fidenza

Computer scientist turned generative artist Tyler Hobbs writes code artistically, which then creates visual art that has sold for millions.

Along with 998 siblings, Fidenza #313 was minted for 0.17 ETH on June 11th, after which it was immediately sold for 0.58 ETH. Just over 10 weeks later, the NFT nicknamed “Tulip” sold for 1,000 ETH on Opensea — $3.3 million at the time.

Fidenza is the brainchild of Tyler Hobbs, 34, who quit his computer engineering job to work as a full time artist. He struck ETH when he discovered Art Blocks, an art platform that creates NFT’s based on generative art, and became a curated artist.

The work is named after a town in northern Italy, which Hobbs stumbled upon via Google Maps. Inspired by abstract expressionist painter Francis Klein, Hobbs likes to use the names of places for his art because they carry little baggage or definitive meaning.

As a coder, he felt it important to create art using the tools he knew, making people ask “what separates man from machine?”

The mechanics of a generative artwork drop on Art Blocks are unique, as the art does not exist until it is “minted” by the buyer. Minting begins at a pre-announced time, which Art Blocks advertises. To mint, buyers pay the predetermined ETH-denominated price along with necessary gas fees, and receive the artwork upon its generation.

The code that creates the artwork on the blockchain uses the randomized transaction hash of the buyer’s transaction as an input. This string of data is then interpreted by the code, which assigns the artwork with various overlapping characteristics according to parameters pre-programmed by the artist, to generate the artwork in real time. Like a sperm fertilizing an egg, the contribution of the minter is a unique, direct, and necessary ingredient of the artistic equation.

Because the code for Fidenza is on the blockchain, anyone can use it to create similar pieces. However, because “Fidenza” is limited to 999 numbered copies, such “bootleg Fidenzas” would not be “signed” by the artist — much like if someone copied an artist’s style with the same materials and tools.

There’s a certain artistic challenge to creating an algorithm that will create something with a lot of beautiful variety within those 999, while still maintaining a consistent level of quality

I started wondering if I could write a program that would create a painting.

From 2014, Hobbs began “using tools that were not designed for making artwork at all, but the results that I had were really interesting artistically,” he recalls, referring to his early experimentation with generative art. He found the results “much more interesting than the paintings that I’d been making,” inspiring him to continue developing his methods.

I was fairly sceptical of NFT’s in general, until I heard about Art Blocks. Art Blocks totally changed my opinion, because of how great of a fit it is for generative art specifically.

Hobbs considered Art Blocks “a huge breakthrough” for Generative Art, which he says has been struggling since its inception in the 1960’s. With an audience willing to play a direct role in the creation of their purchased generative art, there was finally a product-market fit.

©cointelegraph