Inspiration

The cosmic soup refers to the hot, dense, and almost uniform mixture of particles that existed in the early Universe shortly after the Big Bang. At this time, the Universe was extremely hot and energetic, and all matter was in the form of plasma, consisting of charged particles such as protons, electrons, photons, and of course, dark matter. As the Universe expanded and cooled, the particles in the cosmic soup began to combine and form atoms, eventually giving rise to the first stars and galaxies.

I remember the moment when I saw the first image coming from the James Webb Telescope. On it, the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723's gravitational force bends the light to see galaxies formed up to 13 billion years ago. I stared for hours at the different shapes as if looking at the Universe through the rearview mirror of time could make something new and fascinating appear at any moment.

After I snapped out of my absorption, I started wondering what in the picture was so special beyond its history and meaning. What was so unique in those pixels? I thought about other images that gave me similar reactions but couldn't figure out anything then. Then, some months later, I stumbled upon Jackson Pollock's work and recognized the feeling while looking at an old book. In his work, drips of paint form a mass of energy that attracted me similarly to the earliest galaxies. Abstract expressionism could be the answer.

In a silly attempt, I tried to model Pollock's shoulder, arm, elbow, and wrist as a triple pendulum. A chaotic system where the future behavior is highly dependent on the exact value of the initial conditions. So I put together a simplified parametric function with no physics that slightly changed each angle's variation over time. But I quickly learned the meaning of chaos. The results weren't quite what I expected at all.

Eureka!

I persisted during that long night. But it was only when I let go of control, basically playing around adding and subtracting variables and trigonometric functions with caution but without any particular meaning, that The Soup found me.

Finally, I could generate beautiful, interesting, messy, but not chaotic galactic shapes, so now I had to assemble the artwork.

Orientation

I've always been attracted by digital vs. analog harmony. "The Cosmic Soup" has two possible outputs: Cinematic, which perfectly fits a 4K digital screen, and Poster, ready to be printed in a large format.

Composition

I used a simple linear function ax + b in both coordinates to zoom and translate the shapes until I had a consistent composition with balanced shapes for each one of the orientations. Finding the ideal ranges of zoom (a) and positioning (b) was one of the most critical steps of the process.

Container

I used a technique similar to the one in "Textile Bacteria" to contain all the particles within the visible canvas space.

All the particles are repositioned within a normalized 1x1 canvas using a modulus operation and an optional sum plus one. This simple but powerful method has the collateral benefit of creating perfect tiles. In a way, it's as if a whole Universe lives within those pixels.

Balance

The algorithm builds a color matrix the rendering mechanism uses to select a color precalculated based on the shape and time. The color matrix improves the performance but, most importantly, ensures proper balance among the chaotic ("no chaos, damn it!") particles. There are three Color Modes available: Mono, Discreet, and Continuous.

Density

Density is a combination of attributes that control the resulting shape getting more straight lines with High Density and curvy ones with Low Density.

Colors

Over months I worked on understanding the algorithm I coded that night. I wanted to generate enough variety within the same color palette, so it felt like a proper long-form collection. I coded a custom configuration mechanism to tune the most meaningful parameters for each one of the color palettes while I determined the colors.

While most editions will have a dark background, others play with the algorithm's possibilities and represent space more abstractly.

Color palettes were chosen using different criteria, but I used art as the main inspiration, such as "Rot-Blau-Gelb" by Gerhard Richter, "The Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh, "Bacchus" by Cy Twombly, and "Untitled" by Pollock himself; Generative Art such as "The Big Bang" by Team EmProps and "Tych" by Rudxane. I also used "Praslin Dawn", "Tutti", and "Africana" from Studio Yorktown's Color Town Hall and more of the recent photographs of space that keep coming from the James Webb Telescope.

Pixel Dripping

I round the coordinates and use small squares over a virtual pixelated canvas to render the particles on the screen, making "The Cosmic Soup" pixel art. This method, where it seems like pixels are dripping over the display, pays homage to the technique that inspired the artwork but also invites the viewer to get closer and discover hidden worlds and galaxies.

Different energy levels give each pixel different transparency obtaining radically different results.

Animation

"The Cosmic Soup" uses a parametric function whose main parameter changes every frame, also increasing the number of particles, which makes the artwork curiously resemble the videos of Pollock's Action Painting work. With the animation, the algorithm paints in real time a unique representation of The Universe in the era when we all were one.

* The rendering of each token depends on the viewer's computer performance.

The 350 editions of "The Cosmic Soup" will be available in fx(hash) on March 8th, 2023, at 20:00 UTC in a Dutch Auction coming down from 150 tez to 30 tez during 4 hours.