Generative_Art_Overview

Click here to listen to the Audio used to generate the above art.

Synethesia by Synethesia uses audio frequencies to create abstract art. These aren't generative at the time of minting - but the art itself was generated by music. Is that still generative art? You tell me :)

Kim Asendorf invented and works with Pixel Sorting - the art of sending pixels on generated, complex paths ... and seeing what happens. The first three pieces are from his novel project monogrid - a 16x16 grid of real-time pixel animations. These pieces change every time you view them. #00 and #ff are the upper left and bottom right corners of the grid. 12c-9_10_1_13_31 is especially exciting to me because it was custom minted for me by Kim. I'm a real collector!

Click through to see them in action.

podGANs by Van Arman uses AI in their algorithms to create high-res GANs using low-res 8bit art. Click on the Podgan to see it in action.

Fake Feelings by Dadabots x Silverstein use a 2-channel stereo neural synthesis model to generate audio in the style of post-hardcore emo, trained on the music of Silverstein. There are no lyrics. Just random syllables!

Listen Here

Listen Here

And finally let's end with a LOL, a personal fun favorite of mine, The Regulars. The Regulars celebrates the ordinary and extra-ordinary. The project consists of 10,000 procedurally generated 3D rendered images. I really want one of the Regulars that works at Wendy's (Sir, this is a Wendy's) - but no one will accept my offers and current prices are just too much for a picture of a guy in a Wendy's hat.

The Definitive Guide to Modern Generative Art by @ragnar_meta

Letters to My Future Self by Ryan Struhl is part of the Art Blocks Factory collection. The series "looks at ... Letters sent into the future expressing our collective hopes, fears, sadness, and love."

Notice how the top 2 pieces establish a pattern - you can see what the algorithm is trained to do. It writes a letter (in a made-up script) and then censors pieces of that letter. In the 3rd piece we see our first major variation - a rare letter with no censorship. And in the 4th piece we see the chaos - a breakdown of the algorithm into vertical scribbles, but scribbles that still "fit" into the sensibility of the collection.

Did Struhl expect these variations or were they a surprise?

As someone who loves to write, I think it's obvious why I love this series. I probably spend a little too much time sending overly-optimistic lowball offers on the secondary markets for this series.

That was the last of the few grail pieces I don't own. From here on out, we'll look at my collection.

This group of works by [Hideki Tsukamoto](www.Hideki Tsukamoto.io) includes a top collection Singularity, which is part of the Art Blocks Curated Collection. Art Blocks, mentioned above, has several collections: curated, factory (also has been curated but not as aggressively), and playground (uncurated pieces but by artists who were previously in the curated collection).

What I love here is the juxtaposition of the binary and organic. The absolute pixel precision of the middle circle (something native and expected from a computer but nearly impossible by hand) vs the organic life of the webbing surrounding the middle circle (something difficult to achieve on such a precise medium).

Notice also the incredible luminosity of the outer web and the pure black of the inner circle. You simply can't do these things with paint or photos. The luminosity especially is beautiful, with . This glow captures the essence of that universal digital experience - the reflection of a phone screen on your face late at night while you lay in bed surfing social media.

Fidenzas by Tyler Hobs may be the premier generative art collection on blockchain today. It is generally seen as the first expert exploration of long form generative art. Fidenza 938 (shown above, not mine) sold in 2021 for $8,500,000 (purportedly to Snoop Dog) and has been dubbed “God Mode” because “sometimes, there is god in the algorithm. Certain outputs are so sublime and unexpected. That in a thousand different timelines, no such likeness exists."

Fidenza's currently start around $100k and go up from there. I don't own any.

Subscapes #3

For our final section, let's look at PFPs (Profile Pictures) which offer sets of characters that are meant to be used for profile pictures on social media. PFP usually have randomized (not necessarily generated) sets of attributes - hats, backgrounds, clothing, smiles, etc. - that are chosen at mint. Some attributes, of course, are extremely rare, and command much higher prices on resale.

Again I ask - is this generative? Is that art? Should PFPs be included in this gallery?

I don't know. But man these are fun and ultra-collectible. There is a lively and thriving market in trading the thousands of PFP projects out there. PFPs can act not just as your profile picture, but often are used as gatekeepers for events, keys for future releases, status symbols, and characters in metaverses.

