cathedral study is a series of experimental, generative, living paintings. Continually evolving pixelated landscapes evoke ruins, fantastical cityscapes, and cathedrals. Best viewed running in real-time on a large screen. Press ‘f’ to cycle through full-screen options.

cathedral study #330

Eric De Giuli

codex -1132730221.

Trained as a physicist, Herbert W. Franke sought to explore the aesthetic possibilities of mathematics. The revolution of quantum mechanics showed that our world is fundamentally subjective and conditional, at odds with our everyday experience. My series Glass is an attempt to visualise the quantum world, and in so doing build intuition for the mathematics that it tells us describes reality.

Here I present a number of studies for Glass. Geometric forms suggest tangible structures, but without the possibility of stitching these into a cohesive whole. We are obliged to take the image as a composite of possibilities, as our own world is.

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

Glass Study

You are the product of countless tiny decisions taken over the course of your life. Stitched is an attempt to visualize one’s current self as a product of the myriad forking paths available to us. The animated version is available for view at

https://www.fxhash.xyz/gentk/306763

Stitched is generative art coded in p5.js, inspired by The Garden of Forking Paths by Borges and stylistically by French and Russian Impressionists, and Autoglyphs by Larva Labs.

Stitched #1

Mazinaw is about the timeless struggle to express our humanity and communicate the ineffable. The title derives from Mazinaabikinigan-zaaga'igan, an Algonquin word meaning “picture” or “writing”, alluding to the dual nature of pictographs. 

Inspired by my encounters with neolithic cave paintings in Europe and indigenous pictographs flanking Canadian lakes, Mazinaw hints at etchings, drawings, and anthropomorphic forms. While Mazinaw draws on expressionists from Wassily Kandinsky to Norman Lewis, it takes abstraction one step further: each piece is constructed by the artist indirectly, via a generative code, allowing the emergence of new undreamt-of forms.

The 19 palettes are inspired by the natural world, but their roles are sometimes twisted: cerulean blue strokes appear over an ochre canvas, and green flashes of light hop across a gray expanse. I invite the viewer to spend time with each piece, finding their own order from chaos. Signed fine-art archival inkjet prints will be available for owners at a modest cost.

Note: Mazinaw is best viewed in large format (full screen), or printed. Each piece has infinitely fine details, some of which will only be visible in print. Mazinaw renders seamlessly in any aspect ratio; adjust the window size and shape as desired, click on the frame, and type 'f'. 

Controls:

 s   -- save as png
 spacebar  -- pause/unpause
  f   -- toggle square / fit-to-screen aspect ratio
   1-6  -- set pixel density (default=2 on retina displays)
   +/-  -- increase/decrease pixel density
   n -- enable/disable night mode
   p -- enable/disable pastel mode

Mazinaw #235

The contemporary moment is defined by the appearance of artificial systems that mimic intelligent behaviours with uncanny skill: bots that you can converse with, machines that can act as pets, and even the algorithms that recommend ads to you. At times they appear as strange beings; alive. To make sense of this phenomenon, we are forced to reconsider our notion of the living state beyond what we are familiar with on Earth. 

Calian is an infinitely zoomable and scrollable exploration of lifelike behaviour. It exhibits ambiguous natural-digital forms in a dynamic rendering. Species grow and compete; they get carried by the elements; they face boom, bust, and echo. 

What makes something alive? To go beyond recognition of terrestrial biology we need to delineate general principles and apply them to new intelligent systems. Calian uses the fruits of my research into the origin of life to create persistent, complex systems that we can experience and study (*). We can identify properties of living matter but these fall short of a satisfactory and succinct criterion. When does agency begin? Or identity? Calian asks you to ponder this as you wander through its ecosystems. 

Feel free to explore but be careful: although life is pervasive, living things are delicate. Your interactions affect the ecosystem, obliquely. 

Calian continues a thread of my work probing deep scientific questions with artistic means. It furthermore connects to my previous Artblocks projects Mazinaw and Glass through the theme of ambiguity: while Mazinaw suggested the hand of an unknown creator, and Glass visualized the intrinsic ambiguity of our quantum mechanical universe, Calian's amorphous forms bear characteristics both of familiar organic matter and digital technology. 

