We do not claim to hold the answers but we are committed to asking the questions. This is not the "Royal We", mind you—I am æther and I am joined for this first issue by my friend, the curator of wannabe curators boringoldguy, aka André. Our publication is the companion piece to an in-depth IRL conversation for which we hold space on Twitter. OR is modestly priced in Tezos at a number approximating the Golden Ratio.

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Editorial

If you’re anything like me, you regularly find yourself doing this crazy dance where you worry about what you’re collecting, what you’re not collecting, what it means to be accumulating quite so many jpegs and myriad other unspeakable concerns!

I’m an early crypto adopter and I’m totally down with the transparency of the proverbial ledger. That said, I’m mortified at the thought of anyone looking through my disorganized collection. On more than one occasion, I’ve caught myself saying something to the effect of “there’s actually a method to my madness, you know” but that was an economical way of engaging with the truth. My ample collection, which exists across four blockchains, is full of guilty pleasures, poor choices, the seemingly inevitable duds and a helping of those occasional projects which have been deemed by an authority greater than myself to be the messengers of undesirable content. If nothing else but for statistical reasons, I’ve also managed to collect some compelling Art along the way.

I half secretly believe that if you haven’t once been rugged, gotten your fair share of duds or otherwise been occasionally seriously disenchanted with your iteration du jour, you are probably just a flâneur.

OR is neither auto-congratulatory (there will be no links to galleries bursting at the seams with grails) nor is it designed to legitimize reckless spending and enable fellow jpeg addicts. Thankfully all of those needs can be amply met elsewhere! OR is about self-awareness and the commitment to refining one’s subjective aesthetic experience, what some might simply call taste. I believe inspired collecting occurs on a continuum between discernment and deep curiosity. We all get buffeted by the winds of the marketplace and it’s easy to lose our way, particularly when voicing self-doubt or reservations of any kind is quite so taboo.

I’m practicing holding the tension between my profound excitement about the possibilities and the sheer abundance of Art in this era and the understanding that I’ve already accumulated far too much.

Given the nature of our unique subculture and the conflicts of interest arising from the demands of self-promotion, self-censorship is rampant in our space. While kindness towards all fellow artists and collectors must remain a given, I wish to open a space for lighthearted conversation about ownership, value in Art, asymmetries and aberrations in our marketplace, veiled censorship, FOMO and its close, incestuous cousins: gambling and full on addiction.

æther

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The Dark Side of the Algorithm

Art is anything you can get away with.

—Andy Warhol

Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered

—José Saramago

No elephants in the OR!

—Dr. André Hofmeister

Typically only the more desirable outputs (prior to the release) or iterations (post release) of any given generative art project get shared on social media. Understandably, it is largely accepted that even a solid project may have iterations which are objectively less pleasing than others. On occasion, iterations may be vastly different from the image on the project page.

However, a single iteration also belongs to the project as a whole, in a sense every iteration is holographic. The minting process is also imbued with magical qualities as both creator and collector discover iterations together in real time. If the holographic and magical qualities of generative art are acknowledged, there really can be no such thing as a “bad iteration”. Yet if this is the case, one might ask: what is the purpose of engineered rarity if all iterations are theoretically equal? Should rarity not be left to the marketplace to decide? Did Emma Kunz or Georgia O’Keeffe or Yayoi Kusama (who is still with us) ever engineer rarity into their artwork and if they didn’t why are so many creative coders doing this now and who ultimately benefits?

Regardless of how randomness is used and whether it is more intentional or serendipitous, some interesting questions to consider might be:

Does the iteration find you?

Does the algorithm have a mind of its own?

Can the algorithm be likened to an oracle?

Do you get the iteration you deserve?

What expectations are there of the artist when a collector gets an objectively suboptimal iteration? Do these expectations change subject to the price point of the iteration, i.e. how might we feel about a 1,200 Tezos dud vs./ a 0.25 Tezos dud?

Images shown below are minted tokens of fx(hash) projects. They are intentionally shown without captions. No individual image, if recognized, is a reflection on any given artist. Rather, this compendium of half a dozen iterations of various projects is an attempt to give our community permission to consider and perhaps even discuss best practices in the event of such occurrences.

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Then & Now

What has been will be again,

What has been done will be done again;

There is nothing new under the sun.

—Ecclesiastes 1:9

Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.

—Chuck Palahniuk

Pattern recognition describes a cognitive process that matches information from a stimulus with information retrieved from memory, including our human collective memory across time. Humans are hardwired to recognize and recreate patterns, which is not to brush aside the importance of giving credit where credit is due to those artists who came before us.

In fairness, often we don’t know who we are indebted to. Hilma af Klint, among too many others, immediately comes to mind as a paradigm shifting visionary artist who was silenced and shut down during her lifetime and for decades after her death in 1944.

Images below illustrate the idea that no one is ever re-inventing the wheel and that it’s possible to endlessly create entirely new and beautiful variations on a pre-existing theme.

Across time, artists have incorporated historical and past stylistic references into their work. That said, there is a fine line between celebrating a deceased artist and rehashing historical artistic movements in an generic and dangerously clichéd way. Specific iconography, certain shapes and volumes and even some palettes can easily feel trite: once Duchamp drew a mustache on the Mona Lisa and rebranded her under the title LHOOQ that particular box got checked. The Mona Lisa is a dignified old lady at this point and as a trope she is utterly spent. Derivative art in any medium demands a quality of freshness.

Where a project explicitly references a movement or a style from the past some good questions to ask might be:

How is this new?

Is there any conceptual “added value” in this new take on something historical?

What is the link between the “legacy” aesthetic and how it is being portrayed now?

Is the similarity entirely intentional or is it the case of a “happy” accident? If it is the latter, is said accident acknowledged?

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Art and Value

A fool is someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

—Oscar Wilde

The value of Art is in the observer.

—Agnes Martin

Given our propensity to create similar patterns and artistic expressions, it is to be expected that multiple artists will experiment with similar forms. When these forms are in close resemblance, especially in instances where the lesser known artist created their artwork prior to the better known artist, one may ask: what justifies the radically different price points?

Is it similar to the way in which a mass market fashion brand copies the work of a luxury fashion house and creates a knock off, or are two generative artworks more indistinguishable from one another than clothing created by two fashion brands with vastly different business models?

Where two projects have similar looking iterations in similar formats and palettes, some good questions to ask might be:

What is the conceptual difference, if any, between the two projects?

Is the outcome of one of the two projects accidental?

How does each project fit into the larger body of work of the artist?

What are some secondary factors explaining differences in pricing and in the reception of the work?

Examples provided below are for illustrative purposes, they are not a judgment on any individual artist’s pricing policy or on the collectors who elected to purchase the artwork.

Louis Vuitton vs. H&M

Dolce & Gabbana vs. Urban Outfitters

Comme des Garçons vs. Uniqlo

Balenciaga vs. Zara

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Market Aberrations by André

Collecting generative art typically involves the search for hidden gems—artworks that aren't widely known, but which either hold the promise of future recognition or that are outstandingly beautiful and therefore special.

S T I L L M I N T I N G

The following artworks are still available for minting. Why? Who knows! There might have been other, flashier projects dropping at the same time that got all the attention, or possibly the preview images weren't representative of the project as a whole, or the price point and/or pricing strategy were off.

Transition: Omnidimensional by @ada_ada_ada_art

Being vocal about her own gender transition and the rights of transgender and non-binary people is a recurring theme in the artist's artwork as well as her online presence more generally. It is no surprise to me that she chose to focus on this topic in one of her projects. Transitions is both expressive and unique.

The project is a variation on the much quieter, more somber Transition: Multidimensional. The artist herself explains: “This piece is a corrupted version of Transition: Multidimensional. The code is nearly identical but there are small changes in decisive places. Small numbers have become big, muted colors have become bright and if/else statements have become if statements.”