There are so, so many PFP projects that I could list a couple hundred of them here and people would still say "why did you leave out boredpenguindeathdoodle - it's by far the top collection." So I'll just show a few of my favorites.

CryptoCitizens by BrightMoments is an example of an IRL (in real life) mint where participants mint the PFP on-site and in-person. This series is happening over 3 years across 10 cities. I minted IRL at NYC - the others I bought on secondary.

Minting in person at the Bright Moments gallery in NYC was a unique and special moment. I met the founders of the project, talked with lots of fellow collectors, got to run up the middle of the aisle with everyone cheering when my piece was minted and displayed on the big screen, and talked to Greg Cripes and petted his dog, Wingman. And, if you look closely, you'll see that I even lucked out with a mint of Wingman himself.

This gallery is all about generative art and serves as a showcase for my personal collection. For people new to the genre, there's background information, thoughts on how to understand generative art, and plenty of 'grails' to enjoy. For experienced collectors, there are a few relatable stories and (hopefully!) several series you've never seen before and will want to collect.

Mostly, though, there's art. Lots of art.

So what is generative art? Generative art is, simply, art created by the partnership of an artist and a system. The artist sets up the system (in our case, programs a computer) - then releases the system to create the art autonomously.

It's a man/machine symbiosis.

Generative art has been around - but in this gallery I am going to focus on generative art stored on a blockchain, where the artist is a programmer, the system is a computer, and the art is stored as a digital token commonly called an NFT.

So how do we talk about generative art - and long-form generative art in particular? In traditional paintings, we talk about qualities such as size, colors, intended eye movement of the viewer, style, theme, shapes.

But with a digital piece, the size can be variable, the viewer stretching and shrinking the piece at will. There is often movement in the form of a replay of the creation of the piece. And long-form, with its number of pieces potentially in the thousands, obviously changes our approach. Color palettes can vary widely within the same collection. Variations can fit closely or be wildly different. And can we really expect a viewer to look at all the variations in detail to form an opinion, or is a quick glimpse good enough?

In , seen here in three selections, there is a ton of movement and anxiety - the gashes of lines crisscrossing in the third piece, reaching out in the second, and gathering into spheres in the first. But at the same, there is a grid behind the surface here (not visible in these selections but visible in some of the variations) that adds a sense of order beneath everything. The series as a whole has a wide variety of colors and movements. Some are calm and minimal, some bursting with movement and explosions.

First - a mystery! Vacation Palette NFT is a 300-piece series inspired by Fidenzas and created by a mystery artist and brought to the public's attention in this tweet. When will the artist reveal him/herself? Is it someone famous? Someone unknown? I love this art and I love the cool palette. And I own like 30 of these - they are so affordable! Maybe for once I'm early to a project :) So whoever you are, if you're famous come clean so I can sell a few. I need a Fidenza.

Cables and Clouds by DisruptedStar is a personal favorite. The monochromatic palette and sepia tones of these pieces are evocative of the dust bowl - and remind me of this photo by Felx Thiollier, one of my favorites of all time.

There are many subtle visual references here that cause your mind to click through memories and evoke feelings as you translate this piece. Children, balloons, kites, the 1/3, 2/3 layout of traditional landscapes. These are packed with a feeling of a gentle, safe freedom. And who doesn't want a gentle, safe freedom?

Drawing Machine X4, LIA - an OG generative artist working in the field since 1995 - is one of my all-time favorites. And it's mostly unknown. That's a little of the joy here - finding a series that moves you, that you love, that no one else knows, and scooping it for yourself. Then let the world know how amazing it is! My biggest hope for this gallery - after of course spreading the love of generative art - is wider appreciation for this series, and all remaining pieces to be minted.

I minted 5 of these. Then went back the next day and minted 5 more. Below are #s 04, 37, 58, 55, and 39. I didn't want to add labels as I find them perfect as is.

According to LIA, this algorithm is one she has been fine-tuning for decades. There are invisible elements behind the scene, moving around, causing the visible elements to react with varying results that depend on the vicinity.

When you start looking at a lot of generative art, you start seeing the same concepts used over and over. Architecture, flowers, spirals, gradients, text, the Fidenza look. It's difficult to find artists that find novel ways to use these concepts. Finding a piece that surprises you, is different, pushes a boundary, is quite exciting.

Let's look at some studies of shapes that I found interesting.

