VOLUTE

I began this project in autumn 2021, after completing the release of my previous project, “Nebula”, also for Art Blocks.

“Flowers”, my first project on the platform, was also my first creation in long form generative art, made possible by the new paradigm of Art Blocks. I wrote a very short but proficient algorithm that was capable of generating a collection of thousands of attractive still images, that remained coherent while having wide variety. I also had to familiarise myself with the appropriate coding and execution environment, with which I had little experience (p5js in web browsers).

“Nebula” led me into exploring animated and interactive generative art, while keeping the concept around drawing thousands of intersecting and over-layering curved shapes. I also learned better how to use the environment, coding with pure vanilla JS and html canvas functionalities.

Thanks to these two experiences on the platform, the creative process on VOLUTE was particularly exciting. I made the decision to “take back” concepts and code I had created earlier in my career, and to rewrite it for the new environment with even newer technology (webgl2). This process turned out to be visually very rewarding - inspiring me to further evolve the algorithms to fit the creative ethos and breadth of opportunity of Art Blocks.

There then begins a long and fun phase of discoveries and experiences - analysing and selecting which ranges of parameters are to keep, completing and adjusting colour palettes, and working on contrasts, structure and composition, until the vision finally comes to life.

After that, comes a phase that can only be described as labour-intensive - hours of detailed refining, generating hundreds of outputs, testing to ensure the code is working properly across platforms, bug hunting, verifying that outputs are perfectly identical on every configuration and resolution, and finally refactoring the code so it’s clean and compact, ready to be stored on the blockchain.

So I’m now proud and happy to deliver the VOLUTE project on Art Blocks and share these swirling images with appreciators of generative art.