INPRECISION - THOMAS LIN PEDERSEN
This was part of an ongoing series of articles that was released digitally throughout July 2022. They were first published in the print edition of the Bright Moments Quarterly that was distributed in July in London.
Malte: Thanks for taking the time, Thomas. What are you exploring in your project for the London collection?
Thomas: Two themes are at the center of my project for the London Collection.
The first pertains to this project in particular. What I want to play with in this series is the tension between the hyper-precision of digital algorithms and the organic texture of watercolors. Generative art has the capability of infinite precision and perfect rendering. Perfection, however, is not that interesting. The fact that you can draw a perfectly precise circle holds no merit in itself. A certain degree of imperfection, of destruction, is necessary to create a productive tension. And this tension is what I want to play with in the London Collection. The element of imprecision is introduced through the texture, which mimics watercolors. Of course, the idea is not to simply replicate the process of watercolor painting here. What is interesting is to juxtapose the two: the precision of the computer and the imprecision of the watercolor texture.
The second theme is an ever-going quest related to composition in algorithmic works. Screens is the first project where I formalized this idea. There is, I feel, a general lack of focus in the composition of the image in generative art, since we are too absorbed by the system itself. For me, the challenge is to produce a system capable of creating many diverse, but functioning compositions. The system I work with for London is complex by virtue of the texture, not through the geometric elements. Wasily Kandinsky and his work with abstract composition – that is, the very beginning of geometric abstraction in painting – is an important inspiration for this series.
I want to come back to the question of composition. But first, I would like to ask you what the point of departure is if you create a new project? Do you begin with an image, a theme, or do you start directly working with the code itself?
My process changed dramatically during the last year, essentially since my first ArtBlocks release. After all the hype of last year, I wanted to take a step back and reevaluate why I do what I am doing and what I want to achieve exactly. This is not to say that I suddenly didn’t like my early work anymore, but I took it as a chance to step back and reflect on my practice going forward. And this break really led to my approach to composition.
In terms of my creative process, I have plenty of ideas, but I am not someone who takes a lot of notes. The ability of an idea to remain in my head until I have time to explore it is, essentially, the filter that regulates my creative process. The time between inception and execution is long, and my subconscious is quite active during this process. So, when I sit down to code, I often have a fairly clear idea in my head of what I want to do. With Screens, for instance, I thought about the idea for three or four months. But once I knew what I wanted to do, it took only two days to write the basis of the code. For London, I have started more from the feeling that I want to do something with color and symbols. The project went through different coding iterations until I was satisfied with it.
That being said, every project starts with an idea in my head that I ruminate for some time until I actually start working on the code. With a full-time job and a family, it also suits me well not to have so much screen time before I begin working on the code.
Did the fact that you knew these works will be exhibited in a physical gallery space influence your creative process?
This is the first time that I am working on a project that is meant to be exhibited. So, this concept is very new. But the change is also not too radical insofar as my creative process is only ‘half-digital’ anyways. And that is because I consider the print to be the perfect manifestation of my work. Even if I know that a work will not be exhibited, I have the print as the ideal output format in mind. For me, the work is always meant for the real world: something to be looked at in a physical space. My approach to art is contemplative. And the exhibition with Bright Moments will therefore be very much in line with how I think about my work. It allows me to lean more strongly into what I am always doing.
Why do you privilege print as an output? And what do you think about generative art and the other media that can be used to present the outputs of an algorithmic system?
One of the reasons that I am allowed to have this privileged relationship to print is that I mainly work in static images. If you work with animation, this is simply not possible. To me, no matter how good the screen is, you cannot match the quality of details on a print. The resolution on a print is unrivaled. Moreover, a print allows you to move freely in front of the work, and the quality does not change when you come closer. Colors are different on a print as well, and that is because the light is indirect and reflective, blending in with the surrounding. The image on a print does not tire your eyes. Printing a piece in high quality and experiencing the materiality of the paper is a very special feeling for me. There is no comparison to the feeling of having created something in the real world.
What role will the print format play in the London exhibition? And is there a specific experience that you try to create with your installation?
Print will play an important role in the exhibition. The watercolor texture of the work is meant to exist in collaboration with heavily textured paper, and I want to foreground this connection in the exhibition itself. The experience that I want to create is that of stepping back. I want to build a space where the viewers let the art take its time and where they are able to let themselves be surprised. In the web3 space, we consume art at an unprecedented scale and pace. Amid this frenzy, I want to give collectors and the audience the opportunity to take a step back. The exhibition set-up hasn’t been finalized yet. But I am planning to have a printer in the center of the room. Collectors are asked to scan their QR code and then put away their phones. The reveal itself will be gradual, and you will have to wait for the work as it emerges from the printer. In this process, the mind will anticipate the work as it comes out line by line from the printer. As the artwork is being revealed, the mind will have to correct itself multiple times, and this lets the viewer really focus on the details of the work.