Here is "No. Circles" - a study in circles by Mark Knol. This was one of my first purchases on fxhash.

Grid studies are an important part of many projects. Here are complex grids in Bored in Math Class by RGB (mints still available) and Efflorescence by Pouya and Gorilla Sun - a prolific artist, programmer, and blogger. (if you're interested in learning to create gen art, that blog is a great place to start)

Up to this point in the gallery, everything we've seen has been minted on Ethereum - the leading blockchain for NFTs. But lately the Tezos blockchain has become very popular with artists and collectors - several Tezos-based sites such as fxhash and objkt have become leaders in curating and selling generative art - and at much more affordable prices than Ethereum, opening up generative art to a wider group of collectors.

Here is RGB Elementary Cellular Automaton, a series by ciphrd the founder of fxhash, based on (TLDR - math). OK - this one isn't exactly affordable (it's a few thousand minimum) - but it's by the founder, so a little more in demand.

In "Unfinished" rudxane creates a series in the same style as the Breeding Grounds series seen earlier. This series explores what "unfinished" means when it comes to art.

From rudxane - "unfinished is created by building a pattern from thousands of small stitches, where the circles in each piece are created by the omission of stitches. Each piece is finished up to a percentage, where the rest of the piece is obscured by overlapping threads from the unfinished stitches. Some people may like the clean finished state of some and others enjoy the more chaotic nature of the unfinished pieces. For me this shows that the “finished” state of a piece of work is subjective and not the same for everyone."

Next is a collection of animated pieces by aleksandra. Her "old textbook diagram" style of art contrasts with much of the other works we've seen. It feels more purposeful, less random, conveying important information. She is clearly inspired by Calder but brings her own ideas to the style.

Here are a variety of PFPs generated for game play, world exploration, gated parties, and just for fun. Dusk Breakers is a game project by the co-founder of Twitch. (as they say in crypto, this is not financial advice)

Chain Faces, an early generative PFP project by natealex, uses randomly generated on-chain ascii text faces.

Exploring cubes, lines, polygons, rectangles, in a variety of projects by two well known artists, rudxane and Camille Roux.

Next let's look at group of animated pieces using lines (click through to see them in action). As with many other pieces, these are not just animations, but the algorithm actually creating the pieces.

As I mentioned earlier, generative art is often animated, or recreates the creation of the piece.

Here is a series of animated pieces by Arsalan Aboomohsenpour made by a combination of algorithms and mathematical autonomous processes. Arsalan is an artist from Tehran with a background in industrial and architectural design.

Punks - the most famous, and some say original, PFP. (not mine)

Archetype #0

Erik Snofro, Chromie Squiggle #2463

LTMFS #765

And grids. Oh man do we love grids in generative art. Here are three pieces from different collections by rudxane. At some point I noticed I was collecting a lot of rudxane works. One of the pieces below, UA, is a little different as it is a single piece curated by the artist and then released as an edition - meaning there are multiple but limited (in this case 205) copies of the same piece.

Beatboxes by Zeblocks are fully immersive, virtual reality, audiovisual generative art. It's a generated 3D world with music.

Beatboxes are a great example of the swings in pricing that can be caused by markets, sentiment, and trends of the moment. At their peak, a desirable Beatbox cost around $10,000. I bought mine a few months later in a down market for $281. Currently (July, 2022) entry level is around $600.

Experience this Beatbox

(be sure to hit the space bar to start the music as you explore)

Like any art form, fads can come and go quickly in generative art, so you have to be careful what you "ape" (buy in with overly enthusiastic aggression) into. For a brief moment in 2021, more abstract generative pieces trended, with randomly generated lists of words, numbers, colors, etc. being created as NFTs with the hope that other projects would use these NFTs as a base layer for their own mints, games, art, etc. As with many collectibles, rarer words, numbers, etc are (were?) more desirable. It's an understatement to say these projects have lost value. And maybe I lost a lot of money on the n-project. Was this art?

Loot (for adventurers)

The N-Project

Tunes Project

Music can also be part of generative art.

And of course, we're talking bleeding edge technology, so generative art with the help of AI (Artificial Intelligence) is a growing field. Sites like BrainDrops specialize in curating generative art involving AI.

That's generative art! Collections of pieces that are unique but similar, varied but orderly, sometimes great, sometimes chaotic, sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly - all generated by an algorithm programmed by an artist. 

Sounds like ... well, existence as we know it, doesn't it?

Maybe...

Generative art doesn't have to look geometric or algorithmic. Here is a series of 3 'organic' pieces by Arsalan Aboomohsenpour.

While many series are created using purely code, these pieces were created using a combination of off-the-shelf software and code (in this case Houdini + Python). Does using this software affect how we see the art? Arsalan comments on this "Generative art is something that is partly or mainly generated by a non-human system, and that could happen in any shape or form; you can draw three circles on paper and then scan them and let an AI choose what color those circles are or how they're going to animate." - that would still be generative art.

Let's start with an introductory example - Ditherwhirl by Krankarta. This project consists of 256 generated variations of an animated spiral. This is a great introduction. It's straightforward (basic spirals), has variety (as seen below), is fun, and affordable! (~$20 at the time of this writing). You can see how the algorithm programmed into the system by Krankarta produces variations, starts to approach a little chaos (the last example) yet produces results consistent to the theme. Like many pieces in this gallery, they're also animated! Click through (twice - once to open, once to start the animation) to watch.

Generative art is more than just these geometric shapes we've seen, of course. There is an amazing variety of forms. Let's go back to my collection with the series Letters to My Future Self. I minted some of these, but also bought some on OpenSea to complete my collection. When I create a collection from a series, I try to show the consistency of the series, in some sort of matching structure or color, with as much variety as possible (within my budget).

Here are a couple more "grail" collections that collectors drool over: Subscapes by Matt DesLauriers and Archetype by Kjetil Golid.

Both projects are considered foundational works. Subscapes is an exploration of landscapes in a minimalist style that brings to mind metaverse data visualizations. Archetype is a study in randomness as applied to rectangle partitioning.

OK - so let's say you like gen art. No, you love it. You just have to have some. But - how do you collect it? There are 2 options. You can mint directly from the artist (if the mint still has pieces available), or you can buy a piece off a secondary market such as OpenSea (getting started), LooksRare, or fxhash (getting started).

Let's look at minting. Typically (but not always as we'll see further on) an artist creates an algorithm, deploys it as code to the computer/blockchain, opens it for mint, and then simply let's go. Collectors mint their pieces from a website, usually for a fee that goes to the artist, and the piece/NFT is generated in real-time and added to that collector's digital wallet.

Let's talk more about collecting. Why should you collect generative art? (I'm not opening the pandora's box of should you buy NFTs. Bookmark this and do some reading later)

First, and foremost, you should collect art because you like it.

But beyond that, NFT-based generative art is a movement away from the corporate and toward the masses. It makes art accessible to us all.

In the traditional art world, markets can be intimidating: stodgy gatekeepers, wash-trading, offshore tax havens, questionable values, and forgery. You don't have access to the good stuff. And anyway you could never afford it, so what's the point?

So how do we judge and understand generative art? I'm not a visual artist, a generative artist, an art historian, or a philosopher. But I am passionate about generative art and can tell you what it means personally to me.

When I look at an expert collection of generative art, one where the artist was successful in that partnership with the system, I feel a calmness similar to meditation. I see a reflection that life is structured, orderly, meaningful - and an admission that chaos is possible at any time, and probable given enough time. That reflects my personal experience in life. Much of each day is expected, complex yet structured - those moments that we handle subconsciously (brushing your teeth, checking email); some of our day is made of moments with a little more awareness that are common yet beautiful (dinner with family, a tea party with a toddler, a quiet July sunrise); and then there also exists the unpredictable chaos that rises from the boundaries of the known, resulting in fractures that can be beautiful (a doe crossing your yard on a summer morning) or grotesque (the sound of metal scrunching and a shattering windshield) - but they are all part of life as a whole.

The best of generative art reassures me that all this beauty exists in the randomness of existence, that some control can be gained over my life, and that there are chaotic moments, yes - but even in the chaotic moments completely out of my control, acceptance and patterns can be found.

Generative art can be curated - the artist might generate thousands of results and only select the top 1, 10, or 100 pieces to release - or it can be long-form, where the final collection is unknown by everyone (the artist, the collector, and the system) until the time of creation. In this format, collectors kick off the 'minting' (creation) process, the art is created in real-time, and all variations are final, permanent, and part of the collection.

In long-form, a good system creates variations even the artist didn't expect.

For example, from the Ringers collection, this famous piece dubbed "The Goose" was born.

