Artists
Opening Reception
January 6 2023
Invite-only Vernissage
6 — 15 January 2023
Opening Hours
Weekdays: 2 – 7 PM
Weekends: 12 – 7 PM
Opening Reception
January 6 2023
Invite-only Vernissage
6 — 15 January 2023
Opening Hours
Weekdays: 2 – 7 PM
Weekends: 12 – 7 PM
Larva Labs, "Protoglyph" (2018/2022). On-chain generative art. Courtesy of PROOF Collective.
The predecessor to "Autoglyphs" (2019), the "Protoglyph" (2018/2022) is an output from an early algorithm exploration for the project. Too complicated to efficiently code in Solidity, the programming language for smart contracts, the math was simplified, reducing both the complexity of the code and the image size, leading to the creation of "Autoglyphs" (2019).
Larva Labs, "Autoglyph #181" (2019). On-chain generative art. Courtesy of Fingerprints DAO.
"Autoglyphs" (2019) is considered the first fully on-chain generative art collection where the code which generates each output was processed and stored on the Ethereum blockchain. They are a completely self-contained mechanism for the creation and ownership of each artwork.
Larva Labs is a studio of creative technologists formed by Matt Hall and John Watkinson. They are software developers and early innovators in blockchain art, and have worked across digital art projects, large-scale web infrastructure, mobile applications, and more. Larva Labs is known for their creation of “CryptoPunks” (2017), which inspired the current smart contract standard for NFTs, as well as “Autoglyphs” (2019), considered the first on-chain generative art project.
Tyler Hobbs and Dandelion Wist, QQL (2022). Generative art web app. Courtesy of the artists.
Created by Tyler Hobbs and Dandelion Wist, "QQL" (2022) is an experiment in generative collaboration. Taking the form of an algorithm available on a web-based platform, it aims to provide a new way to celebrate emergence, unpredictability, and happenstance over forced rarity. Visitors can experiment with generating visual outputs by using tools that encourage interplay between elements of control and chance, manipulating mutable attributes such as density, flow and scale to explore its formal possibilities. By allowing collectors to explore the edges of the algorithm and play a role in the output, the project aims to give collectors creative agency over the content and aesthetic qualities of the artwork.
Tyler Hobbs (b. 1987, United States) is a visual artist who primarily works with algorithms, plotters, and paint. Hobbs is interested in computational aesthetics, how they are composed and shaped by the biases of modern computer hardware and software, and how they interact with the natural world around us. These generative images give us a new visual perspective on our surrounding environment. Hobbs’ work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, including: “Progress”, Galería Dos Topos, León, Mexico (2018) and “Incomplete Control”, Bright Moments Gallery, New York City, USA (2021). His work has been exhibited internationally in the United States, Mexico, Israel, United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Singapore.
Dandelion Wist (b. United States) is a generative artist and collector. They are co-creator of QQL and the co-founder of Archipelago, a generative art marketplace. They have a background as an open source engineer and machine learning researcher.
Steve Pikelny, "Fake Internet Money #84" (2021). Algorithmic generative art. Courtesy of the artist.
"Fake Internet Money" (2021) is an algorithmic generative art project which adopts the patterning, aesthetic and design of paper currency to generate fake bills. In particular, the designs include the geometric webbing that appears on the edges of US currency called a Guilloché patent, and which was adopted in the 1800s as an anti-counterfeiting measure. Along with elements of real currency such as the texture, layout, denomination and serial numbers, the outputs emphasise their fakeness and in doing so, deconstructs the idea of what money really is. The work pokes fun at the term “Fake Internet Money”, itself used to describe cryptocurrency, and interrogates the abstract and sometimes arbitrary concept of money by questioning its subjective value.
Steve Pikelny, "Instructions for Defacement" (2022). Plotter project. Courtesy of the artist.
"Instructions for Defacement" (2022) is a generative art plotter project, designed to be executed on a pen plotter – a computer-controlled machine that can draw graphics and text. Each work consists of unique pen plotter instructions to be theoretically drawn on a pictorial area of the one-dollar bill. While defacing US currency is a federal crime, the instructions exist simply as an artistic exercise.
