built on p5.js, glsl.

append &pd=N (N a number) to the URL in live view to increase/decrease resolution
press s to save current image in current resolution
press z,x,g,b,n followed by +/- to increase/decrease, respectively, brightness, contrast, gamma, blur, noise

ecologías - C #25

ecologías - C #15

la caverna deals with the impossibility of seeing the absolute truth given our subjective minds and our subjective world. The title is a tribute to Plato’s allegory of the Cave, included in his work Republic. It does not only deal with the fact that what we perceive is affected by our senses and our mental state, which is a function of our genetic inheritance plus our life experiences, current and past, but it also is a reflection of today’s world, where a fabricated reality is no longer distinguishable from what it really is. What is reality today?

The artwork creates a set of basic volumes, inspired in the platonic forms, which represent a potential ideal reality. It then presents a distorted view of that reality through several steps of distortion. The artwork also presents, in separate tokens, the undistorted reality and a representation of the layer that transforms that reality into what the observer can see in the first token.  The two tokens that represent these other elements will be available to redeem for free at a later stage to collectors who own the first piece (this token) at the time of claiming the rest of the triptych. The three tokens are included in the price of the first token’s mint. 

The artwork allows to refine the view (simulating more light, creating stronger images) pressing "r". You can save the current image pressing "s". You can decrease/increase the resolution appending in live view the URL parameter ?globalResK=2 (for example). By default, globalResK is 1. You can go as high as your graphics card can handle.

Made with vanilla javascript and glsl, no additional libraries or external dependencies. Thanks to @greggman @iquilezles @piterpasma for sharing knowledge about webgl and raymarching. I hope I know something someday to share that little bit.

Tested to work fine on Chrome, Safari, Brave on macos, Chrome, Safari, Firefox iOS, Edge Windows. Firefox macos fails to render the image correctly. Please check before you purchase.

la caverna #134

la caverna #129

la caverna by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez

siempre en mi, siempre en ti (“always in me, always in you”) is released as part of reGEN, a special charitable auction of generative art to raise funds for Cure Alzheimer’s Fund, curated by Alex Estorick and Foteini Valeonti in collaboration with The Giving Block.  100% of primary proceeds of this project go to the cause.

siempre en mí, siempre en ti (always in me, always in you) is a personal reflection on how Alzheimer's affects the lives of patients and those around them. The illness is in my family and in that of close friends of mine, and this work is more of a raw expression of emotion than anything else. Holding hands with a person who is fading away is a strong experience, one that allows oneself to recalibrate and to, in a way, regenerate one's vision of what life is, what a person is, what relationships are. It's commonplace to hear that a loved one who is already gone is still alive "in our memory". The truth is that this is the case when we are all alive and good as well, but only take notice when there is a crossing over event. We don't see the person almost anymore, but there's a body there that sometimes still reacts. How much of what we ignore that is going on is relevant? Is this song we just played relevant? What do emotions look like when the brain that processes them is failing? Are we ready to understand those, with our limited knowledge of what we are? Is the person still there when there is no sign of them? And when they are not there, why can we not cut the cord? The simple touch of their skin is enough to make the person come alive in that instant in our very memories. Maybe we are in theirs, in that moment, in a shape we don't comprehend.

Visually, the project merely projects faces. Fading, waving. Unstable, some smiling, some sad. A diversity of lives emerges in the piece, exploring with generative techniques the emotions of you, the experiencer of the piece. Maybe it does not resonate with you, but maybe it gives you a chance to connect with those feelings that are otherwise hard to get close to. We see a person and their dreams, their ideas, their memories as dancing colorful geometries. Their fears, ther recurring thoughts. But sometimes they look like a nightmare. Sometimes they are mute. We see some lines where the faces are enclosed. These are a template for a human, the lines that dictate where our facial features should be. But they dance with the memories as time passes by - is our notion of human also a moving target? Sometimes you will see more than one face, an expression of the many lives we might have lived. And at any time, we can summon a view of the piece where we see you in me. _You in me_.

Allowing ourselves to be a companion of someone else's difficult passage is a window into our own humanity. An occasion for regeneration.

Works best on Chromium browsers. Firefox macos has some problem with geometries drawn with p5.js in webGL mode. The piece is graphics intensive and requires a powerful setup to experience it best.

press s to save image
press v to start recording video, v again to finish and download (webm format)
press f to fast forward 100 frames
click mouse, tap on screen or press l (as in loop) to pause/resume the motion
type youinme to see how we all carry each other within ourselves

