An Intro To Generative NFT Art
Generative art created by a synthesis of humans and code is blowing up right now. So what exactly is it?
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Intro
What is generative art? In short, generative art is digital art that, instead of being manually created by a human, is automatically generated by code.
The popularity of generative art in the crypto space has grown considerably recently, but generative art has played a role in the space since the beginning, people were just not always necessarily aware that the art they were buying on sites like SuperRare was created in this manner.
History of Generative Art
Generative art in its current form dates back to the 1960s and 1970s when artists began experimenting with giving computers some autonomy over what the end result is, and it’s growth has been symbolic of the growth of the role computers have played in much of modern art.
Artists like Lillian Schwartz pioneered techniques for the wave of generative artists that followed in the 1990s
A still frame from “Olympiad” by Lillian Schwartz
In the 1990s computer programs like “Design by Numbers and Processing” came to market, allowing anyone with a computer to start making generative art.
Flash forward to 2014, and “GANs” allowed generative art to take another step. Generative Adversarial Networks are a function of AI that tries to think like a human brain and has created pieces comparable to human made works.
CryptoPunks
CryptoPunks, along with being the first notable NFT project on Ethereum, are also the first known intersection of generative art and blockchains. Cryptopunks creators, Larva Labs, set a variable amount of features that could then be randomly adjusted to make each punk unique. So for example, one punk might have the same face as another, but they both have different hair. And there are 10,000 iterations of this using features like glasses, clothes, etc…
The “Covid Alien” Cryptopunk that sold for $11.7M USD this year at Sotheby’s auction
Since cryptopunks, there have been several generative collectable series that have had success, such as CryptoKitties, Autoglyphs, Hashmasks and more.
ArtBlocks
Art Blocks was created in late 2020 by Snowfro, someone who is a core member of the cryptopunks community, and has gained popularity incredibly quickly.
Snowfro is also the creator of Chromie Squiggles, a now very popular generative art series that was also the first series to launch on ArtBlocks.
One of several variations of Snowfros’ “Chromie Squiggles”
ArtBlocks allows generative artists a place to display and mint their work, with Open Sea operating as the backend for actual transactions.
On ArtBlocks you do not get to choose which iteration of the series you want. Collectors just select to mint a piece at the same price for every iteration of the series and are given a piece randomly depending on whatever is generated in that moment. This ensures the NFT equivalent of a “fair launch”, where those with the most capital do not just get to buy up all the best iterations and speculate on them for months.
The Evolution of Generative Media
On May 14 of this year, generative artist “IX Shells” sold her piece “Dreaming at Dusk” for 500 ETH, or just over $2M USD to the digital art collectors group PleasrDAO. The artwork proceeds went to the Tor Project to celebrate their 15th anniversary of the Tor browser.
“Dreaming at Dusk” By IX_Shells sold for 500 ETH
This is a huge step for generative art as IX Shells has said herself that she never really thought she’d make money with her hobby and definitely never imagined any amounts like this.
As digital media permeates the world, the possibilities for what can be created with generative art will grow exponentially. Personally, I believe some of the greatest works of this generation will be assisted by computers to make works unimaginable by only a human.
Generative art will also play a role in creating artifacts of internet history. Whereas simply copy & pasting the code from a historic web application could be cool a couple times, it would get old quickly. That’s why taking that data and turning it into visual art is a great way to make each piece unique.
⚠️ DISCLAIMER: Investing into NFTs comes with inherent risk including technical risk, human error, platform failure and more. At certain points throughout this post, we might get commission for promoting certain projects, if this is the case we will always make sure it is clear. We are strictly an educational content platform, nothing we offer is financial advice. We are not professionals or licensed advisors.
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