Gazers

Aesthetics

It goes without saying that aesthetics and what speaks to you should play a major part in your selection process. There are lots of traits that directly affect the aesthetics and appearance of each piece in different ways, so explore and play around with traits like the “Color Theory” ones to discover patterns.

But Gazers are constantly evolving and changing (like us!), especially every New Moon (~29.5 days), and each period is called a “lunation.” So if you’re looking at the thumbnails on OpenSea, they’re going to be static snapshots from a past lunation. Instead, consider using the on Matt’s gazers.art site, where you can pick the “current lunation” option from the dropdown to see what each piece looks like today. It’s also interesting to switch to different lunations to see the (~monthly) evolution. Additionally, Gazers also change more subtly during the course of a day; use the “3 moon icons” toggle buttons under the thumbnails to see what they look like at midnight, dawn/dusk, and noon each day.

Gazers

by Matt Kane

Art Blocks Collection: Curated series 5

Project Description: Since the dawn of humanity, the Moon's phases have fascinated humans, influencing any number of activities on Earth including ocean tides, seasons, harvests, migrations, hunting, crime, sleeping, sex, and has inspired countless works of art. The first lunar calendar, dated to 32,000 BC was discovered, drawn on animal bone in caves. It's believed hunters during the last Ice Age used these portable lunar calendars to anticipate the behavior of different animals like Mammoths. Since then, our Moon has been imprinted across all our ancient and modern cultures, even becoming the system from which our Gregorian calendar evolved from. In the present day, investors in crypto have used the Moon symbolically.

What does it mean for all of us in crypto to be so ahead of our time, all while using the same metaphor of the Moon for the various measures of success and individual goals we collectively share in crypto? And how will the future appreciate our ambitions and perseverance within the present moment's growing pains on our way to mass adoption? These are some of the questions that Gazers ask.

On the surface, Gazers function as a lunar calendar, algorithmically synching closely with Moon phases in the sky, joining the blockchain with one of humanity's longest running lineages in art. Gazers seeks to create a community of collectors celebrating the change of our perceptions that happen over time, our collective goals in crypto, and our love of color theory, astronomy, and generative art.

What we are building in blockchain and NFTs will primarily be for the benefit of the future. As such, this artwork was designed to pace itself and speed up its frame rate over time, scaling into anticipated advancements in technology that will steadily allow the artwork to run at faster speeds while at larger scales. Each NFT starts out with the assignment of a date from the past 20 years. These dates correspond to events that happened under particular New Moons that shaped my path as an artist. This is the Origin Moon trait and how Gazers is in part a conceptual self portrait.

Starting from the Origin Moon, each New Moon that arrives will speed up the potential animation of the NFT. For example, an NFT with a 20 year old Origin Moon might run at 20 frames per second, appearing as an animation.

But one with an Origin Moon fresh from the sale will run closer to 1 frame per second, appearing more like a slowly evolving painting. Every moment, the frame rate of the artwork speeds up fractionally, indecipherable to our eyes. Stacking these advancements over time creates a generational evolution of experience. There is something undeniably beautiful about everything speeding up within our lifetimes, but the Moon, high above us, continues to carry on at the same meandering rate of 29.53 days in each cycle. Much like these blockchain technologies and NFT markets, this artwork was designed to be collected by the present, but appreciated in a greater sense than we can even imagine by the future.

I created Gazers to be like a living artwork, to be lived with, and to not only have the artwork evolve over time but also the appreciation and experience of viewers. As I coded the work, I imagined it hanging on the wall of collectors, a fixture in their physical space. Collectors might spend a moment admiring their work, walk away for a couple hours, and then come back to be delighted, noticing the most subtle of shifts. Each layer of the work consists of pattern designs. With the passage of time, the thickness of the layered lines pulse and the direction a design moves will advance or rotate, changing our perception of color in the most subtle and optical of ways. Each day at midnight, each layer receives a new set of rules in terms of how to rise or shine over the next 24 hours. The result is color that rises and sets, echoing the change of light in our sky.

My use of color has consistently been what I've been best known for across my 20 year artistic career. In all my work until now, I've made all the color and design choices as I've painted as a human in the moment. But in Gazers, I designed a complex system around color theory as I understand it, joining my talent for coding with my vision for color.

Many NFT collectors of my work might be familiar with the additional experiences some of their NFTs unlock at my website. Rather than use a Gazers NFT to unlock a website, I decided this time to create rendering modes that unlock within the code over time. These additional modes of viewing are intended to help a collector better understand the architecture of their artwork's design and also benefit from greater enjoyment of it.

The addition of these experiences should present an additional benefit to HODLing for some.

Every 29 and a half days, we reach a Moon phase called the New Moon. This is when the dark side of the Moon is fully visible and no sunlight is reflected from the lunar surface back to Earth. In Gazers, each New Moon phase creates a New Moon design. In this artwork, the hash seed creates color theory and design rules. These rules are deterministic and dictate all the moons that will generatively be created into infinity. Time reveals our moons. Pairing time with deterministic generative code creates the ephemeral moment. We can all agree that looking at the Moon in the sky never seems to be the exact same experience twice, nor the exact same from different locations.