Fidenza #938

Ringers #358

Ringers #659

Ringers #736

CryptoPunk #686

Why is generative art important? Here’s a quote from Tyler Hobbs, one of the leading generative artists working today:

"A considerable amount of our lives are now spent in programmed software environments. All of the digital tools that you use were shaped by teams of programmers. Our methods for creating, sharing, and viewing the content of our culture (writings, images, videos, and games) are all constructed with code. If wood, concrete, glass, and steel were the core materials of important new construction in the 20th century, coding has easily supplanted these in the 21st. "

While realism, impressionism, cubism, surrealism, etc. reflected cultural states of prior eras, generative art reflects ours - scrolling tiktok, ordering an Uber, tweeting, e-banking, texting. Our lives are digital.

Here is Tyler Hobbs's view on what to look for in generative art from The Importance of Generative Art:

"Here’s an idea of what you, the viewer, might see when you view programmatic artwork. Right away, you may notice the usage of loops, which are perhaps the most fundamental of all algorithmic building blocks. Loops show up as repetition, often combined with a changing element in order to introduce variation. You are also likely to notice a default tendency towards hard, clean lines - an ingrained aesthetic that comes straight from our computers' need to be precisely right every time, all of the time. This is a truly alien thing compared to the analog world. You may sense the artist working to turn their artistic instincts into explicit instructions. Computers don’t take fuzzy instructions. They have to know exactly what you want them to do, and how to do it. The artist will labor to inject a sense of wonder and surprise into an ecosystem that was carefully engineered to behave predictably. You may see the artist use the computer as the perfect workhorse that it is - never tiring and never stopping, regardless of the massive scale or infinite detail or sheer preposterousness of the design."

Below is a more famous example - Ringers by Dmitri Cherniak. This series is an exploration of the almost infinite number of ways to wrap a string around a set of pegs. The complexity and variation created by such a seemingly simple idea is iconic. When you see an exhibition of generative art NFTs - it will reliably contain a couple Ringers, a set of Squiggles, and a Fidenza (we'll see one of those a little further down).

Note: I don't own these Ringers (as well as a few others in this gallery) because they're simply too expensive. But I wanted to include them as they are key pieces. I'll call out the few others (currently 5 + the squiggle montage below) I don't own.

Center Pivot #74

Center Pivot #73

Center Pivot #72

Center Pivot #75

LTMFS #800

LTMFS #389

LTMFS #409

Singularity #600

Fusion #672

Totality #278

(seen at the top of this gallery) Chromie Squiggle, by Snofro, the founder of Art Blocks, was the first project launched on the leading generative art platform Art Blocks and one of the most significant and historical generative artworks on blockchain. Fun, minimalist, and immediately recognizable, Squiggles are an early and classic example of what blockchain-based generative art can be - is often said to embody the soul of the entire movement.

When Squiggles first launched, they were the first gen art I had ever seen, and I thought the whole idea was silly and moved on. If only I had minted 100!

The first 30 Chromie Squiggles (of which I own none) minted. This includes what are called slinkies, a bold, and a fuzzy!

Ditherwhirl #186

Ditherwhirl #194

Ditherwhirl #27

RGB Elementary Cellular Automaton #695

Atoms' Gaze #75

Atoms' Gaze #59

Atoms' Gaze by Krankarta (who also did the spiral pieces at the beginning of this gallery) is a "holistic exploration of the growth of crystalline structures. Discovering the complexity of natural forms built from the simple rules of a deterministic system." That's a mouthful. But I like it. Click through to see them create the final form from seemingly nothing. These are much more complex than the spirals, and the way the lines organically grow as if coming to life is something I hadn't seen before.

Unruly Unroll, PALIMPSEST #85

Unruly Unroll, PALIMPSEST #53

Flight 404, Subatomic Compositions #393

CHROMATLAS, Vol. 2 #255

CHROMATLAS, Vol. 7 #77

CHROMATLAS, Vol. 6 #33

CHROMATLAS, Vol. 1 #44

MID-CENTURY MODERN #70

Balancium #937

Herbarium #1091

Triptych

Triptych 2

Here are two curated pieces - Triptychs - by Drew Mitchell. Mitchell created an algorithm, ran it x times, picked out his favorite versions, and curated them into groups of three.

