A Checkpoint on Generative Art (in NFTs)
Also: Against Only Pro-Crypto Politics, Film Production is Down 40 Percent, and Steeldrums (!)
I really enjoyed this amazing critique from
(Kevin Esherick) on Generative Art (in NFTs). Among art using crypto-as-medium, generative art is one of the stand-out successes.
The short explanation of most generative art in cryptoart is the use of an algorithm that upon minting an NFT, produces a randomised version of the art. There’s exceptions to this, but generally captures most of the work produced in this genre.
Before ArtBlocks popularised the genre (late 2020), a few smaller projects started dabbling in it from 2017-ish onwards.
I wrote and spoke about this new genre in 2018/2019.
December 2019: New Markets in the Arts #2: Generative Art Economies
And a talk I gave on it in Japan in 2019:
The reason why I believed it was interesting as an art form was:
Somewhere, in all the latent space of potential art, lies patterns that will move us, and we can task our friendly mechanical friends to go find them.
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When you combine the ability to form economies around generative art, you can empower the art to descend from its adjacent possible space into our world. It all exists, we just have to go find it, or incentivize our machines to do it for us.
The key was the ability to capture and turn a lens on algorithmic art, something that felt infinite, abundant, and ineffable.
Kevin critiques it along three lines: technical, conceptual, and aesthetic.
I generally believe that his critique is quite spot on in different ways. In general, NFTs are unavoidably attached to capital/finance (for good and bad), and generative art leans into it because it’s only created *after* you’ve already bought it: inevitably tying the language of money/finance into the foundation of the artwork.
If NFTs wed digital art with digital economies, then generative art consummates the marriage. Art meets capital at conception in generative art—the transaction creates the artwork, per the standard method of random generation upon mint. If you’ll pardon the extended and momentarily lewd metaphor, generative art is then born with a kind of original sin, its genesis seeded from the Edenic fruit of capital penetration.
And so, having an algorithm attached to speculation and the lottery ticket element of it, it can result in the following:
By enabling fast, large-scale production, generative art and the market around it incentivize the creation of cheap, diluted work—conceptually barren and aesthetically milquetoast, propped up by technical jargon that conjures a mirage of depth. It is assembly line art.
It can create this sense of cognitive dissonance in that because you already paid for it, the attachment to your specific piece can feel shallow. “This is mine, after all, and I think it’s great because it’s mine!”
A common response to this experience for the collector is, after minting, to convince themselves of how much they love the piece they specifically minted. They find all sorts of reasons to identify with it—“wow the flow fields are beautiful” or “no way, green’s my favorite color!” Identifying with the work would be a lot easier if we could just choose the ones we want to own in the first place, but that would require real discernment.
Which in turn is actually a part of a larger trend: consumer culture acting as places to gather.
In this mass individualism we try to have it all—the assurance of our own idiosyncrasy and agency on the one hand, with the perks of society and community on the other. The logo on your shoes signifies membership in the tribe of Nike, but that specific colorway is so you.
In a sense, it also points to why people are treating lore as a third place, because consumer culture, broadly, has become secular Churches.
The problem is that we’re left with the mere facsimile of what we as humans truly crave—agency and distinction in the individual condition, deep interpersonal connection in the communal one—and that that facsimile is sufficient to keep those cravings at bay.
As a coder, artist (and generative artist at that), I adore the process and the art itself. But, I understand that there is a gap between what you are seeing and what it is supposed to mean. But, I generally disagree with the following take:
Because we can’t infer the process behind the pixels the way we can with brushstrokes, generative artists take it upon themselves to explain it to us. And we follow along, dazzled by the esoteric technical details into thinking that something of import is being shared. The complexity leaves us with the impression of meaning and obscures the work’s shortcomings both to the artist and the viewer. In doing so, this technical infatuation contributes to those same shortcomings by propping the work up and giving it space to get away with them.
A lot of modern art has meaning precisely because it requires deep, embedded context as I’ve mentioned here:
Belonging and Understanding Through Context, AI Art, & Modern Art Critique
A common conversation played itself out in a pocket of Twitter this week. A neo-trad account took another swing at modern art. How can this be art? Sand in buckets falling down? My kid did that in the playground this weekend? And then, more pile-ins by folks documenting a pile of bricks in an art museum.
I don’t think all art need to be able to bridge that gap for all viewers. It can simply be niche and for most people their experience of that art is to merely swim in the confusion and liminality of it. It’s like arriving in a new city full of new culture you don’t understand and you are at first just pleasantly lost.
