Art on Rhea Myers

10K Drop

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

10K Drop (2024), Timelocked Ethereum ERC-721 NFTs of generative HTML5 animations.

A “10K Drop” is an NFT collection of ten thousand PFP character images released as a cultural event. The number ten thousand and the format of a series of characters generated programmatically from a library of visual elements is taken from the first collection of this kind, the Cryptopunks by Larva Labs which dropped in June 2017. Successful drops provide community, inspiration, and wealth. Unsuccessful ones provide embarrassment and loss. Buying early rides one of these waves. Waiting to see how a collection performed reduces risk but also reduces reward. For every Bored Apes, a dozen Disinterested Dogs.

Portents

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Portents (2024), Bitcoin Ordinal, graphic identity, whitepaper, code, spreadsheet.

From the Portents whitepaper:

We propose a scheme for encoding references to Ordinals in Bitcoin block hashes as they are mined.
We then demonstrate how to search the existing Bitcoin blockchain for such references.
Since any references that are found predate the possibility of their existence, their existence would function as proof of future events.
This is prophecy, which is to say time travel.
Having established the import of the discovery of these portents, we explain strategies that we may pursue to make ourselves worthy of them.

Is Art (Editions)

Sun, 19 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Is Art (2014) was part of the series of artworks that started with the essay Artworld Ethereum and that share their name with it. It exploits the exhausted art theoretical concept of nomination, underwriting it with the power of the blockchain rather than 1960s artworld consensus. It was the piece from that series that caught people’s imagination the most. Pre-dating ERC-721, and structured to be deliberately un-ownable, it existed as a smart contract that anyone (with sufficient knowledge and capital…) could interact with and change the state of.

The Ego, and It's 0wned

Fri, 27 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Ego, And It’s 0wned (2023). EEG data, Ethereum DApp.

Identity and intimate experience quantified, commodified, and exploited, in hypercapitalist exchange.The NFTs of The Ego, and It’s 0wned combine EEG brain wave recordings of intense experiences with smooth data visualization aesthetics to produce a critical encounter with subjectivity, representation, and capitalism.

NFTs allow the commodification of previously unenclosed phenomena from the commons of our shared experience. By doing so they expand the reach of the capitalist regime of property and ownership. The recognition of new labouring subjects also ultimately has this effect. Affective labour, cognitive surpluses, minority experience — whatever the critical impetus for formalizing each of these concepts may have originally been it ultimately renders them tractable to capital over time.

Type Opposite Images

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Type Opposite Images (2023), Ethereum ERC-721 NFT wrapping ERC-998 NFT.

Vaporwave aesthetics’ evil twin.

Type Opposite Images is a reversal or invert of Tokens Equal Text (2019). It composes with the original to translate the colourful vaporwave aesthetics of each token into the grim monochrome of its other - the imagery of a nuclear apocalypse started and populated by killer machines. This produce its evil twin, a reflection in a dark mirror.

Facecoins

Thu, 19 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Facecoins (2023), Ethereum ERC-721 NFT.

A blockchain portrait that starts with you.

Facecoins is a tokenized edition of the classic Facecoin (2014) with a twist. The genesis block and the colours of the proof-of-work bitmaps for each edition are derived from the Ethereum wallet address of its owner. This makes each edition a kind of portrait, or search for a portrait, of the owner, or of their blockchain identity.

Titled (Information as Property as Art) [Ethereum Null Address]

Sat, 26 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Titled (Information as Property as Art) [Ethereum Null Address], 2022, ERC-721 Token

An NFT representing the Ethereum “null address”, making the unownable ownable symbolically. After Joseph Kosuth.

Included in the collection of Albight-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY.

You can buy the remaining editions here:

https://feralfile.com/artworks/rhea-myers-nbn

1 Doge = 1 Doge

Fri, 10 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

1 Doge = 1 Doge, 2019, Ethereum ERC-721 Token

“1 Doge = 1 Doge” takes the form of an image of a Bitcoin address, describing a Dogecoin meme, registered as an Ethereum NFT. That meme is 1 “Doge = 1 Doge”, and the naive typography and colour palette of the image comes from “Doge” memes such as those used to promote the Dogecoin cryptocurrency. This assertion may resemble the law of identity, as seen in Plato’s Theaetetus (and the writing of Ayn Rand…) but here it is “proven” ironically rather than taken as an axiom, reaching inside a statement of economic fungibility that has become an expression of faith in the lasting social value of cryptocurrency separate from its volatile dollar value.

