Series 0 - Synth Poems. Synth Poems are short generative music pieces, inspired by the sound of analog synthesizers. They are stored on-chain. Each piece is generated at the time of minting from a random hash value, influencing musical elements including tempo, timbre, pitch and time signature. Simple rules lead to surprising variation, giving each piece its own distinctive personality, while retaining a common theme. Although synth poems are audio focused, a fitting visualization is added as an ode to early computer graphics that used vector displays to visualize analog signals. What you see is a direct representation of the sound signal, as it would appear on an oscilloscope. The code that generates the audiovisual is stored completely on-chain, allowing a user to reconstruct the media without having to trust IPFS or external storage.
Series 1 - Angular. Generative audiovisual pieces, undulating but synchronized. The process that determines note durations and pitches are continuous functions of time, taking the rhythm and pitches "off the grid". These are juxtaposed with angular visuals very much on a grid. While many generative collections of art feature a widely varying parameter space, this collection instead has its parameters finely tuned and tightly constrained. The time dependent process is still seeded by the random hash value so that each are unique, but they have the same flavor and can be thought of as "prints" of the original artwork.
Series 2 - Transmission. Generative on-chain audiovisual packed with subliminal messages documenting some of the "spirit of this age". Visuals inspired by ANSI terminal and noisy video signals. Synthesized percussion and randomized rhythms.
Series 3 - Entropy. Through the use of programmable on-chain media, this series explores themes of permanence, ownership and generation loss, by artificially imposing a programmed process of repeated degradation occurring when the token is transferred to another owner. The process is artificial, in that no information is actually lost. The code model itself is stored publicly and immutably on a decentralized network, and the output media can be reconstructed in any state by changing the input parameter that influences the degradation. Not even the owner has the ability to destroy, as the programmable source of information is immutable. The process is technically implemented by incrementing a counter variable in contract storage when ERC721 interface function 'transferFrom' is called. The counter serves as input to this code model, influencing processes that repeatedly filter, distort and add noise to the audiovisual output. While it is the artist's instruction that the counter variable serve as input, that instruction may be ignored, just as one may right-click and save.
Series 4 - Glitchbox. Through programmable media, this series invites users to participate in the exploration and curation of a generative audiovisual model. Rather than enforcing artificial scarcity through a single fixed hash, owners/editors may instead continuously explore and selectively choose from a large set of possible outputs. After minting, owners(and those granted editing access by the owner) may tweak parameters that influence the output of the model, and store those parameters on-chain. Parameters are analogous to the knobs and switches of a modular synthesizer. Owners/editors may 'play' this instrument, selecting settings that please them. A record of the parameters chosen, and who made them, will be recorded immutably on-chain.
Series 5 - Advection. This work attempts to express the beauty and harmony found in the overlap of mathematical and physical concepts in different perceptual modalities. The fluid motion model for these animations is based on academic research conducted in 2010. The sounds of struck percussion are synthesized from physical models sharing common principles. This series extends the user programmable media paradigm of Series 4. One token will be reserved for community access. This one token is not owned, but its utility is shared: community members may learn, study and interact with a programmable system, and in turn may change parameters that influence the audiovisual output. Parameter changes and their authors' addresses are stored on-chain. The audiovisual outputs are reconstructed entirely from 100kb of self contained C code stored on-chain.
Degenerative. Controlled randomness can be a tool to produce beautiful aesthetic variation; or for subversively rigging a game or economic system. A collection of generative art slot machines. Owners compete to be first to win jackpots, granting mint passes for a diminishing supply of additional slot machines with increasingly rare attributes. A reflection on several themes in the mashup of generative art and (crypto)economic systems: controlled random processes, distribution of value, real and artificial scarceness, competition, gamification, merit, risk and precarity.