The combination of computer and art: What is generative art brought by CryptoPunks?

This article was published on Babbit Information, with the original title: 《NFT Knowledge | A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding the Past, Present, and Future of Generative Art (Media)》，Authors: Derek Edward Schloss and Stephen McKeon, Translated by: Captain Hiro

In many ways, generative art is part of a larger trend related to digital art, NFTs, and digital property. Generative art is a category of digital art where artists intentionally introduce elements of randomness into the creative process using computers, resulting in both expected and unexpected outcomes. In this article, we will take you through the past, present, and future of the generative art movement.

The History of Generative Art

In the early 1950s, the pioneer of generative art, Herbert Franke, conducted unique photographic experiments in his laboratory, exploring the combination of light, motion, and randomness. In "9 analogue graphics (1956/1957)," Franke generated images on an oscilloscope using a friend's computer and then captured the images with a moving camera with an open aperture.

Franke's photographic results were fascinating.

Later, one of the first artists to use computers in art, Vera Molnár, began to explore the theme of "disorder," often studying variations of geometric shapes and lines. Her works were generated using early programming languages Fortran and BASIC and were often displayed on original print paper. She even chose to include the perforated edges of each page in her creations.

With the proliferation of computers in the 1960s, more artists began experimenting at the intersection of computer science and art, creating generative works with curved lines. New programming languages allowed artists to push digital boundaries in interesting ways and redefine how computers processed ordered inputs into unique outputs.

Human-designed computer algorithms were at the core of mathematician Frieder Nake's work.

Nake found inspiration in a painting by the famous German artist Paul Klee from decades ago and generated a new work, "Hommage à Paul Klee (1965)," by exploring the algorithms of the proportions and relationships between Klee's vertical and horizontal lines. After Nake set a predefined set of variables, the computer was given the ability to make its own design decisions.

These three artists utilized various forms of controlled randomness in their creative processes, helping to establish the foundation of the modern generative art movement.

Years later, Larva Labs and Art Blocks did the same.

Blockchain-Based Generative Art

Over the past 50 years, artistic expression has increasingly been influenced by technological cultural trends. As human digital experiences have become richer, they have also impacted artists' creations.

While the influence of digital artworks is undoubtedly growing, many creators of digital art do not have the same profit potential as creators of physical works. Throughout history, the material scarcity brought by specific items has reflected the value of creative works.

In the past decade, blockchain has changed the game for immutable digital files. The success of Bitcoin demonstrated that digital scarcity is also achievable in the realm of currency. Ethereum expanded the concept of digital scarcity beyond commodity currency, allowing any digital asset (3D objects, music, files, gifs, emojis) to be tied to a unique "non-fungible" token (NFT). With NFTs, creative digital works can enjoy verifiable scarcity for the first time, enabling artists to provide authenticity and marketability to downstream collectors of digital creations.

The migration of generative art to the blockchain was only a matter of time, and that moment finally arrived with the emergence of CryptoPunks.

The Emergence of CryptoPunk

In 2017, a design studio called Larva Labs, formed by just two developers, launched a digital art experiment on the Ethereum blockchain. The project paid homage to the punk art of early 1970s London and presented 10,000 unique, randomly generated, 24 × 24 pixel art images of humans, zombies, apes, and aliens. The complete set of art images originated from an algorithm by Larva Labs that mixed traits such as species, hairstyles, and accessories, creating a random visual output combination.

Generative art had arrived on Ethereum.

Larva Lab's CryptoPunks

As the first historically significant non-fungible token project launched on the blockchain, the value of these pixelated punk characters has skyrocketed in recent months. In March 2021, two of the nine existing CryptoPunk "aliens" were purchased for 4,200 ETH (7.5 million USD).

In the summer of 2017, anyone with an Ethereum wallet could claim these tokenized digital characters for free on the Larva Labs platform, only needing to pay a few cents in Ethereum transaction fees. CryptoPunks emerged as a bridge between generative art, collectibles, and technological achievements, possessing three unique characteristics compared to generative works created decades ago:

Each CryptoPunk is (i) verifiably unique, (ii) self-custodial in an Ethereum wallet, and (iii) tradable on the Larva Labs marketplace.