Interactive features allow you to explore each ecosystem, infinitely, both in depth and in scope. As you wander, the shader repopulates the world from its initial condition, while the physical laws governing the dynamics themselves evolve.

See Display Notes for Controls.

(*) For more on Calian's dynamics and its grounding in my research, see the Calian page on my website.

Calian #202

_There are no artifacts. There are only interpretations._

Glass is about the illusion of simplicity that cocoons us in our everyday existence. A glance at Glass may suggest a foam of bubbles or pebbles under clear water. But on inspection, these simple pictures dissolve. Instead of disks one finds stacked panes of translucent glass, intersecting and overlapping. There is dissonance between fine-scale chaos and the harmony of the aggregate. In Glass, two levels of reality -- panes of glass and the foam of bubbles -- are brought close together in scale, so that our oversimplified impression yields a palpable disquiet.

What appears simple is often anything but. Consider a standard wooden desk. To our eyes, it looks solid and continuous, but we know that it is made of atoms, tiny electrons orbiting nuclei. And these subatomic particles are themselves not like miniature solar systems, but creatures of quantum mechanics, stranger than we can imagine. The vast difference in scale between the atomic and the macroscopic hides this complex reality, but fundamentally it is the same phenomenon shown here.

Glass continues my exploration of emergence. While in previous work I explored how simple systems can create complex, emergent forms, here the interest is in the converse: how coherence is often deceptive, masking a complex underlying reality.

Glass draws on the aesthetic of Shin Hanga artists Hiroshi Yoshida and Kawase Hasui, and abstract expressionist Sonja Sekula. In live view, Glass has ambient motion: the shadows evolve, imperceptibly slowly.

The following variations & controls are possible. You may need to click on the canvas before they are active. For a high-resolution output, use the pixel density controls. For example, on a standard laptop, an image saved at pixel density 5 will be approximately 3200 x 4000 pixels, and therefore suitable for printing at ~ 11" x 13" at 300 dpi.

Variations (require redrawing):

f -- fit-to-screen on/off
o -- outline on/off

Controls:

s   -- save as png
spacebar  -- pause/unpause ( useful to reduce CPU load in Live mode )
b -- border on/off ( useful for printing )
1-9  -- set pixel density (default=2 on retina displays)
+/-  -- increase/decrease pixel density

Glass #108

When the Impressionists first exhibited their work, they derided as lunatics by the art establishment. The vitriol then -- "wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape" (referring to Impression: sunrise by Monet) -- reminds me of criticism that generative art, and the NFT world more generally, are subject to now. "Impossible cathedrals" is a tribute to rebels who dare to see the world differently. 

Since generative art is often criticized as cold and austere, I took this as a challenge to reproduce the spirit of impressionism. Impossible cathedrals -- interwoven arches that cannot exist in reality -- hint at some of the favorite subjects of the impressionists.

The title alludes to Italo Calvino's novel Invisible Cities, a rebel in another context. Other artists who I had in mind during creation: the Japanese woodblock printing artists Kawase Hasui and Hiroshi Yoshida; American painter JAM Whistler.

Impossible cathedrals was written in p5.js using elements of code by eeedg (thanks)

impossible cathedrals #1

Trained as a physicist, Herbert W. Franke explored the aesthetic possibilities of mathematics. The revolution of quantum mechanics showed that our world is fundamentally subjective and conditional, at odds with our everyday experience. My series Glass is an attempt to visualise the quantum world, and in so doing build intuition for the mathematics that it tells us describes reality.

Here I present a number of studies for Glass. Geometric forms suggest tangible structures, but without the possibility of stitching these into a cohesive whole. We are obliged to take the image as a composite of possibilities, as our own world is.

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

Glass Study 9

1/1 generative art pieces by EDG = eeedg = pepe xyz

EDG-1/1

Mazinaw #187

Mazinaw by Eric De Giuli

Calian #63

Calian by Eric De Giuli

impossible cathedrals #4

impossible cathedrals

You are the product of countless tiny decisions taken over the course of your life. Stitched is an attempt to visualize one’s current self as a product of the myriad forking paths available to us. It is best appreciated in animated format: the latent structure unfolds in time; the past gradually fades away, tinted and obscure. 