I wanted to echo this nature in Gazers and emphasize the urgency and rarity of our present moment and how an artwork can capture this.

As individuals, we all have our own version of the Moon and what reaching it means. Just as our goals change over time, often subtly, sometimes dramatically, so will our moons, creating a visual representation that might coincide with what's changing inside of us. In crypto, we are all ahead of our time. We are all gazers. And we are all waiting for our next Moon.

by virtau.eth

A guide to choosing a Gazer

Moon Shapes and Sizes

The “Moon” and “Moon Size” traits determine the shapes and sizes of the Moons. They’re mostly self-explanatory. But if you like surprises, consider the 🎲 Moons, which will take on random Moon shapes every month.

(Relatedly, there are similar 🎲 values for the Color Theory Ambience, Color Theory Style, and Frame Offset traits that randomize those aspects every New Moon)

Visualize

While most Gazers have a fixed Moon size, the 14 Gazers with the rare “Visualize” trait give their collectors the ability to adjust the Moon size to their preference by clicking and holding the mouse down and dragging along the horizontal axis.

→ try resizing the moon Owned by MattKane

Backgrounds

The “Night” background (almost black) is the most common, while “Slate” (dark gray) and “Aluminum” (light gray) are more rare. Aluminums, in particular, have a dramatically different and distinct aesthetic.

Aluminum (light gray)

Slate (dark gray)

Night (almost black)

Default Hemispheres

“Northern” hemisphere Moons are the most common, where the top layer representing the illuminated side of the Moon sweeps from right-to-left over the course of the month. “Southern” hemispheres are less common, and sweep from left-to-right. “Equator” Moons that sweep bottom-to-top are the rarest, and sought after.

Northern

Southern

Equator

Clocks

Most Gazers are “Calendar Only” which means they show the changing Moon phases over the course of the month. However, there are 4 rarer, sought-after Clock/Timer types that can toggle between two modes by pressing the “0” key.

In Clock mode, a “24 Hour Clock” displays a layer that represents the current hour of the day.

An has two layers, one for the current hour and one for the current minute.

Origin Moon Dates

The 🌑 📅 trait (which also has corresponding “Origin Moon” trait) represents important milestones in Matt Kane’s life and growth as an artist. There’s a story for each event. But these dates also express themselves in Gazers in terms of the speed of movements that you see in each piece – the older the Origin Moon date, the faster the movements are, so they’re generally more sought after. Compare the earliest date to the latest one to see how they differ. Additionally, the related “+1 Frame Every” trait determines how long before the speed increases by 1 frame/sec; i.e. the movement in every piece will get faster and faster over time, forever, and at different rates.

Celebration Windows

Reflect

Rockets

Gifts

On the yearly anniversaries of their Origin Moon dates, Gazers enter a “celebration” mode, where they express themselves very differently from their usual forms. Additionally, every 33 New Moons (~months) from their Origin Moon dates, Gazers become special “Blue Moons” and celebrate by becoming huge. And finally, there are some other yet-to-be-discovered special occasions when Gazers also celebrate. All of these are really fun to watch! The “Celebration Window” trait determines how long these celebrations last – 24 hours is the most common, and 144 hours is the longest. Longer is better, so you can spend more time enjoying them.

The “Reflect” trait is very cool. Because Gazers evolve into something new every New Moon, a version that you really like today will soon be gone forever – a nice reminder to live in the moment, and appreciate the present. But the “Reflect” trait is a “hack” for Gazers that have it – it lets you go back in time and see every previous form since the Origin Moon date. Press the “5” (prev) and “6” (next) keys on any of the Gazers that have an “unlocked” Reflect trait to experience this for yourself. The values of this trait tell you how many New Moons (~months) after the Origin Moon date it takes for the Reflect feature to unlock; e.g. “Reflect after 24 🌑s” on a “9/7/2021” Origin Moon date means that reflection will be unlocked in ~2 years on 9/7/2023. And some Reflects will unlock well past our lifetimes, which represents Matt’s vision of Gazers becoming a “generational evolution of experience.”

Gazers with the 🚀 trait are very special. There are only 9 of them, each with a different date in 2022. For a while, we didn’t know what this trait meant. Now we partially know. On Feb 23rd, 2022 (the first date in the series), the collector of was airdropped from Matt’s new collection – a ticket 🎟️ for something that hasn’t been revealed yet.

This one’s a mystery that’s yet to be revealed. 240 Gazers have this trait, 136 of which show a male artist 👨‍🎨🎁, and 104 a female artist 👩‍🎨🎁. The Gazers collector community believes this will have some value that justifies a premium over the floor for these pieces, and Matt has kinda-sorta hinted that we’re onto something :), but we’re all eagerly waiting to find out…

Thanks for the guide @0xVirtau

Curated by @kkostya Debank