Steve Pikelny (b. 1989, United States) is an artist and technologist whose work spans generative, crypto and web-based art. His work takes the form of web-based, audio visual art with generative components, as well as a self-referential network of websites that incorporate elements of satire, absurdism, postmodernism, surrealism and kayfabe.
Sputniko!, "The Nursery #76" (2022). Time-based generative art. Courtesy of GlimmerDAO.
Following her recent experience of giving birth to her first child, Sputniko! worked with creative coder Misaki Nakano to explore creating pieces inspired by the experience of watching her daughter grow over time. "The Nursery" (2022) is a collection of 100 time-based generative artworks which simulate the organic growth and emergence of life forms. The abstract, flower-like forms gradually change their shape and form over the period of a year, and evoke the unfurling of flower petals, the translucency and buoyancy of jellyfish, and the forms of cellular division. Cumulatively, "The Nursery" aims to express the mysterious and enigmatic processes of the growth and evolution of living forms.
Sputniko! (b. 1985, Japan/United Kingdom) is a multimedia artist and filmmaker creating works which span a wide variety of themes from biotechnology, gender performance to interspecies communication. Employing science and technology to actively investigate contemporary society and social values, Sputniko!’s work stimulates discussions regarding the cultural, social, and ethical implications of emerging technologies. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA; Centre-Pompidou, Metz, France; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK; Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York, USA; and Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, among others. Sputniko! taught at the MIT Media Lab as an Assistant Professor and was the director of the Design Fiction Group from 2013 to 2017. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Tokyo University of Arts.
Shavonne Wong and Lenne Chai, "By Proxy - Playground I" (2022). Digital photography and CGI. Courtesy of the artists.
In a world where we take hundreds of photos to document our lives and curate our memories, Singaporean artists and adolescent friends Shavonne Wong and Lenne Chai examine if memories, just like images, can be easily manipulated to fit our desired version of the truth. In "By Proxy" (2022), Wong and Chai came together to create a series of images depicting an imaginary young girl's transition from girlhood to adolescence, sculpted digitally. This computer-generated model is an amalgamation of their younger selves and is inspired by their upbringing in Singapore. Their virtual teenage character hangs out in her bedroom, makes soap bubbles with a friend, takes naps by the seashore… There is a dream-like quality in the works that underpins an uncanniness to these digitally-crafted pieces. Echoing larger trends which question authenticity in the way we represent and document ourselves, this work takes it a step further to consider the subjectivity of memory. If memories, just like images, can be just as easily manipulated to fit our desired version of truth, then what is real and not?
Shavonne Wong (b. 1990, Singapore) is a 3D artist and virtual model creator. Building on her decade-long fashion photography career, her work focuses on creating photorealistic virtual figures and placing them in surreal environments and the metaverse. Wong’s artworks explore the complexity of identity, the universality of human nature, and the connection between humans. Her works have been exhibited internally across Singapore, Italy, United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, among other countries. Wong is also one of the co-founders of NFT Asia, a community centred on uplifting Asian and Asia-based artists and creatives all around the world.
Lenne Chai (b.1991, Singapore/United States) is a photographer and director. Her practice is inspired by her dystopian homeland of Singapore and often reflects on social realities and issues in her country. Based between New York and Los Angeles, Lenne got her start as a photographer in 2010, shooting for fashion publications and brands ranging from Vogue and Gucci to Spotify. In 2019, “A 377A Wedding”, a photo series inspired by her experiences as a queer woman in Singapore, was shown at Objectifs and featured on BBC World News, Dazed, CNN, and more. Her works have been featured in numerous exhibitions, including “Salvation Made Simple” (2018) at OH! Open House and “The Body as A Dream: A Singapore Art Story” (2020) at Art Agenda SEA, both Singapore. Chai is also a recipient of the WHO WE ARE 200 grant by Obscura DAO.
Sarah Meyohas, "Non-Existent Token" (2021). On-chain participatory artwork with animation. Courtesy of the artist.
