Sedimentary Dissolution

by Landlines Art

This piece is inspired by the geological processes related to sedimentary dissolution. Dissolution is a form of weathering which contributes to the creation of new rocks. In this piece, various algorithms take on the role of dissolution, producing visual recombinations of the original "sedimentary rock".

natural asphalt

hematite

Eyeshadow Roses

"Eyeshadow Roses" is part of the fxhash interactive minting experience at The Ever-Evolving World of Art, Art Basel Hong-Kong, 2022

Painterly roses randomly overprinted with heavy streaks of ink.

The roses grow by a sequence of three spirals, every new spiral smaller and superimposed on the former. After the roses are fully formed, a random mask of heavy ink is algorithmically screened over the flowers in a pattern of horizontal or vertical lines, occasionally fully flooding the painting. The accumulation of choices evokes graffiti or printmaking. The sequence of choices are interpreted by the computer according to the algorithm. The beauty of these choices are determined by the viewer.

Single Flower (16)

Mask - No (239)

https://www.fxhash.xyz/generative/slug/eyeshadow-roses

Alp by Leander Herzog

minimal abstract swiss landscape. svg made with javascript.

Released Nov 21, 2021

P1X3LBOY: THE STORY BEHIND THE ARTIST

I grew up with my Mum, Dad, brother and sister as a close family. My mum and sister are very artistic so we would often go to museums and galleries and walk in the English countryside.

For my ninth birthday my parents gave me and my brother an Amstrad CPC 6128, with not just a tape drive but a disk drive too! This was my first venture into making pixel art. This advanced to making more complex art and animation projects and even my own front-end operating system in BASIC for my BBC B computer at the age of 11. The real advance though was when I got a Commodore Amiga 500 with Deluxe Paint 3 for my 13th birthday. My walls were filled from top to toe with full-page images and adverts for computer games from the latest game magazines. Pixel-by-pixel, I used to try to recreate these images using Deluxe Paint 3 and went on from there making Amiga demo-scene style animations, and coding graphics mostly for fun.

I studied at university in the remote seaside town of Aberystwyth in Wales and have an MSc in Computer Science, where I coded in Java, and focused on the use of neural networks. Working in data, technology and marketing for most of my career, I have always had a passion for art having come from an artistic family. Seemingly, like so many generative artists, I enjoy playing the guitar and used to play bass guitar in a band as a teenager which was a lot of fun. Mostly I now play guitar to relax as a break from intensive coding rather than publicly and I enjoy listening to an eclectic mix of music whilst I code, ranging from Morcheeba to Guns & Roses and from J.S. Bach to the Beastie Boys!

After university I took a year travelling around the world seeing some incredible sights and really trying to understand the cultures. Probably my two favourite places to visit were Indonesia and New Zealand. On arrival back in the UK with quite a lot of debt but a whole stack of memories, I went to work for an IT company but not as a developer, in the sales and marketing team. The reason behind this decision was a desire to work as part of a team and the opportunity to network with clients. I have been involved in web development and UX in my most recent job roles and started making generative art back in 2020 after various requests and commissions from friends and family.

When the lockdown hit in the UK and I was unable to go out and visit clients, this unexpected pandemic allowed me more time to focus on my art and ultimately led to my decision to pursue generative art as a full-time career. In some ways this was a gamble for a 43 year old but a risk my family and I were willing to take. Put simply, my career goals are to continue making art that I enjoy, I feel like I am only just getting started on this journey and have lots more ideas floating around in my mind to commit to code. One day I would love to have my own solo exhibition in a renowned gallery and to have a huge animated piece exhibited in a public space. Whilst I am working on these goals, in the short term I hope to inspire others to create their own art and to raise the profile of generative art among more traditional collectors. As a member of a few Discord groups I regularly chat with other creative coders and both give and take second opinions from a select group whose judgement I trust.

My first NFT 'Ripple Effect' was made using Pico-8 and my second, 'Dripping Pixels' has been my profile picture ever since August 2021. What I love about Pico-8 is that it is so restrictive. Because you are working with a 128 x 128 grid and only 16 colours you have to work on pushing the grid to it's limits. I enjoy making Pico-8 tweet carts, where I use 280 characters or less to make a generative work. I was already starting to make work in P5.js when FXHash was set up, for example with 'Generative Flowers'. Due to this experience, I was able to create project #100 on that platform and have really enjoyed making P5.js work ever since. My latest piece of work was a collaboration with Paper Buddha, where we spent three months creating generative Paper Mandalas. Mandalas dating back to the 4th century are arguably one of the original generative art types, along with Roman mosaics which I like to class at the original pixel-art!