By utilizing the Ethereum blockchain as a recording format, CryptoPunks forever changed the landscape of generative media. Inspired by CryptoPunks, the Ethereum community created a standard for non-fungible tokens called ERC-721. While CryptoPunks primarily traded on the Larva Labs platform, future NFTs using the new standard will enjoy the benefits of composability.

The Origin of Art Blocks

Generative artist and technologist Snowfro, born in Mexico City, participated in the initial CyberPunk claim event in 2017. Today, he owns over 60 CyberPunks, including 7 zombies, 2 apes, and one of the 9 aliens, along with partial ownership of some of the rarest CyberPunk characters. He is also one of the few designated CryptoPunks moderators appointed by Larva Labs, known in the crypto community for his zombie avatar.

Players like Snowfro are rare, and even fewer share their technical expertise and appreciation for generative art. After the release of CryptoPunks, several questions popped into Snowfro's green zombie head:

Could there be a complete set of generative art, where the artist's algorithm and each unique output are 100% completed on-chain? Is it possible for a blockchain to be used as the artist's creative process rather than just a digital record?

In November 2020, Snowfro launched Art Blocks, the first on-demand, on-chain generative media marketplace on the internet. During the release of CryptoPunks and Art Blocks, pioneering on-chain art projects like Autoglyphs demonstrated that artists could store more art "on-chain," validating Snowfro's long-standing advocacy for the design decisions that ensure the persistence of NFT generative art platforms.

To fund early development work, Snowfro sold 15 of his most cherished CryptoPunk zombies. He also launched Chromie Squiggles, a generative project he had been working on for years, which became the first generative art project listed on Art Blocks (Art Block Project #0).

In each unique Squiggle, hexadecimal pairs in the hash control the starting color, the rate of gradient change, the number of points, and some surprising features, making some Chromie Squiggles rarer than others (e.g., "super" Squiggles). When it comes to generative art, these "controllable" hexadecimal pairs are referred to as parameters.

As the first on-chain generative art project on Art Blocks, Snowfro's Chromie Squiggles often complete transactions at high values. Initially, the minting price for Chromie Squiggles was only 0.035 ETH (70 USD). Today, the floor price for standard Squiggles on the secondary market is 0.55 ETH (1,200 USD), and rare "super" Squiggles have reached trading prices of up to 45 ETH (97,000 USD) just six months after their launch.

Soon, Chromie Squiggles and Art Blocks began to gain popularity.

In just six months, Art Blocks' works generated 15 million USD in trading volume on the secondary market, with nearly 4,000 unique art collectors on the platform.

Today, Art Block collectors can browse a variety of different generative art projects, although new works from popular artists often sell out quickly. When buyers identify a collection they like, they pay to mint a unique piece, much like a vending machine that dispenses unique artworks. However, you don't know what the machine will spit out when you press the button. Artists and collectors are captivated as they watch the minting display process.

After paying the minting fee, collectors receive generative media in their wallets, which is unique (1), while also being part of a larger collection: x out of 1.

Unique outputs can be on-chain images (Cherniak's Ringers), on-chain interactive 3D models (ge1doot's Ignition), or even the first on-chain generative music project (Zeblock's Unigrid).

Thus, the types of on-chain generative media that can be minted on Art Blocks are limited only by the artist's imagination, the unique scripts they create, and the total minting amount allowed by each artist.

Like CryptoPunks, the demand for each unique generative work (and the entire collection) is driven by the artist, aesthetics, perspective, the rarity of the traits presented in the work, and the total number of mints that may exist.

For example, a popular Art Block project, Cherniak's Ringers, has generated over 1,800 ETH in secondary sales. As of the writing of this article, the expected annual royalties from Ringers' secondary sales are projected to exceed 2 million USD, which will be distributed to the artist, OpenSea marketplace, and Art Blocks platform.

The Future of Generative Media

The Art Blocks platform has three key features pointing to the future development of generative media:

1. Co-creation: Artists set parameters, and collectors randomly trigger each minting process, creating a new vector for collectors to participate in the artist's creative process. Unique generative media is tailored for community formation.

2. On-chain: A significant challenge inherent in many NFTs is that tokens point to off-chain files. If the off-chain file disappears, that NFT asset is essentially an empty shell. Since the advent of CryptoPunks, on-chain art projects like Autoglyphs and Avastars have demonstrated that more art can be stored on-chain. Similarly, the scripts of generative Art Blocks and each generated non-fungible token are placed on Ethereum. This allows the media to enjoy similar security assurances as other assets on the Ethereum blockchain.

3. Playground: Art Blocks has evolved into a playground where generative artists from around the world can now launch complex, on-chain generative media projects, whether static, dynamic, 3D, interactive, audio, or any combination thereof.

We believe that these three fundamental elements empowered by Art Blocks will bring fascinating second-order effects to the art world and generate generative media creation on a broader level:

Co-creation -> Community Formation

The success of most cryptocurrencies boils down to community, and the co-creation process encourages immediate community formation around each project.

While the rarity of a limited edition artwork signifies immense value, the strong CryptoPunks community proves that a unique version of a single work can synthesize different types of collective value.

Platforms like Async Art allow multiple owners to possess unique layers of a single work, which can generate interesting community dynamics around that single piece. Similarly, Art Blocks enables collectors to create hundreds of unique versions from a single artistic theme, allowing artists to leverage new community formation as part of the creative process.

Squiggle DAO is a great example; it is a community-led project and decentralized art house powered by hundreds of Chromie Squiggle owners. Squiggle DAO serves as an on-chain generative art education hub, a financier of on-chain generative art, and a gathering place for new generative artists. We hope to see stronger communities forming around generative media works in the future.

On-chain -> Composability Finance

The digital composition of CryptoPunks predates the ERC-721 standard, which limited the project's ability to be widely used in Ethereum's minimal trust financial stack. In contrast, most Art Block projects, like Chromie Squiggles, enjoy complete composability. Additionally, many artists' scripts are on-chain, ensuring the project's persistence. Generative outputs can also be inserted into DeFi tracks and applications, adding an interesting financial layer that generative artists and collectors have not been able to achieve for the past 50 years.

For example, anyone around the world can quickly use their Art Blocks as collateral to obtain loans in Ethereum's leading NFTfi lending market. Furthermore, with just a few clicks, any collector can bid on or purchase Art Blocks' works on secondary markets like OpenSea or Rarible.

In the coming decades, we also hope that early projects like CryptoPunks, Autoglyphs, and Chromie Squiggles will play an important role as a new type of value storage asset, similar to what we see today in the high-end physical art market.

Playground -> On-chain Creation Projects

For Art Blocks, any artist can use previously generated outputs to build blocks, creating new projects in a completely trustless manner. The on-chain data present in each Art Block output will unlock future usability and interact with metaverse projects like CryptoVoxels, AI-driven NFT projects like Alethea, or simply serve as access keys for new artists.

Artist Xenoliss recently launched an Art Block project featuring 2,000 unique planets, each with infinite variations in terrain, shape, and ecosystems that collectors can generate. After completing all 2,000 pieces, each independently owned planet will be used to construct an interactive solar system. Building on this, Xenoliss will launch a second space-themed generative art project, which can also interact with assets generated in the first project.

Such projects hint at the potential for further interaction between generative media and gaming environments. Perhaps generative items within games will soon emerge.

Artists, digital storytellers, video game developers, and various decentralized autonomous organizations will harness the power of on-chain generative media to create groundbreaking works across multiple digital environments. You can even imagine an Art Blocks-driven script that references collectors' on-chain credentials from RabbiHole, with each output being a unique output of the collector's previous work history.

We do not know what astonishing projects will emerge as these on-chain projects develop. The future of generative media, much like our own lives, will manifest randomness and uniqueness in ways we least expect.

One thing is certain: Art Blocks and its rapidly growing community within its digital fortress will play an important role in the future.

You can join the rapidly growing Art Block community on Discord, follow Art Block and Snowfro on Twitter, and mint your first (completely unique) generative media on the Art Block platform. Once you’re done, tag us on Twitter @derekedws and @sbmckeon to showcase your newly minted work.

Special thanks to gmoney, Aftab Hossain / DCinvestor, Brian Flynn, Cooper Turley, Dmitri Cherniak, Donovan Escalante, Josh Hannah, Priyanka Desai, Aaron Wright, Snowfro, Yuan Xue, Robi (wrappedpunks), Quickrider, Akira, Flamingo DAO, The Lao, and our friends at Libertus Capital.

Additional thanks to Matt Hall and John Watkinson from Larva Labs for launching generative fire on Ethereum.