"Non-Existent Token" (2021) takes the form of a smart contract where each bid generates a unique animation with a growing number of bubble particles and size variations. Each subsequent bid, which must be 10% higher than the one before, passes on the bubble to the next winner. The previous bidder will then have their bid amount returned and an additional 5%, as well as a receipt which advertises their return. The work plays with mechanisms made possible through smart contracts and reflects upon the speculative dynamics of auction and tradable tokens, replicating the very environment it inhabits. The artwork’s auction is infinite and can sustain for as long as the Ethereum network runs.
Sarah Meyohas (b. 1991, United States) is a conceptual artist working across multiple disciplines including film, photography, virtual reality, performance art, and sculpture. Her practice considers the nature and capabilities of emerging technologies in contemporary society, and commonly deals with themes such as finance, cryptocurrency, notions of value, AI, and the digital. Meyohas’ “Bitchcoin” (2015) predated the launch of Ethereum and is the first tokenisation of physical art on the blockchain. She was also named Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2017, Her works have been exhibited at institutions internally, including: New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, USA; the Barbican Centre, London, UK; Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland, among others.
Sarah Friend, Lifeforms (2021). Digital edition, custom smart contracts, webapp. Courtesy of Nagel Draxler.
"Lifeforms" (2021) are NFT-based entities that need regular care in order to thrive. To care for a lifeform, one needs to give it away within 90 days of receiving it. Without adequate care, the lifeform will die – no longer appearing in wallets and cannot be brought back to life. Injecting unexpected dynamics into a smart contract system, "Lifeforms" invert the common expectation of NFT artworks which is to be bought, held, and speculated upon. Instead, the project asks each 'owner' to become custodians that must consistently maintain and care for their entity in collaboration with others. The project exists on two levels: one as an artist edition of NFTs, and another as a series of relations between the carers of lifeforms that is intangible, ephemeral, and in a deliberately ambiguous relationship to the market. "Lifeforms" was longlisted for The Lumen Prize in 2022.
Sarah Friend (b. Canada) is an artist and software developer who works across blockchain, gaming and the P2P (peer-to-peer) web. She was the recipient of the 30 Under 30 Developers in Canada award and the GDC Scholarship for Women in Games. Her works have been exhibited internationally, including: “Proof of Stake”, Kustverein in Hamburg, Austria (2021); “Crypto_manifold”, Chronus Art Centre, Shanghai, China (2020); “Seasons of Media Art”, ZKM Centre for Media Art Karlsruhe, Germany (2019), among others. Friend is a participant in the Berlin Program for Artists, a co-curator of Ender Gallery, an artist residency taking place inside the game Minecraft, and an organiser of Our Networks, a conference on all aspects of the distributed web.
Rhea Myers, "Certificate of Inauthenticity: Pipe (02 of 11)" (2020). Digital certificate. Courtesy of Fingerprints DAO.
"Certificate of Inauthenticity" (2020) builds on earlier works of Myers which take iconic works from art history as sources for the questioning of authenticity, creative production, and valuation. In an earlier rendition, the artist commissioned Chris Webber and Bassam Kurdali to create 3D printable models of commonplace objects representing canonical artwork: a urinal, a pipe, a balloon dog. The resulted works were placed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) license, taking a post-scarcity approach to art which everyone and therefore no one can own. These artists shunned the concept of the artist’s hand and insisted that their authorship was valid because they claimed it, while Myers’ work cheekily refutes this claim. In this 2020 series, the artist considers the use of non-fungible tokens as a method for authenticating ownership and provenance and its relationship to physical objects. From post-scarcity abundance to artificial scarcity through the blockchain, this body of work is a provocation for artists and collectors to engage with new digital critical and financial value.