Certificate of Inauthenticity

Sat, 16 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“Certificate of Inauthenticity”, 2020, ERC-721 Tokens

From 2011 to 2012 in the “Shareable Readymades” project I commissioned the awesome artists Christine Webber and Bassam Kurdali to create three 3D printable models of commonplace objects - a urinal, a balloon dog, and a pipe - that had become part of canonical art history. The artists retained copyright on their work and the results were placed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) license with the attribution to myself as the person that commissioned the work. I did this in order to critique the production of neoceonceptual art by artists such as Jeff Koons and the processes by which art history cordons off models of commonplace objects as signature works by Jeff Koons, Marcel Duchamp and others.

Staking Ratio

Mon, 30 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Staking Ratio, 2019, Ethereum DApp

A ratio of two amounts of Ether cryptocurrency staked by users. Value determines value, further destroying the information that money destroys to represent it.

This is the last work in the series that began with “Democratic Palette”. It is the first to deal directly in cryptocurrency value.

Use at your own risk.

Shared Secret

Sat, 28 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Shared Secret, 2020, TOTP QR Code

Shared secrets are part of the invisible structure of society. They constitute a form of currency.

Computing security culture defines “secrets” as passwords, private keys, unguessable slices of entropy. They are to be revealed only briefly to cross the threshold of a computing system. The consequences of sharing them with attackers, which is to say other people, are catastrophic - leading to your presence in the system or the system itself becoming compromised, or 0wned.

Pay Previous Path

Sat, 14 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Pay Previous Path, 2019, Ethereum DApp

“Pay Previous Path” allows anyone to store a vector drawing (encoded in a style similar to the SVG path line-art format) on the Ethereum blockchain in return for paying a small fee to the previous person who did so.

Hack Line Properties

Fri, 26 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Hack Line Properties, 2019, Ethereum DApp

“Hack Line Properties” is a supposedly secure blockchain smart contract designed to allow only its owner to update the line stroke properties that it stores. But a common Ethereum code bug allows anyone who finds it to “hack” the contract and set the line properties themselves.

Proof of Work Bitmap

Sat, 20 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Proof of Work Bitmap, 2019, Ethereum DApp

Proof of Work Bitmap displays a 16x16 pixel monochrome bitmap that lives on the Ethereum blockchain. To edit it you must run code similar to that used by cryptocurrency “mining” and submit the results to the blockchain to prove your good faith.

In computer art and digital culture a monochrome bitmap is the simplest representation of a discrete image. In blockchain-based systems a “proof of work” is a time-consuming computational puzzle that is impossible to cheat on but simple to check the result of. The result of solving that puzzle in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Proof of Work Bitmap, is a 256-bit number with a specific number of zeros at the end. This is the same size as a 16x16 bitmap and as a memory cell in Ethereum. There’s a resonance here, as there is in each piece in the series.

Token Grid

Sun, 05 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Token Grid, 2019, Ethereum DApp

The grid is a Modernist icon and the underlying organizational form of many aspects of our daily lives. Whether a North American city street plan, a power grid, the face of Internaional Style-architecture, page layout in print or onscreen or the pixels of that screen, grids pervasively organize our activities and experiences.

This one exists on the Ethereum blockchain with a graphical user interface accessible via the world wide web. In contrast to the fixed grids of city streets and architectural structures, anyone can change it but only if they are willing to procure and then burn one of the grid smart contract’s ERC-20 digital tokens in order to do so.

Local Maxima

Sun, 21 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

(Local Maxima: SLFT2, Square, 2019)

Local Maxima, 2019, GAN-generated images and giclee prints

In classical AI research, a “local maximum” is a solution to a problem that cannot in itself be improved but that is not the best possible solution. Where a singular mathematical specification of a problem is possible, local maxima can be avoided using search strategies other than simple “hill climbing”. Art does not have such a specification, its search space consists entirely of local maxima.