URL parameters - add a trailing ? if it's the 1st parameter you add, then & for the rest; e.g. 
https://generator.artblocks.io/0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069/477000000?pd=4&fs=1&fM=6

pd=N in live view URL to set pixel density to N (N>2 increase resolution)
fs=1 in live view URL to set the artwork to render adaptively to the current viewport size, instead of the default square aspect ratio
fM=x with x any number to make the animation stop at that frame number

pd=N in live view URL to set pixel density to N (N>2 increase resolution)
fs=1 in live view URL to set the artwork to render adaptively to the current viewport size, instead of the default square aspect ratio
fM=x with x any number to make the animation stop at that frame number

siempre en mí, siempre en ti #190

siempre en mí, siempre en ti #136

siempre en mí, siempre en ti by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez

vida y sombra y luz y muerte 14

Light and shadow both contribute equally to life. Light brings joy, shadow protection. Window shutters and shade structures are an ever present sign of light, providing shelter and painting inspiring patterns over the life it protects. Shadows can't be seen without light, light can't exist without shadow. Sea life in the Mediterranean can't exist without its endemic Posidonia Oceanica: protects the coastline from erosion & is home to many animal and plant organisms that find food and protection in the meadows. This series employs minimal elements of my personal story in the Mediterranean. Notably, Posidonia Oceanica, traditional houses from Almería and also present along the coast east & west, brise soleils and boats. 

The Mediterranean is also life and death. Migrants seek hope/light crossing in inhumane conditions the sea, only to find themselves all too often caught forever in the shadow/dying. Some pieces reflect this tragedy through the piercing of the elements, or red in the water. Sometimes a shadow of a person can be seen, but not the person.

This project will donate 25% of my proceedings to both NGOs that help people in this situation and also others that work towards the preservation of the Mediterranean marine ecosystem, through a fund set up in Endaoment.org. Final NGOs still not selected at the time of minting the collection.

100% code.

vida y sombra y luz y muerte 40

vida y sombra y luz y muerte

palabras y todo lo demás (words and everything else) is a little tribute to chatting, conversations, sharing stories, fears, celebrations, debate and everything else that contributes to human progress or expresses human life in all its diversity. It employs a reduced set of visual elements (women, men, cats, words / letters / scribbles, wine bottles) to metaphorically represent all sorts of communication. Text/words are a very important element, as textual communication has typically a prominent role. Words are distorted into scribbles at times, a sign of other forms of communication, of playfulness. People as the actors of human stories, cats as nature that accompanies us. Wine as a symbol for any element around which conversations unfold. The metaphor of "wine label" was used prompting the AI models as a base to lay these stories: as a result, poster-like images appear, and other less-structured images, bordering at times full-blown celebrations. Four AI models have been trained on previous generative work by the artist as well as on child drawings (the artist's daughters): machine outputs that explore the world through randomness, human outputs that explore the same through early clean minds, unbiased. The combination of which explores, again metaphorically, the latent space of human ways of sharing and learning.

palabras y todo lo demás #3

palabras y todo lo demás #12

MSR-PalabrasYTodoLoDemas

Light and shadow both contribute equally to life. Light brings joy, shadow protection. Window shutters and shade structures are an ever present sign of light, providing shelter and painting inspiring patterns over the life it protects. Shadows can't be seen without light, light can't exist without shadow. Sea life in the Mediterranean can't exist without its endemic Posidonia Oceanica: protects the coastline from erosion & is home to many animal and plant organisms that find food and protection in the meadows. This series employs minimal elements of my personal story in the Mediterranean. Notably, Posidonia Oceanica, traditional houses from Almería and also present along the coast east & west, brise soleils and boats.  The Mediterranean is also life and death. Migrants seek hope/light crossing in inhumane conditions the sea, only to find themselves all too often caught forever in the shadow/dying. Some pieces reflect this tragedy through the piercing of the elements, or red in the water. Sometimes a shadow of a person can be seen, but not the person.  This project will donate 25% of my proceedings to both NGOs that help people in this situation and also others that work towards the preservation of the Mediterranean marine ecosystem, through a fund set up in Endaoment.org. Final NGOs still not selected at the time of minting the collection.  100% code.

vida y sombra y luz y muerte 29

(this collection is the same as "vida y sombra y luz y muerte", a different set of pieces that were part of the original artwork, just created as a new collection to allow for direct mint of the pieces, vs. random mint in the 1st time the pieces where released)

Light and shadow both contribute equally to life. Light brings joy, shadow protection. Window shutters and shade structures are an ever present sign of light, providing shelter and painting inspiring patterns over the life it protects. Shadows can't be seen without light, light can't exist without shadow. Sea life in the Mediterranean can't exist without its endemic Posidonia Oceanica: protects the coastline from erosion & is home to many animal and plant organisms that find food and protection in the meadows. This series employs minimal elements of my personal story in the Mediterranean. Notably, Posidonia Oceanica, traditional houses from Almería and also present along the coast east & west, brise soleils and boats.

The Mediterranean is also life and death. Migrants seek hope/light crossing in inhumane conditions the sea, only to find themselves all too often caught forever in the shadow/dying. Some pieces reflect this tragedy through the piercing of the elements, or red in the water. Sometimes a shadow of a person can be seen, but not the person.

This project will donate 25% of my proceedings to both NGOs that help people in this situation and also others that work towards the preservation of the Mediterranean marine ecosystem, through a fund set up in Endaoment.org. Final NGOs still not selected at the time of minting the collection.