Past decisions and missed opportunities leave a trail on the present. Psychology affects what you explore: drive controls how frequent one changes direction; indecisive mints explore many loose ends; balanced mints match complementary colours.

Stitched is adaptive to arbitrary screen resolution and aspect ratio, and best appreciated at high resolution. It initially renders with a large step size in time; pause and unpause to watch it unfold more gradually.

controls:

mouse click or space bar: pause / unpause / reset animation
s: save current frame

Inspired by The Garden of Forking Paths by Borges and stylistically by French and Russian Impressionists, and Autoglyphs by Larva Labs.

Stitched #4

Stitched

A riff on Stitched. 

Inspired by `Sketches from a hunter's album' by Turgenev, and by the Group of Seven.

controls:

mouse click or space bar: pause / unpause / reset animation
s: save current frame
f: toggle between square format and stretch aspect ratio
+/-: zoom in/out
arrow keys: pan camera
1-9: set pixel density

Grove #4

Grove #1

Grove

Glass #67

Glass by Eric De Giuli

Atlas is a collection of interactive abstract kinetic paintings illustrating the paradoxical unity of living creatures. Beneath a dynamic but integrated whole, competing cells bubble in disquiet. As perhaps we all do.

Colour is used to represent the cellular dynamics, each piece evolving under its own laws.  Cells are rendered in various palettes and several shapes — from round to square, luminous, and Escher-like. Zooming in you can see the wild nature of individual elements.

“Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large; I contain multitudes.”  

Controls:

mouse wheel / z / x / pinch-drag — zoom
click-drag / a/w/s/d (iframe) / arrow keys (generator) — pan
double-click / spacebar — pause
f - toggle full-screen options

Atlas #241

Atlas is a collection of interactive abstract kinetic paintings illustrating the paradoxical unity of living creatures. Beneath a dynamic but integrated whole, competing cells bubble in disquiet. As perhaps we all do.

Colour is used to represent the cellular dynamics, each piece evolving under its own laws.  Cells are rendered in various palettes and several shapes - from round to square, luminous, and Escher-like. Zooming in you can see the wild nature of individual elements.

"Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large; I contain multitudes."

Controls:

mouse wheel / z / x / pinch-drag - zoom
click-drag / a/w/s/d (iframe) / arrow keys (generator) - pan
double-click / spacebar -pause
f - toggle full-screen options

Append to generator links
?frm=60 to change maximum frame rate (default = 30)
?a=1.667 to fix the aspect ratio of cells 
?N=512 to change the number of cells 

Atlas #104

Atlas by Eric De Giuli

The anti mandala. An experimental living painting.

Best viewed in full-screen.

Controls (in standalone browser):
'f' to toggle full-screen options
click to refresh wind fields

Interaction study #3c

Interaction study #3a

Interaction studies

You are the product of countless tiny decisions taken over the course of your life. Stitched is an attempt to visualize one’s current self as a product of the myriad forking paths available to us. The animated version is available for view at

https://www.fxhash.xyz/gentk/slug/stitched-32

Stitched is generative art coded in p5.js, inspired by The Garden of Forking Paths by Borges and stylistically by French and Russian Impressionists, and Autoglyphs by Larva Labs.

Stitched #32

You are the product of countless tiny decisions taken over the course of your life. Stitched is an attempt to visualize one’s current self as a product of the myriad forking paths available to us. 

Stitched is generative art coded in p5.js

Stitched is a pan-blockchain release: the original generative art is hosted on the Tezos blockchain and available for view at fx(hash). Mints 1-18 have been minted on the Ethereum blockchain; their Tezos versions remain in the pepe xyz vault. 



Stitched by pepe xyz

snapped 21

snapped 05

Snapped

Pax is landscape photography in address space.

Artist- and collector-curated hashes & vantages.

From the series of 100, all mints begin with an initial hash & vantage curated by the artist. But within the first 25 days from today, you can change the hash & vantage (by submission to me, to change the on-chain code). See more details in my threads on X.

Eric De Giuli (EDG__)

Eric De Giuli (EDG__)

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