I also don’t think that art that are “glorified lava lamps” or “narcotic puddings” are shallow. I disagree with this take:
On these grounds generative art fails us aesthetically as well. The norm is work that’s visually fanciful if we’re lucky, yet in the end uncompelling. Work that’s dangerous or difficult are rare finds. Generative art is often pretty, but pretty is cheap. As fellow artist Sten put it, the genre is full of “decorative art, challenging no one.” The infamous feud between Jerry Saltz and Refik Anadol over the massive MoMA installation of Refik’s work Unsupervised was waged upon these grounds. In quite memorable if somewhat cruel fashion, Saltz’s critique variously deemed the piece “screensaver art,” “a glorified lava lamp,” and “narcotic pudding.”
In some sense, art that’s layered is the most interesting. At once, for many just a pretty goo of flowing vortices (like with Refik Anadol’s work), where it was a hit at the MoMA, but also layered in its technicality and process.
But yes, it’s ultimately decorative art in its aesthetics. Some works are sincerely, just pretty and doesn’t challenge us, and that’s okay.
For example, I adore “The Harvest” By Per Kristian Stoveland.
Or Human Unreadable by Operator, incorporating dance into the art.
I don’t think art has to always challenge us for it to be meaningful. But, I want to tease out why I believe generative art NFTs (in its ArtBlocks form) is still interesting as a meta-statement. Kevin touches upon this (emphasis mine):
Generative art offers the prospect of digital objecthood and ownership of art. It democratizes participation and ownership in art through digital scalability and the global reach of the internet. It introduces randomness, seriality, and systematicity, which can be used to reflect conditions of contemporary life, as formal principles in its artworks. It creates inherently networked assets. It gives voice in fine art to the digital culture and technology of the present. Its enablement of capital, though challenging in plenty of ways, opens a path to commercial and institutional legitimacy if we so desire. If done right, it can inform us on the relationship between human and machine. Some of these it inherits from cryptoart or digital art more broadly, but some are uniquely generative art’s own.
And then, he concludes:
Until then, generative art’s greatest importance might lie not in the work itself, but in the fact that wide swathes of our cultural niche were enraptured by it for a moment, and what that says about our age—about this market, about this culture, about us.
It speaks very much to our current age, indeed. Current culture has this tension of abundance alongside a desire to want it to stand in as a node to connect around. We want everything, every niche imaginable, but we also want a few things, to share in our shared reality of life. Culture is increasingly speaking for us.
Quote from my article:
And therein lies what I feel matters. We enjoy media by ourselves, but we also *use* media to communicate. Am I being spoken to by the piece of media, OR is the media speaking for me? In this era, the latter is increasingly more relevant because of the ability to share the extra context around the media (the fandom). It’s not that the piece of media has to have a particularly salient social message, but rather that the media can more readily stand in as a replacement for what we feel.
If we can see and watch everything, how do we choose and essentially use media to coordinate and connect? Everyone’s in their own filter bubbles, both watching everything and nothing at the same time. Sometimes there’s an overlap where everyone is watching the same thing (Barbenheimer or listening to Charli XCX) and then it feels again like everyone is off in their own rabbit holes (some watching The Office reruns and others enjoying 90s rave tracks from a guy called Fish Octagon on TikTok).
Generative art is this, personified and multiplied. One art algorithm on a CPU in your AirPods can probably churn out millions of artworks in a few seconds. That art wants to be witnessed, to be understood, and using blockchains we checkpoint it. We’re then able to briefly capture that liminal and ineffable feeling of abundant art and rally around the few that managed to roll the lucky dice to be witnessed, minted, and stored forever in a chain of records that is really hard to reverse.
As I said back in 2019:
When you combine the ability to form economies around generative art, you can empower the art to descend from its adjacent possible space into our world.
In 2020-2024, like collapsing a quantum wave or Pinocchio becoming a real boy, we’ve captured art that only really lived in an adjacent possible space. It’s that snapshot that’s interesting, because the snapshot is an anchor that will forever be there. NFTs Can’t Die (mostly).
That’s what I most compelling about ArtBlocks-ian generative art even though it does take place in a financial substrate, can be sometimes aesthetically milquetoast, and conceptually is sometimes just a booster pack casino. It’s exploring the tension of abundance and infinity and presents a view into that abyss. In a sense, it feels like trying to capture both the awe and existential angst of eternity.
