for place

11 hours ago

This algorithm is an experiment in short-form generative art; I’ve released a set of image editions I’m calling “for place”.

I’d love to share more about what the name means to me, how I achieved the aesthetics, the core system driving it, the pixel recursion and so on, but the truth is I have a vision now that’s stronger than ever and I have to pour everything I have into making it real.

Maybe I’ll rekindle the algorithm once that’s done, and give a proper break-down and share the code or put it on-chain, but for now, I’m moving on. If there’s interest from full set collectors, I’d consider doing a limited run of high resolution posters. Let me know if you’d be interested.

This might be a hot take, but …

On Rodeo

Three years ago, many of us were minting fiverr art for thousands of dollars, treating every release like a shitcoin, and in general having a really good time.

We went through a crushing bear market, and felt like the scene and technology we’d fallen in love with, digital ownership and a new market for digital art and collectibles, were all crumbling around us.

We had to raise our defense mechanisms. We had to wise up. Demonetize the grifts. Protect our financial means to be here in the first place.

Of all the trends we’ve seen, from friendtech to AI agent larps, Rodeo has got to be one of the least offensive and most genuine experiments combining crypto and social media.

Were they to succeed in their mission, taking on incumbents like Instagram, they’d bring digital ownership to the masses. OnBoArDiNg! I know.

But in my view, it’s already inevitable, it’s just a question of when. Personally I’m glad to see folks taking the risk to make it happen in our lifetimes. All of our most valuable JPEGs and hyper-sculptures would see the broader appreciation they deserve. Regardless of what that means for price, if you really care about what we’re doing here, that’s great news! We should be so lucky. I will celebrate the day I never see a paid ad again.

Of course there are flaws, many of which get worked out along the way. I’m glad to see artists like Jack forcing the platform’s hand to address the malleability of images and others, the mint timers. If they really garner attention, I expect we’ll see all the normal web2 playbooks unfold as every competitor clones them and drives the platform take as close to zero as the market and businesses allow.

This is a win for creators and artists. It’s small. But folks who need that extra help, whether it’s real feedback as they work, a little extra financial support to keep them going, or just connecting with more artists they admire and potential collectors who appreciate what makes their work special. Thirty cents is nothing, but with the global scale of the internet, it could really add up.

My Process

I decided to stop working on this algorithm, primarily because it was no longer working on me. The intersection of systems creating emergent possibilities beyond what I’d imagined has always been the most exciting aspect of generative work since I first discovered it 16 years ago. That’s why I’m here, and this algorithm became too bespoke, too placed-by-hand.

The rest of this post will be the brief journal entries I made as I worked.

May 31, 2024

Conceptually, I want this work to invent a new word - like a painterliness, or impasto, but for the artifacts left behind by a computational system. That’s been done, I’m sure, but to imagine it hasn’t or at least not to a degree of unreal greatness in my head gives me a north star to aspire towards.

New compositions leveraging the system’s groundwork: