Cyber Atoms Contract: 0x495f947276749Ce646f68AC8c248420045cb7b5e
Cyber Atoms on OpenSea: Cyber-Atom
Hiroji Kotegawa
Hiroji Kotegawa is an NFT artist based in Tokyo. He creates his art using large datasets with extreme attention to detail.
You can find out more about his art:
Kotegawa's first project was called Cyber Atoms. He spent 3 years collecting massive volumes of data from crypto transactions, bloomberg terminal, bot activities and much more.
He then manipulated the data so that it could be imported into a 3D modeling software, manually adding over 5000 datasets.
He wanted to keep the data as authentic as possible and avoided overmanipulation. He therefore had to reject 90% of the data as it was interpreted as an error.
After a 3D model was generated, he zoomed into it as far as possible, rotated to find the best angles to capture for his collection.
although the data was transactional and therefore colourless, the interpretation through the modeling software caused minor colouration to emerge. It's unclear why or how this occurred.
He took advantage of this "error", imported his captured perpsectives to photoshop and enhanced the colours.
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Cyber Atoms "Inside Cyberspace"
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Living Cyber Atoms "Alive in Cyberspace"
A companion drop to the originals, Living Cyber Atoms could only be claimed by holders of Cyber Atoms.
These short videos with accompanying music were all created by Kotegawa
Living Cyber Atoms Contract: 0x495f947276749Ce646f68AC8c248420045cb7b5e
Living Cyber Atoms OpenSea: Living_Cyber_Atoms
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Bridges "Generative Art With a Human Touch"
Bridges Contract: 0xeBaEeFc0b4FE63aa42429261B66c628AB8048f52
OpenSea: bridges_by_kotegawa
Kotegawa was fascinated by generative art. Rather than choosing between man and machine, he wanted to connect the two.
Bridges was Kotegawa's collaboration with AI.
He started with a grid, generating a foundation with AI.
He then "connected the dots", manually evolving the machine-generated lines into his own creation. A 2 dimensional city map of sorts.
Once he has an 2D man-machine base layer consisting of a grid, lines and shapes, he extruded those shapes to form what look like buildings and structures, transforming a flat map, into a towering city scape.
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Impermanence "Everything Ends"
Impermanence Contract: 0x9Ee357502b5C8daf91dfA44d50eCd7968425F5B7
OpenSea: impermanence-kotegawa
Kotegawa's describes the inspiration for his next collection: "Everything is finite. Every organism, object, era, experience, or memory."
There irony that the concept of impermanence can be put on chain where it will last "forever" was amusing.
Kotegawa began by transforming his idea into binary code and transformed that into artwork.
The original artwork is on IPFS, but he then created what he calls "particles". These particles is what he minted as NFTs which link back to the original artwork.
Each particle has an audible accompaniment from NASA's public library of space sounds. Kotegawa describes both the sounds and the concept of impermanence itself as both "humbling and terrifying".
He ends by saying: "If you are having a beautiful time, enjoy it, because it will end one day. If you are going through a bad time, be strong, because it will end one day."
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OGs by JakNFT x Kotegawa "The first collab"
OGs Contract: 0xB038C86e3293de253bDD1F800A048E2aB6e57104
OpenSea: ogsnft
OGs was Kotegawa's first, but not last collaborations with JakNFT.
The OGs are a limited edition PFP collection of just 369 NFTs created using a combination of glitch, animation, sculpting, 3D modelling.
The meticulous curation of the OGs set the groundwork for what would be a hallmark of their future collaborations.
The artists describe the OGs as "a degenerate crew of glitchy mfers who broke off from JakNFT’s HOODIE GANG and formed a rival crew on the Far East side of The Jakverse. OGs and Hoodies share the same roots, but are engaged in a brutal glitch war with no end in sight…"
OGs are CC0
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Wabi Sabi Contract: 0xaE3618Ec21f6c65FC9eCd8474b9C0965Da67b8C4
OpenSea: wabi-sabi-kotegawa
Wabi Sabi "finding beauty in imperfection"
Wabi Sabi may be Kotegawa's most introspective project.
Although each image in the collection portrays a stranger "dancing with life", the collection originated from an initial feeling of loneliness as he sat in his small apartment overlooking a busy street.
Wabi Sabi means finding beauty in imperfection.
Kotegawa describes something we can all relate to in our lives. "sometimes we want to break free, sometimes we want to protect the moment"
He saw this back and forth as a dance. Through the wanting for something else, we can try to find beauty in what exists.
The artistic forms themselves are all monochromatic yet unique, representing our individualism within uniformity.
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NGs "The second collab"
NGs Contract: 0x6e941b9F70BC34Bd0083c1088603c3a5B0B2ab17
OpenSea: ngsnft
Following the success of OGs, NGs are Kotegawa's second collaboration with JakNFT.
The NGs follow a similar styling to OGs, combining glitch, animation, sculpting, & 3D modelling.
Kotegawa and JakNFT originally created over 5,000 works over 6 months from which they then meticulously curated the final 1,111 that would make the collection
The collection includes 111 types of NGs that include both original characters created by the duo, as well as many characters and themes that pay homage to crypto culture.
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In August of 2022, Kotegawa released a collection called "Construct".
Kotegawa noticed that the concept of immortality is becoming less and less radical.
As technology advances longevity increases. Even ideas once reserved for science fiction movies are being seriously studied and researched.
One such idea is the ability to upload ones mind into a replacement synthetic body.
Kotegawa wanted to explore what a mind looks like while it is in cyberspace, awaiting it's new body.
As always, Kotegawa pushes the boundaries of human and machine interaction, both in the creation of his art, but also in the concepts represented in that art.
Construct "A bodyless mind"
Construct Contract: 0xDaa17B7a0E4692560E1ad5840cAfB7A4c26Ec8A9
OpenSea: construct-by-kotegawa
And finally 300 were stored as JPGs and released as the Cyber Atom Collection.