"Unfinished" #434

"Unfinished" #402

Generated art doesn't have to always be serious - here are a few fun pieces. Woah La Coaster by Blockwares, and 2 projects by Artem Verkhovskiy x Andy Shaw - Low Tide and Total Strangers. (click through as usual)

Woah La Coster #82

Woah La Coster #80

Total Strangers #435

Let's now have some fun and look through the variety of generative art that these amazing artists are creating today.

Mooncats are great! A 2017 collection that very few people minted at the time, and that was rediscovered in 2021. It quickly sold out! I got lucky, saw someone tweet about rediscovering it, and minted around 20 before the chaos ended. Mooncats kicked off the trend of "historical NFTs" and NFT archeologists who dig around in code repositories looking for historcial projects that were launched near the beginning of Ethereum and were forgotten. This is Milo - a "day one" 2017 mint, meaning he was minted the first day the MoonCat collection was open in 2017. I bought him off secondary.

NewYorker #343

Galactican #281

Venetian #529

Berliner #435

#10 (not mine)

Breeding Grounds #448

Breeding Grounds #124

Breeding Grounds #216

Cables and Clouds #46

Cables and Clouds #152

Cables and Clouds #39

Cables and Clouds #112

Cables and Clouds #174

Camille Roux, Bridge #459

Camille Roux, Bridge #517

rudxane, Onda #81

Camille Roux, River #98

rudxane, Grid Studies #181

rudxane, Bingo #428

rudxane, UA

Bored in Math Class #57

Bored in Math Class #58

Bored in Math Class #59

Efflorescence #235

Efflorescence #83

Efflorescence #59

12c-9_10_1_13_31

Monogrid #00

Monogrid #76

Monogrid #ff

GridSnippet #01

monogrid 1.1 CE #96

NAZCA #98

Untitled (5)

Untitled (1)

Y007

Y008

Y009

Y010

Y series audio 001-010

Beatboxes #464

drifting cuddlefish #333

amorphous nautiloid #333

Decoy Jealousy

Fraudulent Dolefulness

Mooncat #285 'Milo'

N #1830

Social Media Dumpster Fire

Yes, that's just a list of things a character might carry.

Yes, that's just a list of numbers. But 0s are the most rare, and I had a couple N's with 0s! They were supposed to be valuable!

Yes, that's just the title of a song. No, there is no song even though it looks like you can hit play.

OK, I'm probably just trying to flip most of those.

#122

#298

#248

#79

Exist

Birex

Esfand

Total Strangers #297

Low Tide #116

Low Tide #157

no.circles #27

no.circles #15

no.circles #7

no.circles #115

Dusk Breaker #2194

Dusk Breaker #2456

Dusk Breaker #9943

So let's take a walk through my personal collection. We'll look at some well-known pieces, some collections that pushed the boundaries of gen art forward, and some collections that have moved me personally. We'll look at music, AI, animations, shapes, even the oft-maligned PFPs. We'll look at single examples and variations. And we'll see where this ever evolving collection takes us.

markknol, Mill

markknol, unfold.circle

~ in the NFT market you always know the current value of your piece because on sites like OpenSea you see all previous sales and their values and all current offers on all pieces. It is a transparent market. You can accept offers, negotiate, trade ... whatever, at any time. No more hidden prices.

~ the art (and your ownership of it) is stored, like much of your life, digitally. NFTs are digital tokens that not only store the artwork, but proof of its pedigree, and your ownership. No more forgery.

~ the market (using sites such as opensea) is open and decentralized. Anyone can see everything for sale and can buy anything for sale, regardless of pedigree and connections. Many collectors remain anonymous. No more gatekeeping.

And there is so much good gen art out there, right now, for affordable prices on sites like hashfx.

I bought many of the pieces in this gallery for under $100. Some were just a few dollars. Nearly all them cost well under $1000.

LIA, How and How Not to Maintain Friendships (animated - click through!)

markknol and jjjjjohn, playing.cccccards. <$5 right now.

Most of the pieces we'll look at in this gallery are long-form, including the Squiggle at the top. Here's a selection from the 1,000 Squiggles that were minted. See how they work together, show variation, and are just plain fun! Squiggle owners are passionate. There's a website dedicated to exploring the series, and a group of owners that have formed Squiggle DAO to promote the collection.

These emergent structures are not only unexpected - in the best collections they are profound ... and expensive. The Goose sold for a couple million back in 2021.