Sometimes, small changes can have big effects. Like when tiny nucleotide molecules in your body have this or that specific configuration, and this makes the world expect you to behave, look or feel in a certain way. To me, the colorful, stroboscopic flashes of this piece are a raised middle finger in the face of the expectations of the world.

I love that.

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Chaos by @jaalibandar

Mythologically, Khaos is the void which preceded Kosmos, our ordered universe, and thus is the state of raw potential. In modern days, the view of chaos as the opposite of order is more prevalent, and often has a negative connotation: chaos introduces stress and creates unpredictable outcomes in our lives, it throws a wrench into the finely synchronized clockwork of our daily routines.

Jaali Bandar provides us with a creative Chaos that is both confusing and reassuring, in other words both Khaos and Kosmos. The flickering, moving background patterns make me think of the infinity of space, the big bang and hostile radiation, while the angular structures drifting through this primordial space exude a deep feeling of peace and order.

As the artist puts it, this project: “is a celebration of chaos, a ray of hope amidst the tumultuous times that we live in, an escape from our internal vulnerabilities, a sense of closure and acceptance even when a lot might be going on in our lives.”

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O L D E R G E M S

Some gems are hidden deep in the early days of fx(hash): projects by artists who later on became widely recognized for their work, but whose earlier projects somehow escaped collectors’ attention. One such gem is:

Jellybean Singularity by @SpinkDinky

I’m of the subjective opinion that everything Chris McCully has released since Immure is stellar. There is plenty more great art from him if you take the time to dig deeper into his fx(hash) profile (it’s definitely worth taking a detour along the way to admire Halcyon, Fleur des Sinus, and Multi-Biome).

One of the artist's very early fx(hash) projects is Jellybean Singularity. Open it and take a long look at the candy-colored circles! This style reminds me of layered paper cut outs, and the way they circle their center point fits the artist's title of a singularity perfectly. Finally, the slight grain is the cherry on the cake for me!

The project is both visually incredibly appealing to me and seems to have been nearly forgotten by the market, despite the artist's recent acclaim! I love the unusual style and the fact that it is from the early days of fx(hash) holds a special significance.

::tezos-storage-pointer[]{contract="KT1BJC12dG17CVvPKJ1VYaNnaT5mzfnUTwXv" path="ledger::2037" data_spec="FX-GEN-DATA-002"}

Other older gems falling under a category of their own and worthy of an honorable mention are the following:

The Glitch Pixel by @Danielhercules

A single pixel is the subject of this glitch-heavy animated marvel. Well, not exactly a single pixel, but a large square that represents a pixel–this atomic unit of digital art that artists manipulate with code, mouse, or a stylus. In a way, it reminds me of Malevich's Black Square in its return to the absolute bare bones of art. Unlike the iconic work of Suprematism, though, this artwork doesn't rest to show its philosophical impact. Instead, the pixel square is weathered by digital storms that vary from iteration to iteration.

To me, The Glitch Pixel is a generative masterpiece of glitch.

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Sunday Morning by @dddc_nft

Sunday mornings are slow (or should be, provided you have nobody asking you at 6.30 am to prepare food or keep them entertained), maybe a little blurry and in the best case full of promises of a beautiful day ahead.

This piece by Dennis Chilas is like a perfect Sunday morning when you wake up close to noon, a little blinded by the sun that is already too high in the sky. The slowly moving, animated circles of this artwork stay out of focus and let us wonder what we would see once our eyes got accustomed to the light. And the project's still image previews aren't representative of the animations at all, just like the first moments of the day don't really tell you what the rest of it will be like. Lastly, there are only two iterations of this project, and none are for sale: just like perfect Sundays they are extremely rare and unfortunately cannot be bought: not for love or money!

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Final Words

Æther & André hope this experimental publication will provide food for thought to its readers. Should a readership and equally importantly a quality conversation arise as a result of this collection of prompts, another issue will be forthcoming!

In the interim, all letters to the Editor will be read and with permission, some may be published. This is also an open call for short form submissions to future issues of OR.

Thank you for reading and collecting. Stay inquisitive!