Generative art is technology laid bare. It is code written and compiled to render a visual – and over the last twelve months, it has evolved at a breakneck pace. These innovations are happening globally and are largely shared in the communal fashion known in the software world as open source. The experiments pushing this space forward are not simply trial runs and proof of concept sketches — they’re complex & deeply innovative artistic expressions by both renowned and emerging artists.

These boundary-disrupting long-form generative artworks have one de facto home: fxhash.xyz, a generative art platform running on the Tezos blockchain. Its fully open source ethos has attracted artists and makers of all types through a collaborative community presence and low barriers to entry for artists and collectors. Leading innovators in generative art release their works on fx(hash) as soon they’re ready, with each weekly wave of projects cultivating a congenial dare to go even further with what’s next.

The ongoing public excitement generated by this ecosystem is ever-in-motion, and presented here is a new work created with Rayhatching, another substantial leap forward in rendering technique invented by Piter Pasma — a veteran pioneer of generative art. Like the fxhash pieces also on display here this week, this artwork offers a commentary beyond its technical achievement. Harkening to industrial machinery and contraptions – facilities and environments – this series codifies the language of complexity and applied ingenuity into unique spaces that lie just outside of familiarity, just beyond comprehension… which so much of our world does too, when looked at anew.

In the spirit of generative art’s endless possibilities, the examples on display here are milestone works that have redefined the possible and now propel the future of artwork to come. These projects have materially advanced the medium by their contributions to code, interactivity, and output, thus reshaping expectations of what can be done in a way that’s open for other programming artists to learn from and adapt.

Mostly, the innovations are technical and focused on the way that an image or interactive scene renders. Style and technique of rendering vary dramatically from complex and plottable linework, to 3D modeling and lighting, to particle-based organic systems. Many of these approaches leave room for mind-bending animation.

Advancements like these remain fertile ground for continued evolution in generative art, and the coming year will surely yield works that blow minds. The three ‘stories’ shown here alongside Piter’s new work demonstrate how the medium has already dramatically advanced during the past year, displaying a combination of on-screen, printed, and plotted works that all live natively on fxhash. Moreover, they’re all remarkable artworks, regardless of technical merit.

All fxhash works shown at Bright Moments Venice Beach may be seen online (aside from the pre-release Holons works from TENDER x flight404) in the Grail Grid gallery here.

Curation by Adam, for TENDER