Being asked to create a piece as a tribute to the late Herbert W. Franke along with some of the generative art pioneers like Frieder Nake and Vera Molnar and more recent prominent artists like Casey Reas, Mario Klingemann and Zancan is right up there as one of my greatest successes. Also having separate works selected by both Kate Vass, and Paris Hilton for their curated shows at NFT Liverpool this Summer have been the highlights of my artistic career. My biggest success, however, has been creating a loving family home with my wife and two children who support me on my artistic journey.

I have made more than enough mistakes in life, but genuinely feel that every decision, right or wrong has got me to the position I am in now, so no regrets!

1ABSTRACT: THE STORY BEHIND THE ARTIST

Without having any say in the matter, my story begins in a small town in southern Romania in the mid-1970s. I say this because I really hate to define myself by things I didn't choose, like nationality, region, religion, the language I speak or the football team my father supported. However, this is part of the story. I grew up in Ceausescu's Romania, where having parents with connections in "the party" was always an asset. I didn't have any, and this sometimes led to very conflicted feelings during my childhood, but this was normal for many children at that time. Although my working-class family initially had absolutely nothing to do with the arts, art crept into my environment through an unlikely combination of circumstances. One day, a drunken painter forgot his tubes of oil in my grandmother's garden after buying (illegally) mediocre homemade brady pomace. When he never came back, my mother picked them up and started painting, then took some evening art classes. So, I grew up with my mother interested in art and she occasionally painted impressionist oil paintings and watercolors. This may have played a role in my recent discovery of generative art as a new passion, but it's hard to say for sure.

Growing up, I was fortunate to have several key figures in my family who shaped my direction by constantly advising me to "get out of this town." There were two main ways to do this: sports or education. My father really pushed sports on me, and I think it definitely helped me in many ways, including allowing me to travel the country and expand my horizons. However, it didn't work out, I guess in part because my last coach was nothing short of a bully, and I was too young to deal with it. But it was for the best, because it forced me to refocus on my studies. Before high school, I was passionate about two things, anything computer related and anything nature related. I was not confident enough in my mathematical skills so I chose the path of nature conservation and ecology. I took a BSc and an MSc in ecology in Bucharest. I almost dropped out at one point, as I was disappointed by the low quality of the teaching, which focused only on memorizing information, but the prospect of a scholarship abroad allowed me to continue my studies during my master's degree.

Finally, in 2001, I managed to get my scholarship and went abroad to Germany to do the practical/experimental project of my MSc. Here I participated for the first time in experimental research and discovered the scientific method. I realized that this was what I wanted to do. Then I continued with a PhD in ecology in Germany and several postdoctoral positions in the UK and France before getting a permanent research position in Montpellier.

I first heard about NFTs via CryptoPunks probably around early 2018. My first thought was something along the lines of "this is crazy!", but it intrigued me enough to dig deeper. At the time, I was already on board with some of the ideas behind blockchain technology like decentralized funding, secure voting, supply chain tracking, proof of ownership, etc. but no one really knew if this technology can deliver on its promise. While I think the jury is still out on many of these promises, the rapid adoption of blockchain technology by the digital art environment via the development of multiple decentralized platforms to showcase the work of generative artists while providing a much-needed solution for tracking authenticity and royalties has already shown that it adds significant value to digital artists.

Regarding my beginnings in generative art, I'm not particularly proud to say that I only started to get interested in it around January 2021, and that was by chance while looking for some tricks to plot with R, a statistical software regularly used by ecologists. It took me several months before my first real attempt to do something with R myself, and I met my first collectors on Hic Et Nunc. Soon after, "fxhash" appeared and I was quickly drawn to the idea of long-running generative art. This forced me to self-teach p5.js, a JavaScript library for creative coding, which quickly became my primary means of creation. That being said, while one might think I'm an experienced programmer, I have no formal programming training and am aware that I am unable to write very elegant code. I'm still working on my toolbox.

As for my artistic style, I am particularly drawn to abstract art. Although it is less easy to grasp than figurative art, I really like the fact that it is open to interpretation and gives the freedom to explore and assign its own meaning. Some of the long-running generative series I've published on fxhash are in this vein. I'm thinking in particular of one of my favorite series, entitled "Lost in the multidimensional planes", in which I try to create both the feeling of smallness and the feeling of being lost in an infinitely vast universe. But you have to let yourself be taken by the drawing. It will speak to you in your own language and take you somewhere, but only if you engage with it.

For now, I am enjoying my new hobby and the journey that comes with it. I can't wait to see where the 256ART chapter will lead.