Do you think that the new opportunities for exhibiting generative artworks will influence the field?
Yes, I anticipate that there will be a greater interest in exhibiting generative art. However, I think that we still need a good blueprint for making successful art exhibitions, especially in the context of large institutions. We need better informed people outside of our bubble to show the full importance of generative art. Curation and knowledge of art history and exhibition history are needed to adequately present generative art.
You know, it is very hard to show the importance of generative art via static images on a screen. It simply does not do justice to show work by itself. If I sit down with someone and explain to them how it works, it is easier to communicate the richness of this artform. But it is very hard to do this just through one image. So, what is needed is explanation and context around the code – as well as display modalities that make the vastness of possible outputs experienceable. Going forward, I hope and believe that a lot of experimentation will be done in this area.
Rapture #73 - collected by Faia
In your work, it seems that you often try to avoid very aesthetic approaches to composition – like flows or harmonious patterns – for the benefit of a more dynamic style. Many artworks even seem to contain an element of dissonance. You briefly mentioned this earlier, but could you share your thoughts around composition?
My thinking about composition is heavily guided by my early work as an amateur photographer. The quality that defines a great photo is composition. There are many talented photographers who can create truly beautiful works on a technical level. In fact, there is an abundance of people who excel in the technical mastery of the medium. Composition, however, transcends this level of technical perfection. Composition is the difference between a beautiful photograph and a great photograph. It is the ability to guide the viewer’s eye in the image. Images that are just beautiful are too easy to take in. They pose no riddle to the eye. When I was younger, I did a lot of nature and architecture photography. Architecture photography in particular requires the artist to be innovative with composition, since you have to add something new to the object if you wish to do more than merely showing the work of an architect.
And this brings me to the thought about composition that I mentioned earlier. Let me state the issue in hyperbolic terms. What I see in generative art is that there is a lot of focus on showing a system. Let’s take
Tyler Hobbs’ Fidenza, which is unquestionably an outstanding work. Tyler knows that I love his work, so I am happy to illustrate my thoughts with reference to it. Fidenza shows a flow in a very artistic and aesthetically pleasing way. The lines are very harmonious. However, there is no riddle, and there is nothing to be solved for the mind because everything is laid bare for the eye to see. That, of course, can be a statement in itself, and I think Fidenza is partly about this absence of anything that has to be solved. However, we increasingly see that people try to show the beauty of the algorithmic system in a similar way. We end up with these pleasing projects that are very easily consumable. In short, I think that there is a lack of challenge for the viewer.
Let me be clear: this is not a critique of specific projects. The question of composition is just a point where I want to differentiate myself in the field. This is the place where I want to push the field by posing the question of what makes it interesting to look at an artwork for more than a brief time. How to guide the eye? How to command continued attention? In this regard, I am interested in different forms of obfuscation, dissonance and divergence. The image can demonstrate to the viewer that they cannot see everything in the image; that there is something hidden from view, something that retreats and resists. And something that you may never know but can forever guess about.
Screens #473 - collected by CryptoOrca
What are the main influences and inspirations for your artistic practice?
Anders Hoff (Inconvergent) was the one that started me down the path of generative art and was a huge inspiration in my first year. In the following years Tyler Hobbs was one of the biggest influences on my work. This is partly because we both enjoy and pursue a very subdued and analogue feel in our work, but also because Tyler was one of the few that wrote at length about his practice and thoughts in a way that was more about the mentality and less about any actual code and technique. During this time Zach Lieberman’s work was also quite influential for me as he was extremely generous in showing iterations of his work. All of this was of course prior to NFTs...
Outside of the generative art field, there are several artists who inspired me. I have already mentioned Kandinsky. But I also feel close to Julia Mehretu’s work, and the series I am exhibiting in London is partly in dialogue with her work as well. Lastly, I would like to mention the Danish painter Rikke Darling, whose abstract compositions are very inspiring.
The field of generative art has developed quite dramatically over the last two years. What do you see as the main challenges for the field at the moment?
I am not sure if it is healthy for any field to see this explosion of interest and money that we had last year. Obviously, I am saying that with the privilege of having been on the receiving side of it. But what has been seeded last year is also a broader interest in the art form. And we are now moving to a state that feels more sustainable. NFTs have given many artists the opportunity to go full time. This helps artists to elevate their practice, which is fantastic.
That being said, it is an open question how much of the interest remains if the first wave of interest recedes. But I hope we will have seeded an interest that lasts. We, as practitioners, who have been doing this for a long time, need to become even more serious about our practice. The influx of practitioners requires us to be more thoughtful and intentional. And I think that is a good thing. It is fascinating to be pushed in this way. So, I am hopeful that things will move forward and will be elevated, even though I hope we do not get back to the craziness of last August, which is not sustainable.
