Art Blocks

Simple and easily identifiable, each squiggle embodies the soul of the Art Blocks platform. Consider each my personal signature as an artist, developer, and tinkerer. Public minting of the Chromie Squiggle is permanently paused. They are now reserved for manual distribution to collectors and community members over a longer period of time. Please visit OpenSea to explore Squiggles available on the secondary market. 

Chromie Squiggle #4697

Inside the endless number of creative approaches, there are many ways to create music & generative art. All we have is basically “symbols” with their assigned meanings. 

Programming, in its nature, can be explained in a set of rules. We have functions for meaning, numbers for value, output as a result;
Nicolas, as a creator, is the programming brain who have interest in music.

Music, in its nature, can be explained in a set of rules. We have notation for meaning, numbers for time, sound as a result;
Han, as a creator, is the musical brain who have interest in programming.

Starting from the regular linear music partition method similar to drum machines, changing it in a circular way similar to ticking clocks, subdividing the time, generating the sounds with oscillators, composing the code for the loop, adding layers as instruments; Algo(Beats) turns into a digital music box where the rhythm and music can be represented with colors and motions. 

In Algo[Rhythms] we explored the music scales, in Algo(Beats) we are exploring the rhythms and sounds. We expect musicians to use and inspire by Algo. We think they have the potential be a tool for music projects which can live in blockchain forever. This is an approach for generative on-chain music. An automated rhythm generator in blockchain which tries to find the rhythms and patterns that humans didn't notice yet. Think of it like a fun improvisation tool created by two friends.

You should try some keys on your keyboard, we like easter eggs!

AlgoBeats #774

white noise contains all possible harmonics/notes/chords. by filtering out narrow frequency bands from the noise, pure sine wave “notes” become audible. we’ve limited these bands to only ever reveal specific notes from a particular musical scale. 

each piece then, is a unique iteration of this scale with different notes from it gaining prominence. sometimes they will be chordal and sometimes dissonant but always beautiful because the scale is beautiful.

visually, the white noise is represented by particles which congeal into dense lines. each line that appears is a specific note you can hear and it's amplitude is defined by the corresponding particle density. chords are represented by the lines crossing over each other.

so in summary, it's a quite literal visual representation of sound moving from an arbitrary form to musical form. natural order from chaos with infinitely variable patterns depending on which notes are audible. 

*note we’ve implemented the following variables for more radical variation in particle behavior in addition to the random generation of notes and their corresponding patterns.

- particles will either form straight line shapes or curved shapes 
- particles with vary in size from one iteration to another 
- particles will either favor white or black as their prominent b&w bias creating stark contrast between iterations as well as variables in between the two extremes
- some iterations will reveal faster and some slower

montreal friend scale #382

Fidenza is by far my most versatile algorithm to date. Although the program stays focused on structured curves and blocks, the varieties of scale, organization, texture, and color usage it can employ create a wide array of generative possibilities.

Fidenza #931

Stratified landforms constructed from many small strokes of colour. The hash of each token describes a coordinate within a multidimensional generative space, locating a unique composition that lies along one of many possible longitudes.

Meridian #447

At the shoreline, waves wash over the sand, sorting and tumbling the grains into troughs and valleys. Each wash of water alters the microcosmic landscape in an infinitesimal loop. Inspired by the unfathomable mathematics of this natural phenomena, we invite you to plunge into the purity of movement and transformation through the medium of ones and zeros. The palette and pixels are regulated by an algorithm designed to mimic the textures, colours and gradients of the high tide beach, while the edition of 745 reflects the number of minutes in a full tidal cycle. Keyboard controls: P=pause, F=fast forward.

High Tide #202

Darwin’s Orchid wasn’t discovered by Darwin, but he correctly hypothesized that its long blooms, up to a foot and a half tall, coevolved with a moth with a very long tongue—just long enough to extract its nectar. This flower embodies the great variety of and fascination with the orchid family. Orchids come in all shapes, sizes, colors, textures and scents—perhaps this is why they’ve entranced cultures dating back well over five millennia, becoming symbols of virility, beauty, peace and prosperity in the process. Named “Cattleya” after my first rare orchid, this work is my Ode to Orchids—a mystical flower that brings me endless delight.

Read more about my [inspiration & process↗](https://bensnell.medium.com/7c943673d54f)

*Notes:*
*— This project is intended to be run on modern devices, operating systems and browsers. Older ones may yield undesired or undefined behaviors.*
*— This script includes a modified version of [glsl-fast-gaussian-blur](https://github.com/Jam3/glsl-fast-gaussian-blur), licensed under the MIT License (MIT) Copyright (c) 2015 Jam3.*

Cattleya #95

Fidenza #930

For as long as I can remember, I've always loved walking around the city. The crowds, the movements, the colors, the lights... As I grew up, I learned to explore the different corners, always on the lookout for new alleys to explore, the desire to discover again and again particular architectures, saturated spaces, paintings or stickers never seen before, frozen traces of passages in these anthills that are our cities.

Hōrō is an invitation to stop time to make room for exploration, observation and contemplation in scenes mixing the purity of architectural lines with the unpredictable movements of passers-by, where Jackson Pollock meets Anni Albers, and Hassan Massoudy meets Piet Mondrian. So many influences that mix to create an explosion of movement and send us back to physical, digital or spiritual wanderings, in which we can both get lost and find ourselves.

The Hōrō series proposes to explore representations of multiple flows through different abstract areas, while playing on a wide chromatic diversity rich with 55 palettes inspired by as many graffiti artists, urban calligraphers using color as a trace of their passages.

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time." - Thomas Merton


On live view, press num keys [1-9] to redraw and export an up to 9x resolution version of the scene.


Hōrō, the Art of Wandering
Lionel Radisson | makio135

Hōrō #16

CENTURY is my homage to paintings and drawings from the twentieth century and the countless hours I’ve spent looking at them. The references span the origins of concrete and non-objective art to color-field painting and minimalism. The strongest direct reference is a series of pictures created by Ellsworth Kelly in the 1950s where he cut his paintings into pieces and reassembled them in different orders. CENTURY creates a distinct picture for each unique transaction hash, and you can “cut” and “reassemble” it in different ways by pressing ‘1’ on your keyboard. Press ‘2’ to put the slices in the original order. These are landscapes; they look best large and in motion running as live code.