What's the impact that the emergence of fxhash and NFT have on the ecosystem of gen art?

ileiv oivm (AluanWang)

“Gen art has evolved better over the past decade. Lots of artists write and share their creations on OpenProcessing, but most artists create for self-gratification.

While NFT platforms like Art Blocks pop up, however, everyone can create and gain not only self-gratification, but also revenues. Especially like fxhash, it’s a platform without verification. Artists wanna prove themselves with more motives and more intense technique challenges. With this kind of stimulation, techniques, artistry, or methods for creation have had great improvements and breakthroughs.

It’s eye-opening. The best creations over the past decade have been condensed in these two years. More artists are willing to try, and make the ecosystem progress to the singularity different from the past."

Yi-Wen Lin (Wen)

"I agree with what Aluan said. I think in these 2 years it’s a big explosion for generative art. You see tons of projects coming out on fxhash or Art Blocks and any other platforms.

More people not only joined but also like testing new ideas. I think it’s really amazing.

We see all the amazing artworks and artists are trying to push themselves and trying out new stuff. It’s definitely something I cannot imagine 2 years ago. Now since I’m part of it I’m really excited as well like in this era it’s already something remarkable."

Kaloh

“I totally agree with Wen & Aluan, NFT is creative. It fits perfectly for all sorts of creators. It doesn't matter if they are artists, writers, or podcasters because NFT allows creators to showcase in a different way.

I think why generative art grew so fast in the NFT space is because there was already a big group, a huge group of artists.

The NFT technology and the generative art discipline fits perfectly and we saw how Art Blocks kind of start the whole revolution last year and then fxhash. It was sort of a great platform because it's not curated, so it allowed everyone and every artist to share and to create whatever they wanted, so I think that's kind of how I structure it in my mind.

And I think it's just the beginning as Aluan said we are sort of in a bear market but we still see many creators entering the space. More collectors were entering the space and it's not only about the speculation or prices anymore. It's actually people that really like this space and really want to collect and create. So that's fantastic in my opinion. “

Based on your observation, what kinds of works are more popular, or easier to be accepted by the audience on fxhash?

Kaloh

"I think in general the community is very open and they like to see new ideas. In my mind there is no formula. Like what's the formula to be a successful fxhash.

Actually, I think it's about innovation. Creating something that people haven't seen yet. So there are different ways to do that. One is from a visual aspect, creating things that just strike differently. We're talking about algorithms, we can go deep into the code. You can see the different techniques that are being used. If they (artists) come up with a new concept with a new algorithm, a new technique, once people realize that, those will be accepted and become popular.

Another way is to tell a story. So I've seen many artists that are very good at creating their own stories behind their collections and they are capable of in one sentence or two saying what they are doing and what their art is about. Then you read their descriptions and see their collections, and it makes sense.

The collections are in a way connected to what they are doing. So that's a great way of making sense of your art and I think those small details are up right then. People realize that after some time, those end up being popular. So, there is no formula, right?

I cannot say in an easy way, these sorts of collections are popular or not. I think it's a combination of factors. "

Yi-Wen Lin (Wen)

"I tried to make sense of what people like on fxhash but at the end my answer is not… like Kaloh said cannot find any formula. I completely agree with Kaloh about innovation and new concepts. I think that’s what draws people’s attention.

Because there are tons of people joining this new space, and then people start to experience all kinds of ideas. I think that’s the beauty of this world and lots of new ideas, new concepts, new algorithms every day.

I think it goes back to what Kaloh said storytelling. People putting more and more works on not just the work itself, but also the story behind it. I think it’s amazing. Most of time we enjoy the story behind it even more than the project itself. We want to know what motivates the artist creating the work, what inspires the artist to create this work, what is the process of getting it done. I think these are the steps usually hidden.

I often do sort of like time-lapse videos for my project. Everytime there’re tons of images from the beginning to the end, and I put it together to create the time-lapse videos. This process from beginning to the end, every time I watch it I’m so satisfied.

I think it shows that the story is really a big part for a project. Everyone starts putting more effort not just on the project itself, but also on the story behind it. That’s something I’m happy to see. I think these projects tend to interest me as well."

ileiv oivm (AluanWang)

“On Art Blocks, works that are widely accepted are more abstract, such as “Fidenza” by Tyler Hobbs using perlin noise, and “Ringer” by Dmitri Cherniak. But on fxhash, artworks preferred by the market seem to be those depicting landscapes, such as “hollow” by Jacek Markusiewicz, “Solace” by lunarean, and “Garden, Monoliths” by zancan. Perhaps this topic is easier to be understood by people. You can see the artistic skills from details, and the audience are able to understand what creators want to express.