Tokens Equal Text

Tue, 19 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Tokens Equal Text, 2019, Ethereum ERC-998 and ERC-721 tokens

“Tokens Equal Text” consists of an edition of 32 Ethereum ERC-998 composable tokens each of which owns four child ERC-721 non-fungible tokens. The ERC-721 tokens have short descriptive texts encoded as their ID numbers. This makes the ERC-998 tokens compositions of those text fragments. The content of that composition can be decrypted if the viewer knows that the token IDs can be misread as text rather than numbers.

Secret Artwork

Tue, 18 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Secret Artwork, 2018, Ethereum ERC721 Token DApp

In Secret Artwork, an Ethereum contract stores the cryptographic hash (salted sha256) of the content (or subject, or…) of an artwork, a unique but meaningless numeric identifier. This proves that the artwork exists (to the extent it can be cryptographically verified) but offers no clue as to the content.

The artwork is “ownable” as an Ethereum ERC721 token, tying the uniqueness and identifiability of the content to a unique (quasi-)property relationship. But the owner knows no more about the content of the artwork than the general public. They own something unknowable, or that which cannot be fully owned.

SchellingFlags

Mon, 03 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

SchellingFlags, 2018, Ethereum DApp

“SchellingFlags” is a blockchain-based system for establishing the aesthetics and allegiances of flags in a decentralised way.

Flags are an intersection and encryption of the political and the aesthetic, an assertion of identity and allegiance. They have proliferated off-chain for social phenomena such as nation states and genders.

Focal points, also known as “Schelling points”, are a perceptual phenomenon in game theory. They are values or strategies that people will use because they seem obvious or attractive in a given context.

DemoDay

Mon, 18 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

DEMODAY, 2017, CounterParty Token

DEMODAY is the first art show-specific crypto token.

It has been created for the show “Demo Day” at Kunstraum LLC, Brooklyn, from September 24 - October 28 2017. See here for details

https://www.kunstraumllc.com/single-post/2017/09/13/DEMO-DAY

Lottery Symbol

Tue, 08 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Lottery Symbol, 2017, Ethereum DApp

A graphical symbol on the blockchain, chosen from options submitted via Ethereum transactions in a simple lottery.

The lottery uses the blockchain itself as a source of entropy, which is known to be insecure but this is just a symbol rather than millions of dollars.

This is a piece in a series of works that pair methods of allocation with aesthetic properties. It follows on from Democratic Palette.

Simple Blockchain Art Diagram

Tue, 26 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Simple Blockchain Art Diagram, 2016, digital media (After MTAA ca. 1997)

Adapted From

http://www.mtaa.net/mtaaRR/off-line_art/snad.html

Licensed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (after the original).

Blockchain Hashes (simple-net-art-diagram.gif)

Note that these are for the unmodified version (which was also included in Rhizome’s net.art anthology book “The Art Happens Here”).

Proof Of Existence (422422)

https://blockchain.info/address/1KEToGLEoU9riqp3uh91Btii1VC9kevJ38

https://blockchain.info/tx/730b1015d7f849bd134498d41d9decc49bed77a2ffb127aeafb4e7fb0664d177

Bitsig (422423)

https://blockchain.info/address/12vAC7Wsrhgt248MifRbPBxeLZKDDy6vBc

Democratic Palette

Mon, 11 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Democratic Palette, 2016, Ethereum DApp

A palette of twelve colours that anyone can set on the Ethereum blockchain by sending a voting transaction.

Every vote for every colour is tracked and the top twelve make up the palette. The only cost of voting is “gas” paid for using Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency, Ether.

Participatory, decentralized art and aesthetics interacts with barriers to participation and the ability to buy democracy.

Blank Canvas

Mon, 04 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Blank Canvas, 2016, Ethereum DApp

A blank canvas that anyone can set the colour of on the Ethereum blockchain.

The images above show use of the GUI to change the colour (the GUI appears if you click in the window displaying the canvas).

1FLAMEN6

Sat, 07 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Puzzle design support for the painting “TORCHED H34R7S” by @coin_artist, 2015, Bitcoin private key encoding

@coin_artist specified the technical requirements for a puzzle containing a Bitcoin reward, and we discussed how to make it slightly harder for this particular work in her series “The Legend of Satoshi Nakamoto”.

Once we hit on a scheme that we both liked, I provided a verbal description of coloured flames representing six-bit chunks of the private key for a Bitcoin address starting “1FLAMEN6”. @coin_artist painted them around the edge of the painting “TORCHED H34R7S”. We checked them very thoroughly, and then @coin_artist put a high-resolution scan of the painting online for her audience of crypto puzzle trail solvers.

Exploring Art Data

Sun, 11 Jan 2015 01:31:23 +0000

Exploring Art Data was a series of Digital Art History (Art History Computing) blog posts from 2010-2012.

In them I examined datasets from a number of sources describing museum collections, artistic careers, government policy, and artworks themselves, mostly using the R programming language.

It led to the creation of the R Cultural Analytics library.

The Articles

/2012/05/21/exploring_art_data_24/

/2011/10/16/exploring_art_data_23/

/2011/10/15/exploring_art_data_22/

/2011/10/08/exploring_art_data_21/

/2011/10/02/exploring_art_data_20/

[18 and 19 were not published]

/2011/02/10/exploring_art_data_17/

/2011/01/30/exploring_art_data_16/

/2011/01/26/exploring_art_data_15/

Artbollocks Mode

Sat, 10 Jan 2015 23:56:14 +0000

artbollocks-mode, 2011, Emacs Lisp code.

“Art Bollocks” is a better and older name than “International Art English” for the opaque and otiose Artspeak used in press releases, in journals and on blogs. I wrote artbollocks-mode, or AB as it discreetly identifies itself on the Emacs status line, to help art writers avoid it, starting with myself. As the above example shows, nobody’s perfect.

I recommend Sacha Chua’s improved version of AB , see here: https://github.com/sachac/artbollocks-mode

Contemporary Art Daily Data Analysis

Sat, 10 Jan 2015 22:57:35 +0000

Contemporary Art Daily Data Analysis, 2014, R code.

Contemporary Art Daily (CAD) is a leading contemporary art blog that publishes documentation for selected shows of contemporary art. It was started in 2008 by then art student Forrest Nash, who describes the site as follows:

Contemporary Art Daily is a website that publishes documentation of at least one contemporary art exhibition every day. We have an international purview, and we work hard to get especially high-quality documentation of the shows we publish.

Since 2008 CAD has published the details of more than 1800 shows including descriptive text, images of works included, and lists of artists involved in each show.

Tate Data Visualization

Sat, 10 Jan 2015 22:51:05 +0000

Exploring Tate Art Open Data, 2014, JavaScript and R code.

Why visualise the Tate’s collection dataset?

The Tate is the UK’s largest art institution. The free and open release of Tate’s collection data shows just how far open data has come in the last decade, and makes a major resource available for study. This resource allows us to follow two lines of investigation.

The first is into the history of art, using the Tate’s collection as a model of art in general, particularly of British art. The Tate’s collection data describes the form, content, attribution and dates of a sample of art from the past several hundred years. This is a history of art, and as long as we place it in its historical context it can be a useful one.

Glitcherature

Sat, 10 Jan 2015 21:56:44 +0000

glitcherature-mode, 2014, Emacs Lisp code.

Glitcherature is glitch literature, glitch aesthetics applied to text. “Kathy Acker uploaded by Bryce Lynch”, as I said of Orphan Drift’s novel “Cyberpositive”.

I’ve converted my earlier glitcherature Python code experiments to a mode for the powerful and easily hackable Emacs text editor.

Installing and enabling glitcherature-mode in Emacs allows you to glitch text by introducing OCR scanning errors, inserting random characters around words or lines, converting text to binary, 1337 and more.

Drone Strike

Sat, 10 Jan 2015 00:51:32 +0000

Surgical Strike Free Software, 2008/2014, C++ software.

The original Surgical Strike (1996) was created to collide the cultures of idealistic mid-1990s arts computing and of politically obsessive mid-1990s art criticism by collapsing the history and aesthetics of military, corporate and arts computing. The title is a piece of military jargon that served to illustrate the idea of a gap between depiction and reality. But the gap that it indicated was in the target cultures, not (necessarily) between the ideals and reality of militarism.