Ringers #879 "The Goose"

I really like runxane's Grid Studies above. After spending a couple weeks on this gallery, and looking at all the pieces in detail repeatedly, it has stood out to me as a lasting piece of work. I haven't seen grids explored in this manner before. Upon a closer inspection, Grid Studies is more than expected. Rudxane took an assumption that a grid is geometric - and made it organic. The use of hues and slight bleeding of colors makes the shapes bend and wave with subtle variations. To me, this has the pleasant look of a watercolor that has been folded.

Anyway, I just bought another. (Update again: I got one more - OK I'll stop writing update and will just add my favorites here as I get them.)

rudxane, Grid Studies #124

Here's the thing with the n-project above, which as I noted I lost quite a bit of money on. When I first saw Loot, the n-project, and other related projects, I thought they were silly. Total ridiculous. But then again, I thought Squiggles were silly. Sometimes the ideas that I think are silly - seem silly because they are actually groundbreaking. They go against the assumptions I've created inside my world - around art, tech, whatever. They've taken what I thought was a set way the world worked, and suddenly made it open to change. With the n-project, I thought that might be the case. But ... so far, it hasn't been. I guess sometimes silly is just silly.

How do you tell the difference between silly ... and revolutionary?

BUT - in the NFT art world we live at the intersection of art and market.

(Best viewed on a big screen. Don't use a phone.)

The Mooncats ecosystem has evolved to include accessories, games, and even soda pop machines.

Regular #489 (marked above) is an interesting story. A guy DMd me on twitter saying his wallet had been hacked and this piece stolen from him (and then shortly after it was stolen I unknowingly bought it from the hacker). From what I could see in the history of the piece, and in his history online, he was telling the truth. He paid .4 eth for it. I bought it for .17. After a little internal conflict (I really liked this one!) I sent it back to him. He was happy, grateful, and back in the Regulars gang. Ended up being a super nice guy. Was he telling the truth? Yeah, I think so. But crypto is mostly anonymous - I couldn't really know who he was. Nothing was guaranteed. What would you have done?

PartyDegenerate #6659

le anime #666

Archimus Mina of the Marsh

Smilesss #5944

abstractment and TENDER x, pang #329

Breeding Grounds by pxlshrd

Here are selections from three other series by Hideki - Totality, Fusion, and Cypher.

What I find interesting about these pieces is that they are emblematic of how an artist, in the span of a career, can dedicate years to a single idea - honing and refining and pushing for a breakthrough. Like a traditional painter exploring a single color, generative artists can take to create and refine an algorithm, altering and experimenting over and over, pushing boundaries, until the system produces something surprising, something beautiful, something nuanced ... that - whatever it may be - that they have been aching to capture. You can see Hideki here playing, iterating, honing. I love Hideki's absolute dedication to mining the unexplored depths of the circle (). It's the difference between crafts - and art.

They also remind me of a song from my youth, Rock and Bird by Cowboy Junkies. "She captured both rock and bird, tied one to the leg of the other, kept them as prisoners, until they knew who was master."

~ when an NFT is sold, the money goes straight to artist. And not just with the first sale - with NFTs, often when a piece of art is resold, the artist gets a royalty. It's built into the code. In the traditional art world, if an artist suddenly becomes popular and older works become worth millions, only the collector reaps that increase in value.

zach lieberman and Iskra Velitchkova, Horizon(te)s

Cypher #959

~ God is the artist ~ We don't know the algorithm (science is us trying to reverse engineer it) ~ Existence is the generated art ~ And we are the .0001% rarity

I hope you enjoyed this trip through my collection! You can watch my collection as it evolves here where I'm collecting 100 high-quality gen art projects.

Feel fee to reach out to me with any questions, errors, omissions, etc @ragnar_meta.

Here is Factura, a study in "shape cutting" - or cutting shapes along a line, producing two or more smaller shapes - by Mathias Isaksen. Isaksen has been working on this technique for a couple years and I think the results are stunning. You can read about his journey here.

Factura #600

rudxana, Grid Studies #137

rudxane, Grid Studies #178

And here are three selections from Zancan - the current top selling artist of all time on fxhash. These are from his series, A Bugged Forest.

A Bugged Forest #17

A Bugged Forest #366

A Bugged Forest #933

Londoner #922

Be sure to also check out my Definitive Guide to AI Art