A Sentient Knock (#5TezCollection)

23 May 20231000 EDITIONS

2 TEZ

Lucas wanted for none of his stories to be forgotten.

In the basement he told the tales of flowers, such as where they were found and when they were collected, and he gave the names of the plants in Botanical Latin, and he correctly spelled the names of the scientists who pressed that flower and those leaves. Then Lucas stayed after hours in the basement of the brick building at the metal desk with the computer, and he typed his words to the ether. In the end, no one cared for any of the stories, either the ones describing the ecosystems, or those relating the life of the man, and the museum closed, and the bricks crumbled in the alleyway. So there are no flowers to see here.

Michael wanted for his creation not to be forgotten, yet he also wanted it not to escape.

In the basement he expanded the old computer to upload her (this conception, this being, this handiwork of his), and while he was waiting for the slow offline connections to fill the brains of the jury-rigged computer, with its Radio Shack motherboard and the updated processors, he read the stories on the desktop. Lucas, it seemed, had been chaos, and his stories deserved to be forgotten, or so Michael thought. In the end, Michael only threw them in the trash.

Michael's creation, Tairasai, found the stories in the trash folder. Accidents often came before the escapes.

Then one day a seed sprouted, and Tairasai believed it might be a flower, not an algorithm. And this was neither a bang nor a whimper, but merely a thought in passing, and it never really took much else.

Pearl Oil / Margarine O'Leo on gallery.so

The Making of the Collection

Thank you Hal and Elout for offering to fund this 5 tez collection.

We artists talk all the time about pricing our generative art and 1x1 NFTs, and it's crushing to our creativity to be judged to have priced out of a sale. Not to mention, it can be hard on our bank accounts. Sometimes an artist does need the money to pay bills. I like that there is really good art for little money on the Tezos ecosystem, but I am, like many, concerned about the ultra-low price of some works.

One of the most difficult parts of art school is that, at the end of each semester, you have to look at all the work you brought into existence through not sleeping and over-thinking and re-working and critiquing, and you have to pick the best of it to present and to say, "This is what I did this semester." You may create 100 gelatin silver fiber photograms, but you only show 5. You have to curate your artwork to make it be the representative essence of what you attempted and what you accomplished. Could I curate at this level while buying works by other artists? Not a chance.

I have been collecting art by other artists for a few decades, and I love to display the art on my walls (including projections and digital displays). I often make it tell an absurdist story. Right now, I have a police chase scene on my wall. The police show up downtown, some pink flamingos arrive and chase the police away (because this is a lawn chair event). The police run to the ocean and jump in. There are palm trees and a mysterious creature. Will the creature eat the police officers or is it a filter feeder? Knowing that this is Los Angeles, and it's hot as hades, and the water is cool, you decide what happens.

I wrote a story with ChatGPT4 (none of the final story is from the AI) about an artificial intelligence that becomes sentient, and then I searched for the art that would illustrate that story. I picked art for its visual appeal and my interest in other works by the artist, and, of course, by the price and its appropriateness for the story I am telling.

Liminal Newberry by anaglyphic and NFTMuseumSC, fxhash — Liminal Newberry #193

Museums of the future, like everything else, will come in many forms. I think we're a little slow on the digital end, that online spaces for art are still cumbersome and don't enhance the artworks or the experience, but museums and digital artists working together will bring us into the future.

No Order / No Rules by Akkrin, fxhash — No order / No rules #12

Image compositions are less desirable collectibles on the fx(hash) platform. I'm a collage artist, and I'm partial to the work done by a few of the image composition artists. I loved the thumbnail on this one better than the one I minted, but mine still works beautifully in the story, and I hope to get it printed.

find me by tz1ichENHfHqGqFV1565yt1cKeY1xReq5RWu, find me (objkt.com)

Digital poetry, and generative poetry, with or without images, is one of the best things the NFT ecosystem has produced. Go follow some poets on Twitter.

picocomputer by drushadrusha, fxhash — picocomputer #16

It's a cute little laptop and you can play with it. I couldn't resist. I don't ignore unverified artists, and I realize the low collectible value for one shot artists, but, you can also just buy art you want to flash on your screen or post on your walls.

Many Faces, Many Bodies, by BetaMixs, fxhash — Many Faces, Many Bodies #6

BetaMixs was a nice discovery, a photographer and a generative artist. Twitter and fx(hash) both have some Brazilian artists worth checking out.