Slice of Life

"Slice of Life" is a part of the live minting experience at Non Fungible Conference Lisbon, June 7-8, 2023. It is a generative art series about seeing beauty in the ordinary, inspired by tree rings and the stories they hold.

When I first learned of tree rings as a kid, I thought that a tree meticulously recorded its own life story, similar to how my parents marked my height with dates on the wall behind our kitchen door. Next to each date, there was a small description, some were milestones but most were mundane. We’ve moved across an ocean since then, but tree rings always remind me of my first home, of how my parents cherished and celebrated the small things in life.

Initially I created figurative paintings of tree rings, however they felt a bit too still and lonesome, and lacked the warmth I wanted to convey. Then it dawned on me that while each tree stands on its own, our lives are intertwined with one another. These connections and interactions play a big role in shaping who we are, as well as our sense of home and belonging. From there on the artwork evolved to be messier, more expressive, and more like a slice of life as I see it.

Created by Elsif, 2023.06

FX params
This artwork uses the minter address along with a selectable seed to enable personalization.
I recommend locking the other params and cycling through the 42 seeds to find your favorite.
The palette and initial position of pigments are entirely determined by the seed. The other two params can be used for further customization and may yield some exciting and unexpected results.

Keyboard controls
[f] Fill the current window (press ‘f’ again to get back to the original aspect ratio).
[g] Toggle the background texture.
[m] Change the margin amount.
[s] Save a PNG image of the live view, default resolution is 1600x2000px.
[1]-[3] Change the output resolution, up to 4500x6000px.

URL parameters
&aspect=[an aspect ratio between 0.25 and 4, default is 0.8]
&texture=[a roughness value greater than or equal to 0, default is 1]
&margin=[the amount of margin around the painting (try 20 to 150), default is 20]
&fill=[true/false, whether to fill the window]

Libraries used: p5.js