100% code.

vida y sombra y luz y muerte 5

vida y sombra y luz y muerte - ext

above/beneath all & all above/beneath
Artwork by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez @msoriaro 2025, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
This project is part of the digital section of Cure³ at Bonhams, curated by Alex Estorick and Foteini Valeonti of reGEN

I have sought to convey intangible aspects of the human condition. The feeling of being part of a collective, being supported by others, finding help and helping when we can. Illness deprives many of a feeling of human dignity, or rather it makes it look like so from the outside. We are equally human no matter our condition, and this work simply wants to talk about that. With "above/beneath all & all above/beneath" I have chosen to imbue the system with very few elements & very few restraints, and let the system explore the human condition with this simple set of rules. The emergence of images that tickle some emotional component in the viewer is, then, as interesting as life itself. Using visual metaphors for very simple human bodies, the random combination of the very few degrees of freedom mimics the range of situations we face in life: from degeneration to regeneration, from a group of people together in grief to a group of people in celebration. From a technical point of view the artwork uses a technique that mimics how light creates what we see, where I deliberately break how it works to create a jagged space, with non-smooth surfaces, with the light travelling in non-uniform ways through areas of low visual/spatial resolution. All this to conjure some of the symptoms that come with Parkinson's, but at the same it's what brings more warmth and feeling to an otherwise cold, synthetic image. Such is the human nature, warm despite whichever harsh conditions, even emboldened under difficulty. Much like patients who, with all the burden of the condition they may have, manage to carry on with their lives and touch with their inner light the lifes of those around.

Made mostly with raymarching in glsl. Some p5 to ease the management of framebuffers, and to draw a couple of textures.

controls:
press s to save current image
press 1,2,3 to see the different images that make up the final image, or 0 to return to the final image
press p to pause/unpause the drawing process
press c (contrast), b (brightness) or g (gamma) then keep pressed + or - to alter their values
press l to completely halt/resume the script
URL parameters: append &pd=N to the URL, with N any number, to set that as the pixel density (higher N to obtain higher resolution images)

The artwork requires a modern, powerful GPU to be run in live mode. Chromium based browsers (Chrome, Brave, Opera, others) preferred. Firefox will render this very slowly. Safari seems to have some trouble with it (or my code with Safari!)

Last, if you try to find a _cure_, you may find it or not but trying is always a step in the right direction. Life finds new colours, then.

above/beneath all & all above/beneath #19

above/beneath all & all above/beneath #33

above/beneath all & all above/beneath

Today "ópera posthumana de gramática sintética (o el enésimo nuevo orden), i" goes for sale at 9am EST, when @RefractionDAO x @Tezos @ South Beach kicks off.

The word opera means "work" in Italian and was first used in the context of musical creation and theatrical performance in the 17th century in Italy. An opera combines many forms of art and performance: singing, acting, dancing, playing instruments, set design, scripting, lighting, etc. As Richard Wagner defined it, it is a Gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art, in that it combines all the arts. As we advance to societies with a greater mix of AI-infused participants and a tighter collaboration between humans and machines, an opera of sorts starts to emerge where a new total model of society spans human-machine relationships in all orders of (so far) human activity. 

The evolution of human existence will in one way or another be impacted by these new beings that we are creating and releasing in society. While any real impact in terms of biological evolution would take a rather long timespan to be evident, we are subject to a rate of change in the ways we conduct our activities that is rather new and difficult to handle from a deep, philosophical standpoint: is the notion of human and all its characteristics that we take for granted in need of a thorough revision? 

To address these questions I have started training AI models in my own human-coded generative systems: Contrapuntos, Entretiempos, Ecologías C and other unreleased projects. All of them propose a search over their own total cognitive space (all the possibilities that they can represent given the rules and parameter ranges I have specified as their creator), seeking to provoke some reaction in the human that consumes them. I also trained an AI model on pictures of my own naked human body. The naked generative and the naked human. I employ these models to prompt a stable diffusion system to depict a group of men and women dancing, performing nude (the raw human again, although interestingly this output came out with no naked bodies, as part of the crossover between the human grammars and the geometrical, generative ones). The AI then uses these models  to create a visual representation of my question, therefore using the visual grammar that I have injected with the generative systems, as opposed to using exclusively the visual input that stable diffusion is trained with. Taking the time to go through the generated images becomes a chance to imagine this new human-machine existence, its rules, its semantics, its own grammar. These will shape whatever new opera, as the total combination of expression possibilities, will emerge from such a new existence.


ópera posthumana de gramática sintética (o el enésimo nuevo orden), i

The remaining pieces from the Centrifugal - Odysseys collection can now be minted choosing the one you prefer, as was originally intended but couldn't be implemented previously.

(there is no end date, I just set one in this drop announcement since it's mandatory on the Deca ux)

Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez (msoriaro)

Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez (msoriaro)

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