Moments of The Unknown by Justin Aversano
Welcome home. For the explanation, read Justin's story on Transient.
Nous
Find someone who looks at you the way Punk #6621 looks at Punk #4705.
AGH
AGH is Kim Asendorf, Andreas Gysin and Leander Herzog. The inaugural event AGH 1 displayed a new work from each artist, 7 December, 2023.
Crush #16 by Andreas Gysin
Heatsink #21 by Leander Herzog
BLOOM
BLOOM are a design-led collective including artists Ben Thomas, David Lisser, Dexamol, Hannes Hummel, Icki, Jenni Pasanen, Nocreative, Onyro, Stephan Duquesnoy, Shavonne Wong, Tina Eisen, and Moteh. Click here (thisisbloom.xyz) to learn more.
Alexis Andre - MacTuitui
“Navette started with a call from Ismail. I was in Tokyo. He was on his way to Art Basel and asked me, ‘Do you have any interest in creating physical art with generative algorithms?’ As generative artists I feel we need to explore what it means to do things in a generative manner which is outside the screen. We use the screen but there are other media which can benefit from this generative approach. I said yes.” “He asked, ‘Can you be in France in two weeks? I am going to Aubusson, the center of french tapestry making. I’m going to see one of the biggest digital control looms in the whole world. Hop on a plane. We will spend three days there. You can see how things are done and what the tech challenges and possibilities are.’” “I knew nothing about tapestry but was very curious: what can we do with a generative system which is finely tuned to create tapestries?” “I flew directly from Tokyo to Paris and we drove all day to Aubusson. The next day we went to Neolice and learned all the small details. They have the digital loom and introduced us to their process. We met their color specialist. We learned about the specific threads for hand-woven tapestries.” “Basically Jacquard is just a set of binary instructions. You have a thread that goes up then goes down. Like computer instructions, it’s simple and binary but can be used to create very complex systems. These looms are like the earliest computers which read cards. The thread you see in a tapestry is a physical pixel. You can use multiple colors and layers. On the back you see the ones that are not on the top, which is also aesthetically pleasing.” “Neolice have a process that basically turns a digital file into instructions for the loom. It’s a lossy process, doing color and resolution reduction. Those technicalities are low hanging fruit for a generative system – reducing the color space, considering how colors mix together, specifying low resolution…” “While we were in Aubusson I hacked together a proof…
highlight.xyz
Matt DesLauriers
"I'm a Canadian artist, now based in the UK. My practice primarily focuses on code, software, and generative processes. I am also an active contributor to open source software, building tools and libraries to support creative coding and generative art workflows." - Matt DesLauriers
Eko33
"Since 1999 Eko33 has been experimenting with digital arts. His first experiments were made with a “portable” Commodore SX-64. Starting with Max/MSP, Processing and Nato.0+55+3d his first exhibition occurred in 2004 at Seoul’s Museum of Art during the International Media Art Biennial. After completing his academic training, he taught creative coding within world-class art schools. Since then, he has been obsessively building autonomous artistic systems worldwide." - Fellowship "Latent Ink is a novel exploration of Eko33’s evolving collaboration with machines to create art. Spanning 500 unique artworks, this project merges AI-trained datasets, p5.js generative systems, machine vision, and GLSL shaders to produce intricate works that challenge the boundaries of human and machine creativity. By integrating digital and physical mediums, Latent Ink showcases Eko33’s most technically advanced and conceptually innovative project to date. This collection reflects a layered evolution, combining Eko33’s past and present artistic gestures through algorithmic processes, resulting in visually complex images that converge, compete, and evolve in their form." - Fellowship
Harmonic Gravitas
Zach Lieberman
"Zach Lieberman is a New York-based artist, educator, and programmer who integrates human gesture and interactive technology to create immersive, code-based installations and performances. His practice centers on transforming human input, such as drawing and movement, into dynamic visual and auditory expressions, revealing playful and unexpected forms of interaction. Lieberman’s projects have garnered awards including the Golden Nica from Ars Electronica and Interactive Design of the Year from the Design Museum London, and his work has been featured in institutions such as New York’s Museum of Modern Art. He holds a BA in Fine Arts from Hunter College and an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design. Additionally, Lieberman co-created openFrameworks, an influential open-source C++ toolkit for creative coding, and co-founded the School for Poetic Computation, where he explores and teaches the expressive potential of code. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab." - ArtBlocks "As an artist who works with code and produces sketches on a daily basis, Zach Lieberman has come to realize that he has just a few topics he deeply cares about, and one of those is light. He tries to produce images with a sense of illumination, where it feels like color, rhythm, and form are explored through that illumination, and he feels like he's captured some essence of what he sees in the world. He says, 'I often see something on the sidewalk, like sunlight reflecting off a shiny surface, and wonder how to code that. At night, I look at a car's headlights coming towards me and see rays of light, almost like a prism. I see these things and wonder how to communicate them through my work. At the same time, my work changes the way I see. I explore algorithms of light and reflection via code and I start to see the world differently.' This back-and-forth between observing and creating and…
Damien Hirst
"The Currency is the first NFT collection by Damien Hirst. Reimagining the way NFTs are used, The Currency consists of 10,000 artworks that exist as either NFT or physical artwork, forcing collectors to choose between the two mediums. Starting with the creation of the physical artworks in 2016, The Currency is the latest iteration of the iconic Spot Paintings series by Damien Hirst. The artwork explores the boundaries of art and currency—when art changes and becomes a currency, and when currency becomes art. Successful applicants initially received the artwork as NFT, and were given one year to decide to keep the NFT or exchange it for the physical artwork. Whichever you chose, the other got burned. The exchange period closed on 27 July 2022 resulting in 4,851 holders deciding to keep the NFT, and 5,149 to keep the physical artwork, for a total of 10,000 artworks in the collection. In September 2022 The Currency Exhibition opened, showing all 10,000 artworks with the 4,851 physical artworks that collectors chose to keep as NFTs being burnt gradually throughout the course of the exhibition." - HENI.com
manoloide (Manolo Gamboa Naon)
"Manolo Gamboa Naon has been called the first prodigy of generative art. While he deflects this praise, those of us who know his work know that it’s true. In an incredible burst of energy from 2014 to 2020, Manolo created a sequence of images unlike anything seen before, which went on to influence the next generation of artists who code. After a pause from exhibiting work, he’s returning to premiere the vivid 'uneasy dream,' a continuously-evolving generative animation that surges, expands, and contracts in an ongoing flow." - Feral File
OSF
"From Wall Street to web3, Ovie Faruq (OSF) is a former trader turned crypto artist." - https://www.osf.art/
Roope Rainisto
"Roope Rainisto, from Finland, has committed the past 25 years to the disciplined study and practice of visual storytelling, particularly in art, design, and photography. His work is a prolonged inquiry into the nature of how we tell stories visually, balancing between the tangible and the ethereal. In recent years, Rainisto has turned his attention to the implications of artificial intelligence in art, exploring how these tools can extend or disrupt our traditional understanding of photographic expression. This is an extension of his lifelong exploration of the intersection of technology and artistry." - Fellowship
Eric De Guili
"Eric De Giuli is a theoretical physicist and generative artist based in Canada. His work explores self-organization and the emergence of complexity in the universe, blending scientific inquiry with artistic expression. He holds an Honours B.Sc. in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Toronto, and an M.Sc. in Geophysics and a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of British Columbia. De Giuli is currently an Assistant Professor of Complexity Physics at Toronto Metropolitan University." - Le Random
Operator
"Ania Catherine and Dejha Ti are an award-winning experiential artist duo who founded their collaborative art practice, known as Operator, in 2016." Operator.la "THE SLOW RECOVERY OF THE HUMAN Human Unreadable immerses audiences and collectors in a three-act, embodied, generative art experience. The acts weave together code, choreography, blockchain, generative art, cryptography, and performance into an evolving conceptual experience - the slow recovery of the human. The work brings flesh and viscerality into code and vulnerability [as a feature] into long-form on-chain generative art. Each artwork is driven by the motion data of its underlying unique, on-chain choreographic sequence. Human Unreadable intentionally punctures the safety of modernist design and the idea of a universal voice, pushing the limits of human expression within rigid technical systems. With a focus on the body, the collection brings risk, confusion, and vulnerability to the reveal, everything that function-focused design systems normally prevent. Each piece is an invitation, a transparent layer through which the messy human experience can come into focus through the three phases of the work. This work is a continuation of the rejection of modernism, clean lines, and the quietly gendered values therein, in favor of a more embodied and sensual approach to human-machine collaboration pioneered by early women in digital art." - Operator.la
