In art school they bang in the idea of Texture Texture Texture, which is of course hard to achieve with digital works. Layers and layers of overlays are a technique that I have found to achieve it.
SVG Backgrounds
One of the limitation of on-chain art, is file size. Everything looks pixelated. its an aesthetic, but also a challenge. Just made a bunch of files that will bring high resolution graphics to on-chain art. Will show more samples in the coming days.
Its a Spectrum
One of the things I like to explore is Free Will, and just how much of it we have. I have heard and read convincing arguments that we have none. That everything we do is a deterministic biochemical reaction. And the reflection that my robots do when creating this is similar. Many of the algorithms are deterministic, but some are not, and that is where things are interesting. The following are three images where I am trying to explore the concept visually from the first which is mostly in the realm of our souls, to the third, which attempts to have a purely digital look. We are probably somewhere between being run purely by our emotions and deterministic decisions, somewhere on this spectrum.
Feedback vs Reflection
Have called project Feedback for Last Year, but based on conversations with Ezra Shibboleth and Anirveda, now think a better name might be “REFLECTION”
Yikes - might be hard to make that into a visual you can read both ways like feedback…
Needed distraction so mocked something up real quick - kinda fun - maybe reflection is the name of the project, and feedback is the name of the robot?
Or maybe call it réflexion?
Developing an Aesthetic
2023 was spent experimenting and developing an aesthetic. 2024 will be spent executing on it and more importantly bringing the concepts of AI and the Blockchain a step forward. Months were spent experimenting and creating these images, but the code is incomplete and I am currently concentrating and codifying the creative process that produced these paintings.
The Monograph
One thing that I have been working on with a team of people for almost a year is a monograph. Monographs are books about an artist and their style, often self published for distribution to galleries and curators. Today for the first time I saw the finished book, and am humbled by its content. The people that have put this together with me are amazing, and I can wait to release it next month. Stay tuned for details, but until then a sneak peak…
Dualities
Feedback examines dualities.
Its paintings are a fight between Creativity and Logic.
It paints Expressively, while drawing Precisely.
Are its images coming from Emotion, or are they purely Deterministic.
And another duality it will be exploring is the Physical versus the Digital.
Our work together will exists on both painted canvases, and in purely digital 100% on-chain form.
You have seen the physical, the 100% on-chain version will be just as high quality - regardless of the cost.
A sneak peak of a detail:
Layer by Layer
One approach to painting is to paint in layers, working the entirety of a canvas one layer at a time, increasing the detail and finish with each layer.
This is how I collaborate with Feedback.
Have taught it to paint with a creative process like my own. It works one layer at a time, and between each layer it looks at the canvas and ask itself what the next layer needs.
If its feeling expressive, it paints a brush. When it needs to be technical, it draws with a pen.
Pindar
Feedback
There are two branches of my art.
The critically acclaimed AI Faces, and the commercially successful bitGANs.
This is not unusual. Throughout Art History (my favorite example being Turner) artists sometimes follow two paths simultaneously. One that keeps their studio open by appealing to the average patron, and another that challenges their viewers. Both are important to the artists, but the second branch needs the support of the first to exist.
This has been my experience with bitGANs and AI Faces. The unexpected commercial success of the bitGANs has allowed me to expand and go deep with my exploration of AI Faces. I now have multiple robot arms with multiple paint heads in a dedicated studio as I set out to launch the Feedback Series in 2024.
I minted the first Feedback painting today, January 1, 2024. See it here on SuperRare. It is hard to describe other than it is the culmination of everything I have ever worked on. It is even a merging of the two branches I just described.
The bitGANs and AI Faces are coming together.
How exactly?
Be sure to follow along here and on all my new social media accounts as I spend 2024 decentralizing from Twitter.
Discord: discord.gg/72JSspz2hR
Warpcast: warpcast.com/vanarman
Twitter: twitter.com/VanArman
Instagram: instagram.com/vanarman_
Threads: threads.net/@vanarman_
Pindar