Rhea Myers (b. 1973, United Kingdom/Canada) is an artist, hacker and writer whose work places technology and culture in mutual interrogation to produce new ways of seeing the world as it unfolds around us. She has been creating art using advanced blockchain technologies since 2013. Her works have bene included in multiple exhibitions, most recently: “Proof of Art”, Francisco Carolinum, Linz, Austria (2021); “Breadcrumbs”, Galerie Nagel Draxler, Cologne, Germany (2021); and “Crypto Manifold”, Chronus Art Centre, Shanghai, China (2020). Myers is also the author of the forthcoming publication, “Proof of Work: Blockchain Provocations 2011 – 2021”, published by MIT Press.
Reuben Wu and Jenni Pasanen, "Metamorphe #04: Taste" (2022). Photography and GAN. Courtesy of the artists.
"METAMORPHE" (2022) is a collaboration between Reuben Wu and Jenni Pasanen. Using the medium of generative adversarial networks (GAN) combined with painting and photography, the artworks explore a vision where the Earth’s surface transmutes into gargantuan landscapes, sublime and beyond emotion. This collaborative method aims to spawn new unimaginable forms which human minds would not be capable of conceiving. Some pieces began from Pasanen’s AI/GAN creations, while others evolved from Wu’s photography. Through multiple iterations of passing the artworks back and forth, the artists refined the works by hand.
Reuben Wu (b. 1975, United Kingdom) is a multidisciplinary artist who uses technology and the concept of time and space to help tell compelling stories about the world we inhabit. He is known for his photographic artworks, often of large, expansive landscapes. Through clever experimentation with lightning, Wu manipulates ordinary landscapes and estranges them with strange, otherworldly qualities. His works are in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). He is a National Geographic Photographer.
Jenni Pasanen (b. Finland) is an artist who combines digital painting and AI to create breathtaking visuals and artworks. With a background in design and animation, her works harness AI as a tool to transcend the imagination and serve as a muse to her creations. Her practice explores creating in new mediums of art, where the creativity of machines and humans meet and unite. Her work has been shown internationally in Switzerland, Canada, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, and other countries.
Refik Anadol, "An Important Memory for Humanity" (2022). Data sculpture installation with sound, on-loop. Courtesy of 6529 Fund.
"An Important Memory for Humanity" (2022) draws on data from the world’s first all-civilian space flight in 2021, the Inspiration4 mission. Anadol and his team interpreted data from the NASA-funded research institute TRISH (Translational Research Institute for Space Health) and presents a series of unique and poetic data visualisations of the mission. Processing the entire data archive, including photographic and audio memories, health data, vehicle data and audio-visual recordings from the flight, it solidifies a memorable moment in the history of space exploration in the blockchain space. In addition, it also aims to create awareness about the challenges stemming from the adverse effects of space upon the human body, with an attempt to reduce the health risks of venturing deeper into the universe.
Refik Anadol (b. 1985, Turkey) is a new media artist and designer who is known for his large-scale data-driven installations that create abstract, dream-like environments. His works explore the learning process of machines, observing how AI can manifest human consciousness through the collection and visualisation of data. Anadol’s site-specific audio/visual performances have been featured at iconic landmarks, museums and festivals worldwide, such as the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Italy; The Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany; OFFF Festival Barcelona; and Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria, among many others. Most recently, he presented “Unsupervised” at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, USA (2022). Anadol also teaches at UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts from which he obtained his Master of Fine Arts.
Petra Cortright, "999flower_102" (2022). Digital image composed from 50 unique layers running through custom script. Courtesy of Chaw Wei Yang and Simchowitz.com.
In "999flower" (2022), Cortright built a heavily-layered digital composition made from a mixture of brushstrokes and found images, totalling to 50 unique layers. She utilised a custom script that cycles through the 50 layers, randomly selecting and de-selecting elements and rearranging them to create 999 different paintings.
Petra Cortright (b. 1986, United States) is a contemporary artist whose multifaceted artistic practice stems from creating and manipulating digital files. A notable member of what became known at the ‘Post Internet’ art movement of the mid-to-late-2000s with her YouTube videos and online exhibitions, Cortright later began to laboriously craft digital paintings by creating layer upon layer of manipulated images in Photoshop, which she then rendered onto materials such as aluminium, linen, paper, and acrylic sheets. Cortright has been included in group exhibitions at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA (2019); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, USA (2018); Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (2016); the 12th Venice Biennale de Lyon, France (2013); and the Venice Biennale, Italy (2009), among others.