Repeat as Necessary
"Repeat as Necessary: Choreography to unveil hidden circuitry Performance Dates: August 9-10, 2025 Location: Scorpios Bodrum We're showing a new work, a 27-minute durational performance called Repeat as necessary to Bodrum, Türkiye. In this performance experience, choreography becomes an instruction manual for forgotten circuitry, ancient patterns inscribed in the flesh. Rather than considering technology as something outside ourselves, this work recognizes the body as a formidable instance of technology. Through repetitive movement something begins to dissolve: the boundaries between here and elsewhere, self and other, audience and performer, boredom and revelation. The rhythmic architectures of sacred chant and Sufi sema music, rooted in neural entrainment through repetition, breath, and modal tension, are reimagined not as doctrine, but as sonic architectures for nervous system attunement. Woven together, movement, sound, and costume design form a hybrid ritual system: pulse and posture, fabric and form, guiding the body toward trance not through belief, but through sensation. What emerges beyond the terror of staying still is an archaeology of presence, the body's hidden protocols activated: mirror neuron networks, autonomic regulation, collective neural entrainment. "Repeat as Necessary" is an experience as well as an activation and honoring of the technology of the body itself. In other words: become worse at being elsewhere. **Collecting choreography ** Continuing our groundbreaking On-chain Choreography Method established in 2023, Repeat as necessary addresses a fundamental problem in dance history—collecting choreography has been limited to documentation and notation rather than as an art object itself. The collection consists of one Performance Operating System (1/1)—containing complete on-chain performance infrastructure and re-staging rights—alongside 40 individual Choreographic Works, each capturing a precise moment from the 27-minute…
Photography
Justin Aversano is a photographer, pioneer, and friend. He combines his eye and aesthetic with his passion for exploring new frontiers, combining old formats such as scrolls and film with new techniques and technologies such as AI and Blockchains.
Kim Asendorf
"The animations consist of a matrix of colored pixels in an isometric grid over a black background. The points pulse, shift and warp in ways that seem orderly, but exhibit no discernible pattern. The distortions are endless, but they never loop. Each piece has a distinct color palette, but these hues are shown only as dots that dance over the dark, the pulsing animations of each Deck are insubstantial, thin, and delicate. The precise density of the matrix of dots is a variable that can be changed in a number of ways. First, the animations can be manipulated on the screen by scrolling to zoom or clicking and dragging the virtual objects to rotate them above the black void, there are also preset “camera angles” and a viewing mode that automatically rotates. Rotation allows the viewer to align and overlap the pulsing pixels, creating clusters of symmetry and density. Zooming in and out changes the overall size of the virtual object, but the individual pixels each remain the same size, so that making the object smaller makes it appear more dense, while zooming in and making it larger makes it even more diffuse, airy, and barely visible. The density of pixels can also be manipulated within an individual Deck. Collectors can determine how many points the animation will contain when they purchase it, by determining how many PXL tokens to include. A low number will yield an expression of the animation algorithm that is barely visible, while approaching the mint maximum of 500,000 pixels will produce an iteration that is dense and fuzzy." See pxl.onl for the full description.
Andreas Gysin
(Even better than "right-click save-as", open this URL on your phone and "add to homescreen": https://jnzifgjoequajg3ddpj2td5wfnsd2psz3t5l3oqmtaru4sa72jca.arweave.net/S3KCmS4kKASbYxvTqY-2K2Q9Plnc-r26DJgjTkgf0kQ?blend=1 ) Custom software, Javascript, WebGL Variable dimensions (responsive), silent A study for an automatic motion, repeated and offset across space and time in a discrete field of glyphs and color. Meaningless text fragments. The characters stay in place, the viewer travels without moving. Inspired by and a homage to “Calculated Movements” (1984) by Larry Cuba. Certain parameters are randomized at runtime. Keys: i : toggle info ↓↑ : change scale 123 : projection modes v : voxel size a: toggle axis t : toggle light b : toggle blend p : save PNG t : save TXT f : fullscreen URL params (default): canvasWidth (0) canvasHeight (0) maxChars¹ (0) fps (30) scale (1) projection² (isometric) axis (0) light (0) blend (0) ¹ The maximum number of characters to display. A lower value may improve performance on some computers. The scaling factor is automatically calculated based on this number. A value of 0 defaults to 131,072 characters, the number that fills the screen at scale=1 at 4K resolution. ² Set ‘projectionMode’ to ‘auto’ to randomize the projection mode at each respawn.