Streaming Aesthetics

Sat, 10 Jan 2015 00:23:25 +0000

Art Is (Word Cloud), 2014, Processing code.

Images of successive word clouds of counts of artistic terms on Twitter. Via the Straming API, in Processing.

The counts update every five seconds and a new word cloud is generated, the drawing of which is animated.

Due to the way the wordcloud algorithm works, successive compositions can be very different even for only small increases in keyword counts.

Aesthetics (Word Cloud), 2014, Processing code.

Blockchain Aesthetics

Fri, 09 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Blockchain Aesthetics, 2014-2015, HTML5 and JavaScript

Visualizing Bitcoin (and other blockchain) transaction hashes and block hashes as the content of modernist and postmodernist aesthetics.

What was a trickle is now a flood. The amount of information that blockchains process is incredible, each transaction representing some (ultimately) human-initiated action with meaning we can often only guess at. The volume and rhythms of these transactions contrasts with the slower and ultimately more regular procession of the blocks they are gathered in to.

Dogecode

Fri, 09 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Dogecode, 2014, Python code and Dogeparty tokens Cryptographic asset tokens can represent all kinds of things.

Including computer programs.

Dogecode takes computer programs in the Brainfuck programming language (chosen for simplicity of encoding):

++++++++[>++++[>++>+++>+++>+<<<<-]>+>+>->>+[<]<-]>>.>---.+++++++..+++.>>.<-.<.+++.------.--------.>>+.>++.

and translates them into a csv file of token amounts using dcc:

INCB,8
JFOR,1
INCP,1
INCB,4
JFOR,1
INCP,1
INCB,2
INCP,1
INCB,3
INCP,1
...

which are then sent to a Dogeparty address (slowly) as a series of token transfer transactions using dcsend:

Proof of Existence

Fri, 09 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Proof Of Existence 2, 2014, Bitcoin Transaction

I have placed the hash of “God” into the Bitcoin Blockchain:

SHA256: ebc3e2e6448f94af7b58e57658336a44d3ff44eafadb54e4c4cd71ba7e607594

Address: 163NUfEg61eJeNiQ9SyN6EDT1ynkzDL2ar

This proves that God exists, at least since block 287497 at around 4.35am on 2014-02-24.

Proof Of Existence, 2014, Bitcoin Transaction

I have placed the hash of my genome into the Bitcoin Blockchain:

SHA256:bada4cf5328394f733cd278c33509e79b839cc0b0838658503b116d6ca9ca14b

Address:1KXH7jSTwLi9FLo6MpNUPnHGvEETfuaKhz

This proves my existence, at least since block 286917 at around 18:45 on 2014-02-20.

Critical Coins

Wed, 07 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

(Illustration from: http://ofdoge.wordpress.com/2013/12/05/art-doge/, copyright the artist.)

Critical Coins, 2015, Counterparty Dogeparty Tokens.

To make the process of art reviews and criticism more transparent and quantifiable, we can use cryptographic asset tokens to represent critical opinion and valences.

Critical Approval

Here’s a token of simple, uninflected critical approval:

CRITIQUE

Positive and Negative Critique

Positive-only measures can distort valences. Having tokens both for approval and disapproval addresses this:

Art Coins (Coloured)

Mon, 05 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Version Two

Art Coins (Coloured), 2017, Counterparty tokens

Art Coin White (https://xchain.io/asset/WHITEARTCOIN)

An eternal changeless epitome of art, totally contemporary, now and forever.

Art Coin Blue (https://xchain.io/asset/BLUEARTCOIN)

A perfect investment vehicle and the symbolic resolution of the contradictions and aporias of management and capital made of the finest materials and the basest aesthetics.

Art Coin Red (https://xchain.io/asset/REDARTCOIN)

A multitcultural art from China, India and the Middle East. A challenge to received wisdom and logistics for an international audience and trade network rendering the specific and local exchangeable and valorizabled culturally and economically.

My Soul

Sun, 16 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

MYSOUL, 2014, Counterparty and Dogeparty assets

I have placed my soul on the blockchain, representing it as a cryptographic asset token.