Mitchell F Chan, "Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility" (2017). Conceptual artwork, blockchain token. Courtesy of the artist.
"Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility" (2017) is considered one of the earliest non-fungible token artworks. It imagines the ways in which non-fungible tokens could advance the conceptualist project of separating the commodity form of an artwork from the experienced form. The series is modelled after Yves Klein’s "Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility" (1959), where the artist traded receipts of ownership of empty spaces in a gallery for gold ingots, then burned the receipts and tossed the gold in the Seine River so nothing remained of the transaction but its record in a ledger. Expanding upon Klein’s exploration, Chan’s project explores the abstraction of value and ownership through Ethereum token protocols. In a 33-page essay accompanying the artwork, the artist posits that token-based artworks could be understood as immaterial conceptual projects of their own.
Mitchell F Chan’s (b. 1982, Canada) practice centres on shaping human sensibility in the age of technology. He has produced a diverse body in both physical and digital public spaces, working across installation, sculpture, generative art, game design, and more, examining how meaning is transformed when content is translated across material and digital forms. Chan was awarded the Trustee Scholarship in Art and Technology studies at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 2009. His works have been exhibited with the InterAccess Media Arts Centre, Toronto, Canada (2017), Feral File and Buffalo AKG Museum, Online (2022), among others.
Matt Kane, "Gazers #581" (2021). On-chain dynamic artwork. Courtesy of the artist.
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, and has inspired countless works of art. "Gazers" (2021) takes the form of a moon phase calendar, algorithmically synchronising closely with moon phases in the sky, and joining the blockchain with one of humanity’s longest running lineages in art. "Gazers" is created to be a living artwork, to be lived with, and to not only have the artwork evolve over time but also transform the appreciation and experience of viewers. Each layer of the work consists of pattern designs which change in the most subtle and optical of ways with the passage of time. 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 colour that rises and sets, echoing the change of light in our sky.
Matt Kane (b. 1980, United States) is a visual artist and self-taught programmer. His artistic practice began over twenty years ago with traditional oil painting, later teaching himself to code to better actualise his artistic visions. Kane designs custom generative algorithms to produce vibrant, richly detailed and multilayered visions addressing the most varied themes, exploring historical painting aesthetics with code and geometry. Recent exhibitions include “DYOR”, Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland (2022), “Virtual Niche”, UCCA Centre for Contemporary Art Lab, Beijing, China (2021) and “Prime Time: F00TW3RK”, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, USA (2018), among others.
Leander Herzog and Richard Nadler, "Gerhard" (2022). On-chain generative art on f(x)hash https://www.fxhash.xyz/generative/slug/gerhard. Courtesy of the artists.
"Gerhard" (2022) is a collaboration between Richard Nadler and Leander Herzog, consisting of a generative animation based on multiple layers of colour and data, mixed, moved and painted over in realtime. Some fragments stick to the canvas while others get discarded to leave the existing layers visible, allowing a complex surface to emerge and build up over time. Nadler created the textures to control composition and colour, whilst Herzog created the code for the interplay between the layers, motion and interactions. Both artists used different tools and were not aware of the details of each other's process, meeting through the interface of pixels. The resulting artwork references German visual artist Gerhard Richter’s style, who is widely acclaimed for his prolific, varied and influential painting practice.
Leander Herzog (b. 1984, Switzerland) is a visual artist and creative coder working with generative systems to create visuals, graphics, applications and physical installations and products. His works have been exhibited widely in galleries and institutions, including: “Beyond the Screen” Dam Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2008), “Short Cuts”, Biel/Bienne, Switzerland (2015); “Systematic Premeditation”, SP2, Berlin, Germany (2022); “A new beginning”, EXPANDED.ART, Berlin, Germany (2022); “DYOR”, Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland (2022); “Generative Abstraction” and “Stack Trace”, EXPANDED.ART, Berlin, Germany (both 2023).
