MATERIALS OF ABUNDANCE ꜩ

Does meaning inhere in raw materials?

In summer 2024, I worked with Ernesto Asch on RAW MATERIALS. The challenge was to use the artist as a source of data for new visuals. I extracted the millions of pixels from his works, and rendered new, curious forms. Artists into their raw materials. Mind pixels.

ZeroContract presents a new challenge with its inaugural "Abundance" series. There were 28 contributions from distinct artists. I extracted their millions of pixels, and fused them in pairs into 14 new forms. I chose forms expressing the idea of abundance. Using the pixels of each pair of pieces, I reconstituted images of the awe-inspiring abundance of nature, industry, and the sometimes maladaptive consequences of their combination.

Does meaning inhere in raw materials? I tried to stay true to the original works, fusing them meaningfully under the selected images. This was challenging sometimes. Artists in "Abundance" sometimes used strikingly simple palettes, other times more opulent and complex. When fusing them, I tried to use these differences as a resource, sometimes in coherence, sometimes as contrast. Some reconstitutions have insufficient raw material, they have bands of color that can indicate absence -- or saturation. I hope you find them intriguing or even beautiful.

The pieces below are ordered from nature to industry to psychology. Almost like a natural evolution of a mass universe whose abundance cannot be fully fathomed but sometimes felt.

Notes

Reconstituted base images from Library of Congress 'free to use' and Wikimedia's public domain images. I do not link to them. The viewer can interpret the reconstituted images through their own lens. Each piece is a 1,000 x 1,000 JPG. The JPG has the form of these public domain images of 'abundance,' but their pixels derive from the pixels of two "Abundance" pieces. All pieces are encoded entirely on-chain on Tezos with the amazing Zero Unbound project.

• Format: 1,000² JPGs encoded on-chain on Tezos wth Zero Unbound.
• Editions: Each piece has 28 editions available on objkt.com.
• Distribution: As a token of appreciation for helping this project and also for their contributions to the kind collective experience with the Zero Contract community, a full set will be shared with jams2blues, Jestem Zero and Ernesto Asch. The remaining 25 sets will be listed for sale on objkt.com. Proceeds will be split between Takens Theorem and the artists whose pixels ("raw materials") are the basis of each piece.
• License: CC0 1.0

Aritsts in the original Abundance collection: 0xEdwoods, 369, aria ☰ ~, ate8a, AUSTIN, bimo arts, Dither, Ernesto ASCH, fabianospeziari, fragmenꜩ, GreenGinger, jams2blues, JestemZero, Kyle Flemmer, Let's Not Know Us, LFG, Malicious Sheep, my 3y3 👁️👁️ , neuromancer, Oblivion Fields, oddlavox, OFF, PaxRomanArt, scottx, skulltakes, Stalomir, Tornado Rodriguez, tz1ccube