2023 was a very busy year for me and my art. I did a ton in those 12 months! Reflecting on it now lets me realize: it was a year of building, of creating, and of positioning myself for continued exploration. I've organized this recap into two sections: Projects I Released in '23, and Projects in Production '23 (hopefully releasing in '24).
Projects I Released in '23
LIGHTS
Exploring 'burn to mint' mechanics, I made an open edition (Folded Hands) and released three limited edition artworks that cost one burned Folded Hands token. The best part: I can keep making new artworks, and appreciators can collect them for essentially free.
genPepes
Exploring live-code art websites, I made genPepes(.com / .nft) for fun. I wanted to celebrate the best qualities of the Pepe meme (as the artist intended), and show my support for their effort to keep the meme positive and good-natured.
Scratch
The third project in the Zenerative series of Zen-inspired generative art, Scratch is an homage to creative blue-collar workers. A small series of 64, it is also my first foray into plottable projects. It allows both plotting of the work via a pen plotter and etching of the design via CNC machine.
Proceeds from the mint went to buying a CNC machine kit, (I have to make a custom one), and the CNC machine is nearly complete! That machine, alongside my plotter that I won in Marfa, will allow me to create physicals of Scratch and other generative art projects.
CoinTokens
An experimental solidity contract, this is possibly the world's first truly liquid jpeg.
BLONKS "Shapeshifter" Upgrade
Shapeshifter is a new URI contract that allows me to add additional and fully on-chain/in-chain renderer/shapeshifter contracts (and more yet to be announced)... I launched it with three new, alternate renderers, bringing the total available to BLONKS owners to four: OG, DarkBLONKS, PepeBLONKS, and an all new ridiculous thing - BLOOPS. Takeaway: BLONKS continue to be the most dynamic and unique 100% on-chain PFP project in existence! (imo)
This upgrade will allow me to add new dynamic EVM renderers for owners to use, basically creating a unique, EVM platform for me to use - and I don't have to sell a single token to do it!
AnnoMetta
Continuing my exploration of live-code websites, I created a singular project that creates infinitely evolving and deterministic art, viewable/interact-able at AnnoMetta.com, and minted on a custom contract that allows various kinds of mints to coexist (onchain like annometta, and not).
Freestyle H-ai-ku
AI is fascinating, and I used it (am using it) to explore my own creative poetry. Instead of merely having an AI imagine what my poem looks like, I had AI interpret my poem, identify key themes and images, then craft instructions for other AIs to imagine an image. A back and forth collab between my poems, 4 different AIs, and me, Freestyle H-ai-ku is a unique project that immortalizes periods of time both in my life and in the development of AI systems. Also, because the poems are stored individually in a solidity-composable format, they're not only available to web apps but smart contracts as well...
Projects in Production '23
These projects have been made in '23 and are awaiting finalization and release in '24!
"Thread" (unreleased/unannounced)
This will be the fourth release in my "Zenerative" line of Zen-inspired generative art projects. It's a plottable SVG project created in vanilla JavaScript.
"Metta" (unreleased/unannounced)
An experimental project for an experimental platform, Metta will be a long-form generative art project that allows infinite remixing of traits to yield near-infinite artworks. The project is complete but the platform isn't ready to launch, yet. SOON(tm)
"EE" (unreleased/unannounced)
"EE" is not an art project, but is instead a 'primitive' that can enhance the UI/UX of all Ethereum apps and dApps.... Intrigued??? More detail to come, the web-designer is almost done with the beta site.
"VV" (unreleased/unannounced)
Sorry! I can't share any outputs yet... "VV" will be another "Zenerative" release. It'll be my first AV crypto project, exploring generative image and sound in JavaScript. This one is not quite final, and is still in production. My hope is to release it in '24 on a "premium" platform.
"MFA" Photography
I've been working on images for release on a custom smart contract: "MFA" (Matto's Fine Art). AnnoMetta (above) is minted there, but the contract will also include my original and experimental photography. I don't have any examples to show from it yet, but I've been shooting tests with models. Like most my art, this is very experimental, and it's not a simple process to create an image. I'm actually continuing experiments/studies that I began more than 20 years ago when I lived in NY... The series of art will be more varied than a typical project (those displayed on this page), but it will allow me to craft a story thread and theme through the various images.
100x10x1-A
Originally I hoped to launch this beast of a project in Spring '23 (mainnet contract was deployed in '22!), but I'm glad I waited and kept working on it. I've since made major renovations to the contracts and code, and it has improved significantly. This is an epic project that I hope to release verry sooooon. The infrastructure to support this entirely on-chain project is rather counterintuitively intense, but it's ok - it's almost complete. Once the system is ready for 100x10x1-A, it'll be ready for further experimentation with 100x10x1 compositions.
This is one of the only projects I have in production with publicly available links and info, testnet: https://www.substratum.art/project/100x10x1-a-goerli
'23 is a Wrap!
In case you lost count, I listed more than a dozen art projects that I released in '23 or that I worked on for release in '24. Most of them are 'foundational' in one way or another, core to my creative exploration of key themes and ideas.
I'm all fired up to have an epic '24, and man do I have work to do. Later! 👋