Richard Nadler (b. 1987, Germany) is a generative AI artist who explores identity through potent colours and provocative textures. His work spans latent diffusion, GAN, and code-based techniques. He is most known for his Japanese GenArt Collection, which explores his life-long fascination with the culture of Japan, a place he would frequently travel with his late father.
Ix Shells, "Dreaming at Dusk" (2021). Generative artwork. Courtesy of the artist.
"Dreaming at Dusk" (2021), produced in collaboration with the The Tor Project, is a generative artwork derived using the private key of the very first Tor onion service, duskgytldkxiuqc6.onion. Tor onion services, brought to digital life more than 15 years ago, are anonymous network services that can only be accessed over Tor (short for The Onion Router, a free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication). In contrast to conventional Internet services, onion services are private, generally not indexed by search engines, and use self-certifying domain names that are long and difficult for humans to read. "Dreaming at Dusk" commemorates this landmark in the history of privacy, and is a digital artefact that documents a piece of internet history.
Itzel Yard (b. 1990, Panama), also known as Ix Shells, is an Afro-Caribbean artist and self-taught coder who discovered computer science while playing video games as a child. She is a leading generative artist who is part of the new wave of creatives in web3. In 2021, she created “Dreaming at Dusk”, resulting in her becoming the top-earning female artist in NFTs. Her work has been exhibited in Unit London, United Kingdom (2022); Fotografiska, Stockholm, Sweden (2022); Art Dubai, United Arab Emirates (2022); KÖNIG Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2021); and Francisco Carolinum Linz Museum, Linz, Austria (2021), among others. In 2020, she founded Creative Code Art, an online community which supports and facilitates networking among emerging generative artists.
Harm van den Dorpel, "Mutant Garden Autobreeder" (2021). Generative animated artwork on screen. Courtesy of the artist.
The "Mutant Garden Autobreeder" (2021) is a generative animation artwork based on evolutionary programming and which never repeats itself. It forms a part of the “Mutant Garden” series, which considers genetic information as a repository of highly efficient and intertwined methods akin to algorithms and takes DNA as a compressed collection of computer programmes, from which life emerges. Building on top of Julian F Miller and Peter Thomson’s Cartesian Genetic Programming invented in 1996, the series creates an environment where specimens undergo mutation. The artist translates these outputs into visual compositions, emphasising desired traits of visual complexity and variance versus cost of computation. Mapping highly computational processes onto aesthetic outcomes, "Mutant Garden Autobreeder" materialises the inherent unpredictability of DNA, genetic evolution, and life itself.
Harm van den Dorpel (b. 1981, Netherlands/Germany) works across sculpture, installation, works on paper, computer generated graphics software. His practice is dedicated to discovering emergent aesthetics by composing software and language, borrowing from disparate fields such as genetics and blockchain. He co-founded block-chain based marketplace left gallery (2015 – 2022), which produced and sold downloadable digital objects. His works have been exhibited internationally in numerous galleries and institutions, including: New Museum, New York, USA; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland, and MMCA National Museum for Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea, among others.
Figure31 and 0xmons, SALT (2021). Durational digital animations of photographs. Courtesy of the artist.
In "SALT" (2021), Figure31 and 0xmons combine smart contracts and digital photography to create a series of time-based artworks, each of them unique, each essentially the same. Starting from a base of 180 photographs, "SALT" will display a different image and name in this set, cycling to the next on a daily basis. The work sets all 180 images into an endless, asynchronous loop. No owner possesses a specific image; all are collectively shared. The photographs refer to the digital noise captured by the camera’s sensor, images which are normally invisible and lack subject or depth.
Figure31 (Loucas Braconnier) (b. 1997, Canada) is a digital and media artist. Figure31’s visual and conceptual body of work questions the ever evolving relationship between reality and technology, supported by different computer generated images, photographs, sculptures, texts, and virtual spaces.
Emily Xie, "Memories of Qilin" (2022). On-chain generative art. Courtesy of 6529 Fund.