The MYSOUL token is on the Dogecoin blockchain as a Dogeparty asset (Note: as of 2017 dogepartychain is offline, don’t follow the link!):

http://dogepartychain.info/asset/MYSOUL

I’ve divided it up into 100 units. This is more efficient that having a single token to represent the soul and transferring it to a single owner, as competition within the market will both reduce costs and allocate this resource more efficiently than a monopoly could.

Art Is

Wed, 23 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

“Art Is”, 2014/2017, DApp

People have argued about the definition of art for millennia.

We finally have the techonomic means to settle this argument.

In “Art Is”, people can use the Ethereum network to pay to define art at a price equal to the strength of their certainty in the correctness of their definition. The results are an economically rational definition of art, far stronger than discourse paid for by third party cultural institutions.

Is Art

Tue, 22 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Is Art, 2014/2015, Ethereum DApp

“Is Art” is an Ethereum contract that can be instructed to nominate itself as art (or not). Whoever toggles the contract’s state as art sets it unimpeded until the next person sends a transaction to change it. A more rational system should be used - bidding, voting, a prediction market. The Duchampian aesthetic transubstantiation of artistic nomination is long played out. It is an art historical found object, as basic as a contract with a single bit of state. Brought together, the art historical and the contemporarily technological (or their audiences) can mutually animate and interrogate each other.

Hot Cold

Mon, 02 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Hot Cold, 2014/2016, Ethereum DApp

Initially deployed for “Artworld Ethereum” in 2014.

“Hot Cold” calls back to Art & Language’s 1960s Conceptual Art involving abstract aesthetic properties. It looks (and is implemented to be) twice as complex as “Is Art”, but it’s still really only one bit of information.

Monkeycoin

Sun, 04 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Monkeycoin, 2014, HTML5 and JavaScript

Part of the Coins project.

Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin use a “proof of work” system to prevent abuse.

Literature and drama are proof of aesthetic work.

Monkeycoin uses attempting to write the complete works of Shakespeare as its proof of work. This is implemented by converting SHA-256 digests to ASCII and checking the results against the first few characters of the First Folio (after dedications and credits), which is is the start of “The Tempest”.

Facecoin

Sat, 18 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Facecoin Cash, 2020, HTML5 and JavaScript

Facecoin Cash is a new higher-resolution, lower pixel bit-depth advancement on the original Facecoin.

Facecoin is one of my most popular projects. It’s a good introduction to some of the technical and ideological ideas behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

This new and improved version produces larger, more defined images with clearer “face” identification. It has the same block size though.

The Colours In My Studio

Wed, 11 Dec 2013 01:08:22 +0000

The Colours In My Studio, 2009, Python and JavaScript code.

A simple “Internet Of Things” data visualisation of the play of light in my studio during the course of the day.

You can download the code (and see a live visualisation) here.

The Mona Lisa Of Disapproval

Tue, 10 Dec 2013 22:07:31 +0000

The Mona Lisa Of Disapproval, 2012, SVG images.

The Mona Lisa disapproves.

You can download the images here.

#arthistory

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 03:58:02 +0000

#arthistory (“hash art history”, or “art history hashtag”), 2013, 3D printable digital model.

For Charlotte Frost’s “Is Art History Too Bookish?” project.

Download the model from Gitorious.

Order a print from from Shapeways.

Read more about the project at hasharthistory.net.

Uploads

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 04:44:01 +0000

Uploads, 2012, software, Kinect, MindWave.

Uploads is a DIY Transhumanist system for creating low-resolution personality uploads using currently available consumer-level technology.

Created using C++, OpenFrameworks and Python on Trisquel GNU/Linux 5.

You can download the source files here.

Cyberpunk

Uploading human consciousness to a computer was a common trope of Cyberpunk literature. Pat Cadigan’s “Synners”, the TV series “Max Headroom”, the movie “The Lawnmower Man”, and William Gibson’s short story “The Winter Market” all feature uploads. But there is a more serious side to uploading, exemplified by Hans Moravec’s book “Mind Children”.

Psychogeodata

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Psychogeodata, 2011, Python code.

Psychogeography is a set of techniques for defamiliarizing the landscape, particularly the urban landscape. It is a way of resisting and critiquing the historically, culturally and politically imposed reality of the built environment.