These abstractions or landscapes have been subjects from art history. Perhaps there will be more diverse expressions emerging, which is a goal I wanna strive for in the next phase.“

Yi-Wen Lin was curious about Kaloh's opinion on "scenery-related works are more popular on fxhash."

Kaloh

"fxhash is much more diverse. It's an open platform so basically everyone can create what they want in every field. While on Art blocks you have a curated committee, which kind of guides a bit of what gets published and they also give some guidelines to their artists.

I've talked to some artists and the committee on Art Blocks. They try to guide the bit about what could be and what they want to release. I have seen for example, I have heard about ones that they wanted some sort of collection where it was similar to real paintings or it looks real.

It was made by humans in the sense of typing or painting. So they were looking for something like that. That doesn't mean that they are always specific about what they want, but they do give this sort of ideas to artists while on fxhash that doesn't exist.

And that allows artists to be very open and creative, which sometimes it's great for them. Sometimes maybe the collections don't get as popular. So that's kind of pros and cons of an open platform versus saturated platform. There are benefits to both."

The nature of interactive artworks make them suitable for being minted as NFT. However, have you ever thought that interactive works have been underestimated by the market, and have been in an unfavorable situation?

ileiv oivm (AluanWang)

"Interactive artworks do perform not as well as static works or landscapes in the current market. My speculation is that types of interactive creations have been changing; the audience are not able to perceive or understand quickly. Also, we prefer the kind of works that have “aura” and stay in the moment, which is similar to the nature of traditional paintings.

However, a creation that generates connection with the audience by interacting and experiencing, will generate a new memory and emotion, and will even create a collective memory, which tends to bring deeper emotional connections. Just like "music,” as a melody, a work, it not only happens at the moment of playing or listening, but also contains a memory for the scene or a group experience. In this case, every one not only has emotion and memory of one’s own, but also creates collective memory with the whole community. The process is actually similar to that of experiencing interactive art, which generates a memory in the audience’s mind, as well as a stronger sympathetic response. Therefore, I think highly of interactive works, and would like to try to find a suitable way for NFT creation."

Kaloh

"Interactive works that are not performing as well as other kinds of work. My opinion the problem is that the technology and how the, for example fxhash was designed or Art Blocks or even other websites.

When you think about fxhash the first thing you see is a preview, and if it's an interactive work, you cannot really interact with the preview. So you don't even know it is interactive, and it takes more time for people to actually go into the piece, open it, and play with it, which is the whole goal of an interactive piece.

So I think this will change in the future once we get in general more mature with VR and all these spiritual realities technologies. I think they will be integrated into these platforms and it will make it much easier for these interactive pieces to shine.

I remember back in London there was an event earlier this year and there was an experience in the place where you could move the joystick. While you were doing that, the piece was changing and you could stop whenever you wanted and that's the piece you meant. That was from Mario Klingemann and I thought that was very interesting.

There is also a very nice collection. It's more like a very powerful render and it's very CPU-intensive. For some people that don't have a powerful machine, when you open it, it could be very buggy and slow. So you need a powerful machine to see it well.

In the future, this won't happen as much, right? People will have access to better computing power platforms as well as artists and it will be much easier to appreciate all these interactive pieces.”

Yi-Wen Lin (Wen)

"For me as a creator, before I joined fxhash I actually recognize myself more as an interactive artist instead of generative artist. Most of my works are online and interactive.

The reason why I don’t create or put interactive art onto fxhash is because of the technical challenge.

My works need to run on different devices, that is a big risk for me. I don’t know how good or how bad the devices that my collectors have. So it’s really hard for me to predict how my interactive works are going to perform on the devices. And because of this I cannot guarantee what kind of experience they are going to get on their devices. That’s one of the reasons why for me until now I only put on more static works on fxhash.

Another thing is I think a lot of people still chase for the look of traditional art. Those tend to be performance heavy. So it’s hard to make it run real time on all the devices. I think that’s the reason why most people stayed away putting interactive artworks on fxhash or any other NFT platforms.

