Woman at a Crosswalk

Bobby:
Fifteen years ago, a woman stood at a crosswalk in my hometown of Oklahoma City, momentarily gazing and gesturing toward the horizon. At that moment, I was passing time taking random photographs as I waited for a friend.

Weeks or months later, I noticed the photograph and made a drawing based on the woman at the crosswalk. In the drawing, I dialed up the drama of her expression and gesture, gave her a theatrical hair style, and placed her in a field of tall flowers at night.

I used the drawing to make a screen print. The screen print was exhibited at a handful of local venues in the years that followed, and was one of the first pieces I minted as an NFT in the spring of 2021 (later collected by the illustrious Anna Condo).

I used the screen print as a seed image to create images in Midjourney, which began my ‘Thousandfold’ collection. I took images from the first generation of Thousandfold as seed images for the second generation, images from the second generation as seed images for the third generation, and images from the third generation as seed images for the fourth generation. I haven’t stopped there, but in the fourth generation, the figures (for whatever reason) turned to face the viewer. These are the images used for this collaboration.

Just when I thought this particular series had gone about as far as it could go, Stephen came along and did some truly magical things.

sspboyd:
This collaboration plays with the ideas of light and shadow; deconstruction and recreation.

Each edition begins by selecting the light or shadow side of one of Bobby's images and making that the "mask" to be recreated. The remaining images are also divided into light and shadow and placed in a way that attempts to recreate the original mask image.

It is a volatile algorithm that spans a wide variety of outputs and in one moment can create readily identifiable images and the next moment pure abstractions with no recognizable features.

Features

1. Mask Name
2. Number of Unique Faces
3. Mask is: Figure or Ground. This defines whether the light or shadow component of the mask is being recreated.
4. Number of Layers
5. Rotation Alignment
6. Base Colour

Interaction

Export to PNG

Press s: your current screen size
Press m: Max size @ 7027px x 7027px

Background

Press b: Toggle background colour between black and white

Mouse

Moving the mouse over the image rotates the faces and reveals more of the layering.

This token is part of the SESSIONS SERIES co-curated by the NFT Museum of Newberry, SC and Fort Gallery NFT.