The town and tube maps used by previous psychogeographers have been replaced in modern experiences of the landscape by Geodata, a mesh of points joined by the lines of streets and accompanied by tagged information describing them for human and machine use. Combining Psychogeography and Geodata gives us Psychogeodata.

Baldessarinator

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

[Original image by Tommerton2010 CC-BY]

Baldessarinator, 2011, Python script.

A script in the Python programming language that modifies images to make them resemble part of an ouvre.

You can download the code here.

Shareable Readymades

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

#arthistory, 2013, 3D printable digital model by Rhea Myers, commissioned by Dr. Charlotte Frost.

A physical Twitter hashtag for art historians to use in meatspace.

Pipe, 2012, 3D printable digital model by Christine Webber commissioned by Rhea Myers.

This is not a pipe, it’s a 3D printable model of a pipe.

Random Aesthetics Microbloggers

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Random Aesthetics Microbloggers, 2009, Common Lisp code (later Python code, then JavaScript code).

Microblog bots that place aesthetics in the social graph as peers.

Colour (and on Twitter) The Random Colour Microblogger generates and posts random colour descriptions such as: very light moderately saturated orangish red medium very pale purplish blue dark greyish red medium moderately saturated bluish purple rough dark vivid orange

Form (and on Twitter) The Random Form Microblogger generates and posts random form descriptions such as: A grunge shocking blobby structure. A short bumpy streamlined shocking triangular figure. A romantic organic construction. A low wobbly rectilinear wicker toroidal composition. A large surreal blocky construction.

The Cybernetic Artworld

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The Cybernetic Artworld, 2009, Common Lisp code, later Python code, then node.js code.

A micro-artworld that is a simple and almost entirely incorrect model of the real one. You can get the original Common Lisp source code here, the Python version here, or the node.js version (in progress) here.

The artist writes microblog posts describing possible artworks. They can be found on GNU social and on Twitter.

The critic reads those posts and critiques them, offering an opinion on their worth. They also explain how their aesthetics change over time. They’ll be back soon.

The Order Of Things

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

The Order Of Things, 2007, Processing code.

Processing versions of earlier C and PostScript image generators from 1996 inspired by the yBAs and their European precedents.

You can get the code here.

CC Ironies

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

CC Ironies, 2007, digital vector images.

You can download the image files here.

The images in this series are under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licence.

Canto

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Canto, 2007, digital vector images.

Remixed from an image by Tom Chance.

Created using Inkscape on Debian on an iBook G4.

You can download the source files here.

Paintr

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Original image by jessjamesjake.

Paintr, 2005/2013, PHP code (later Lisp code) reimplemented in node.js .

A model of of almost precisely how artistic inspiration doesn’t work, in the cloud.

Click here to see it in action.

The rebooted version of paintr generates an image every few hours during the day. It was adapted to node.js

You can get the code here.

The original version paintr generated an image a day. It was written in PHP then reimplemented in Lisp.

Pure Aesthetic

Sat, 01 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Pure Aesthetic, 2005, diamond dust, glass and plastic.

Diamond dust looks pretty on screenprints but it’s really just an industrial cleaner. The blasphemous transubstantiations of modern and post-modern art make it a signifier of pure aesthetic value. Sprinkle it liberally on inaesthetic objects to transform their artistic worth*.

Actually probably don’t, as diamond dust can hurt your eyes, lungs, and skin, and have other harmful effects.

You can download the image files here.

1969

Mon, 02 Feb 2004 00:00:00 +0000

1969, 2004, digital vector images.

Remixed nuclear attack simulation diagrams.

Created using Inkscape on Debian on an iBook G4.

You can download the source files here.

1968

Sun, 01 Feb 2004 00:00:00 +0000

1968, 2004, digital vector images.

Recoloured nuclear attack simulations. The last one is a remix.

Created using Sodipodi and Inkscape on Debian on an iBook G4.

You can download the source files here.

The images in this series are under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licence.