Kaloh mentioned something about the platform is not ready for these pieces. I totally agree. You really don’t know what’s going on unless you really click in. That's an extra step for the collectors for sure. In the future I can imagine more interactive-friendly platforms. Those will help you understand what these interactive pieces are about, and will draw attention from users to join this space.

One of my recent project on NFT is interactive piece as well. I had so much fun on this piece I think it’s going back to the old times and I start playing with all kinds of different interactions and real time it's really interesting.

For me the important part of artwork is about bringing feelings to the audience. And I do believe the interactive piece has a little bit of power in that because it’s immersive and you can really immerse in this world that the creators have created for you. Not just images but also audio and video everything combined together.

So I really look forward for this to come when platforms are ready and allow us to exhibit more interactive artworks. More crazy ideas will appear when this time comes and I cannot wait for it."

As a creator, Yi-Wen Lin was curious about Kaloh's journey from a collector to a curator.

Kaloh

"Well, that's a great question. I kind of got interested in NFT and started to collect some works, then I discovered gen art. I have my Newsletter, it pushes me to think before writing, sharing an article.

I've been writing about artists' collections. I started after doing it for a year to understand the different areas, the different kinds of artists, the different marketplaces. And I noticed that it's not that easy for everybody if you don't spend that much time to understand this, discovering talented artists, emerging artists.

So that led me to also curate, which I think came naturally. It's something like as I was collecting and interested in different sorts of works and I was also writing about that. It was kind of evolving into that. When you're collecting, then at some point you are actually also curating it.

If you're collecting things you like, that's already sort of a curated collection. So that's how it went down. "

So based on your imagination, how can interactive artworks connect to such medium as NFT?

Yi-Wen Lin (Wen)

“I think it goes back to what I said about the platform. Once the platform is ready, people will have tons of new ideas in this world and I’d like to see more interactive artworks.

Back to talking about storytelling and memories. I think that’s something I still want to explore and make something that will make people feel. That’s always my goal and I want to continue challenge.”

Kaloh

"As technology evolves and matures in general, from the platforms perspective to the collectors’ equipment to witness these artworks, and also from the artists’ perspective to have the right devices, the right CPUs to create these things.

When we think about interactive artworks, we visualize these very powerful graphics, 3D amazing stuff that it's very intensive in the sense of storage and the capacity you require.

For example, last week Tyler Hobbs launched a new website, a new platform called QQL, which is another way of interacting. Collectors can play with the algorithm by tweaking the parameters and they can see the effect on the outputs and so they can find an output that they really like.

It's just kind of a small change in the paradigm. So the technology or how the algorithm is set up is different and put on mint in a random piece, but the collector actually can select or play with all the options so that's another way of interacting.

And there are many other ways as in life experience where the collector can play with the piece somehow. So this is what I think will happen. In the short term, I think we have seen many people already, many artists doing very innovative stuff.”

ileiv oivm (AluanWang)

“Since humans will have more imaginations of art, NFT will have more ways of presentation as well. I’ve been pondering that if a creation can connect with life experiences of a group of collectors, it can give the creation stronger power. Just like “soulbound token” from Vitalik Buterin, it gives the audience or collectors a special experience.

If it happens in the community, it can be spread as a historical event. Therefore, the idea of “BlockTrain” is that if there’s a work connecting collectors and creators to do something together, maybe a collab, we can create a new memory. Then perhaps this kind of creation can bring us a different future.”

Yi-Wen Lin mentioned about the evolution of art and the world.

Yi-Wen Lin (Wen)

"Because in the short form generative art, most of the time the output is just one single image. But now when you look at almost all the projects on fxhash, you can see the generative process of the work. You see the visual grow and it just reminds me that’s something totally new compared to the old days.

I think we will evolve anyway, and we’re doing it. I think it will eventually come to interactive art as well. That’s something we all want to challenge, something new and memorable for collectors or our audience. Like I said, bring more emotions to the audience."

Kaloh

"For example, using different kinds of mechanics that are only allowed in the blockchain like burning, combining and transferring tokens. These things are only possible in this space, right? In this world these are kind of new interactions that are not possible in real life. Conceptually they are possible, but it's a different thing.

So using the tools that are available in this digital space, I think that's how artists can also innovate. And we have seen that already in the space, but I think there is still room for that when it comes to gen art."

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