In one of my generative art projects, The Room of Infinite Paintings, a viewer will be able to mint a new generative art piece for as long as Ethereum is still around. But, the longer it goes (the more that is minted), the more minimalist the art becomes. It speaks to that infinite abyss and trying to find beauty in it, if only briefly.
I feel like that’s what generative art should more hopefully about: exploring the relationship and tension of abundance against provenance and time. If it does evolve, that’s what I want to see more of in the medium.
Bonus Content!
Man, am I tired of this heatwave in DC. Luckily, it finally seemed to cool down, but it’s put such a damper on my running. Very frustrating, but pushing through it.
I finished reading Brave New World. Enjoyed it. It started interesting, caught a lull, and then ended strongly for me. I can see why it’s the seed for a lot of dystopian fiction that followed. I finally finished Nathan For You. The finale (Finding Frances) was amazing. I’m now busy watching The Curse as I slowly proceed through Nathan Fielder’s work. I just find it all so interesting and meta. On the games front, been playing Balatro, a roguelike card game. Very fun. Been thinking a lot about card games. Got randomly inspired one evening last week and created a simple 1v1 card game you can play with a 52-card deck. Maybe one day I’ll share it here! :)
And then, creatively, still working on draft 2 of my new novel. It’s coming along really nicely. Quite happy with it. Would say I’m about 20% done with draft 2!
Pro-Crypto Politics
To the detriment of my own productivity (and partly my sanity), I’m paying attention a lot to recent US politics. One of the trends that particularly bothers me is how many people I respect seemed to make trade-offs in favour of crypto but at cost of larger and more varied political goals.
Within the crypto space there is often a tendency to over-focus on the centrality of "money", and the freedom to hold and spend money (or, if you wish, "tokens") as the post important political issue. I agree that there is an important battle to be fought here: in order to do anything significant in the modern world, you need money, and so if you can shut down anyone's access to money, you can arbitrarily shut down your political opposition.
Important, yes, but another part, for example, is how having the inability to travel to attend crypto conferences impacts many people not from 1st world countries.
Sometimes, this even ties back to the "crypto industry". While recently attending EthCC, I received messages from multiple friends who told me that they were not able to come because it has become much more difficult for them to get a Schengen visa. Visa accessibility is a key concern when deciding locations for events like Devcon; the USA also scores poorly on this metric. The crypto industry is uniquely international, and so immigration law is crypto law. Which politicians, and which countries, recognize this?
…and concluding:
If a politician is pro-crypto, the key question to ask is: are they in it for the right reasons? Do they have a vision of how technology and politics and the economy should go in the 21st century that aligns with yours? Do they have a good positive vision, that goes beyond near-term concerns like "smash the bad other tribe"? If they do, then great: you should support them, and make clear that that's why you are supporting them. If not, then either stay out entirely, or find better forces to align with.
Just, maybe, think a bit more broadly than number-go-up.
Which is why I still have to read Plurality. It’s been sitting on my desk!
Remove The Squid
I haven’t tired Claude much, but hoping to do so soon. I adored this exchange where it was asked to remove the squids from a book that doesn’t have squids in them. Very creative and feels more natural. I find ChatGPT to sometimes be quite templated in its default engagement. Almost like I’m dealing with a sanitised intermediary.
Film/TV Production is down 40%
By some estimates Film/TV production is down 40% in the US about 20% globally.
As the article alludes, increasing re-negotiations of contracts with unions (last year, being writers and actors, and now crew workers and craftsworkers), are to blame.
Industry insiders told TheWrap that they believe one factor in the decrease in productions has been anticipation of another strike staged by IATSE or the Hollywood Basic Crafts that would force productions to shut down.
But, I think that can’t be all of it. We’re still above the ZIRP era where money was cheap and risks were easier to take. But, I also think that we’re shifting around in terms of what media people want and enjoy. The success of Twisters and Challengers speaks to a need for films that are, just, films. I think we’re going to remain on this pendulum for a while: audiences wanting both Top Gun and Everything Everywhere All At Once. Next weekend if Deadpool & Wolverine, a decidedly meta-modern superhero film that actively breaks all walls in both story and marketing.
Clément Bazin - On The Low
Such a groovy track. The steeldrum in this is so infectious! Enjoy!
That’s it for this week friends. Hope you get to a see a lovely sunset.
Cheers!
Simon
I feel you on the DC heatwave. I was just there and it was 105 according to my car. Miserable. I’ve been more nocturnal to cope.