Minara

Sat, 03 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

overview

Minara is free software, released under the GPL.

status

**current - **Minara development is on hiatus but will continue in August 2006 with preparation for release 0.1 .
**july 2006 - **Picking and dragging now work. Preparation for 0.1 will begin in August.
**june 2006 - **Picking now works. I just need to get the transform tracing working and dragging will work. Then it’s just bug fixes, packages and more demo tools (not a full bezier pen) to hit 0.1 in August!

draw-something

Fri, 02 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

draw-something, 2004-, Common Lisp code, JavaScript code.

draw-something is a generative drawing program inspired by Harold Cohen’s AARON. It is based on simple models of line drawing, figure creation, and colour choice.

draw-something was inspired by my desire to better appreciate and understand Harold Cohen’s AARON programme, which I had been aware of since childhood. There have been several versions, including the main program in Common Lisp and versions for the web and blockchain in JavaScript.

rheart

Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Installation And Use

You will need a Lisp compiler (I use SBCL and OpenMCL) and some ability with the command line. Get the current source from SourceForge CVS or the most recent release from SourceForge downloads. CVS is better.

To run draw-something:

cd rob-art/draw-something
sbcl
(load "load.lisp")
(run)

Project News

2007-10-04 draw-something has a new pen parameters system to vary drawing styles within the same drawing.

2006-09-19 A blog post about draw-something at Crystalpunk.

The Cybernetic Artwork Nobody Wrote

Sun, 02 Feb 2003 00:00:00 +0000

The Cybernetic Artwork Nobody Wrote, 2003, Flash.

You can download the source here.

Titled

Wed, 01 Jan 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Titled, 2003, digital bitmap images.

Hard edged abstraction meets JPEG noise to invoke something else.

Created using The Gimp on Debian on an iBook G4.

You can download the source files here.

The images in this series are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licence.

San Jose

Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 +0000

San Jose, 2000, digital vector images.

Created using Corel Draw! in MacOS on a blueberry iBook.

You can download the source files here.

The images in this series are under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licence.

Smileys

Wed, 01 Jan 1997 00:00:00 +0000

Smileys, 1997, digital bitmap images.

Relationships rendered in emoticons.

Created using Adobe Illustrator 5.5 and LetraStudio Envelopes in MacOS on a Power Macintosh 8200.

You can download the source files here.

The images in this series are under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licence.

Surgical Strike

Mon, 01 Jan 1996 00:00:00 +0000

Surgical Strike, 1996, digital bitmap images.

The history of computing collapsed into the history of computer art.

Created in custom C++ software using QuickDraw 3D written in Metrowerks CodeWarrior on a Power Macintosh 8200.

You can download the source files here.

Inbetween Cities

Sun, 01 Jan 1995 00:00:00 +0000

Inbetween Cities, 1995, digital vector images and digital bitmap images.

Looking out over the landscape as you travel through it at speed towards your destination.

Created in Adobe Dimensions 2.x and Adobe PhotoShop 3.x on a System 7.x Macintosh Performa.

The images in this series are under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 licence.

Blobs

Sun, 02 Jan 1994 00:00:00 +0000

Blobs, 1994, digital vector images.

The free play of forms increasingly inspired by love and desire. The imagery and colours draw on smileys/emoticons, on graphic design for popular music, and on confectionery wrappers.

Created in Corel Draw! 2 on (at best) 386 Windows 3.1 PCs, and Adobe Illustrator 5.5 with Letrastudio Envelopes on a System 7.x Macintosh Performa.

You can download the source files here.

Psychetecture

Sat, 01 Jan 1994 00:00:00 +0000

Psychetecture, 1994, digital vector images.

Based on drawings and photographs from the Bentall’s Centre in Kingston-Upon-Thames, a car park in Canterbury, and Canary Wharf in London. The title comes from the mood altering architecture of Dean Motter’s graphic novel “The Return Of Mister X”.

Created in Corel Draw! 2 on (at best) 386 Windows 3.1 PCs.

Postscript Viruses

Sat, 02 Jan 1993 00:00:00 +0000

PostScript Viruses, 1993, PostScript code.

An excercise in aesthetic intervention in networked society.

You can download the code here.

Mixes

Fri, 01 Jan 1993 00:00:00 +0000

Mixes, 1993, digital images.

These would be called Mashups now. They sample and combine what was then considered to be canonical contemporary art in order to create visual and conceptual relationships between the images, interrogating and critiquing them and making something new from their surplus value.

The images were created using morphing software on a DOS computer, photographed using an early Canon digital camera then printed using its accompanying printer.