"Memories of Qilin" (2022) is a code-based generative art project inspired by traditional East Asian art. It channels the sense of movement and fluidity found in classical Chinese brushwork, while drawing from the colours, patterns, and forms of ukiyo-e woodblock prints. The series explores elements of folklore, evoking the mythological imagery of dragons, phoenixes, flowers, and mountains. The title references a fabled chimerical beast found throughout East Asian mythology (while the qilin is its Chinese name, it is also known in Korea as the girin and Japan as the kirin) that represents prosperity and luck. Viewers are invited to interpret elusive forms that verge on representation. As with the stories passed on through generations, each piece is imagined, organic, and ever-in-flux.
Emily Xie (b. 1989, China/United States) is a generative artist and software engineer who works with algorithms to create lifelike textures, patterns, and forms. Her generative systems often navigate many delicate balances at once: the interplays between chance versus control, the organic versus the systematic, and the abstract versus the representational. Xie was an Artist-in-Residence at Pioneer Works in 2016. Her works have been exhibited at “In Our Code (Flowers in Bloom)”, Unit London, UK; “DYOR”, Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland; Cortesi Gallery, The Armory Show, New York, USA (all 2022), among others.
Aaron Penne, "Within / Without #301" (2022). On-chain generative art. Courtesy of Fingerprints DAO.
"Within / Without" (2022) explores the decoupling of the artist’s instructions from the visual output, where instructions can be interpreted according to some element of chance. Referencing artworks such as Sol Lewitt’s "Wall Drawings" (1969 - 2007), Penne’s "Within / Without" (2022) draws on the basic building blocks of Larva Labs’ "Autoglyphs" (2019), translating their grid-based instructions into complex structures, dreamlike gradients, and soft edges made of pixelated digital artifacts. It aims to capture and strike a balance between the duality of soft abstract paintings and geometric digital art, with both the composition and the colour position of each piece shifting over time.
Aaron Penne (b. 1988, United States) is an artist and engineer whose work explores the space between the algorithmic and the organic. He is the Director of Engineering at Art Blocks, a generative art platform. He received the Lumen Prize for Art and Technology NFT Award in 2022 for his project, Rituals, in collaboration with musician Boreta. His works have been shown internationally at galleries and museums including “It’s Not About Money”, ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe Museum, Germany (2021); “Artist and the Machine”, Seattle NFT Museum, United States (2022), among others.
Justin Aversano and Kim Asendorf, "Doppelgänger #62" (2022). Digital photography processed through pixel sorting script. Courtesy of the artists.
"Doppelgänger" is a collaborative series by Justin Aversano and Kim Asendorf. The project builds on top of Aversano’s previous collection, "Twin Flames", which comprises portraits of 100 sets of twins. Drawing from 1,000 unseen outtakes from Aversano’s project, which was a visual elegy to the twin that the artist never knew, "Doppelgänger" restructures these images through Asendorf’s Pixel Sorting script. Processed through code, pixels are scrambled, figures and backgrounds are transmuted, and they become their own glitched alter egos before our eyes.
Justin Aversano (b. 1992, United States) is an artist and curator interested in capturing moments, faces, and communities that surround him, bringing them together through the lens of his camera. He is Co-Founder and CEO of Quantum Art, a platform focused on curating digital culture through NFT, as well as co-founder and creative director of SaveArtSpace, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing community art to public spaces. He is known for his project “Twin Flames”, a photographic collection of 100 sets of twins.
Kim Asendorf (b. 1981, Germany) is a visual and conceptual artist who creates abstract visual systems conceptually set and realised in algorithms. Asendorf is widely known for the creation of a Pixel Sorting algorithm that he made Open Source and has been used by thousands of artists and designers since 2012. His works have been shown at festivals and institutions like Transmediale Berlin, Germany (2015), ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe Museum, Germany (2013), Eyebeam, New York, USA (2013), and at galleries like Creation Gallery G8 in Tokyo, Carroll / Fletcher in London, Office Impart in Berlin, among others.