digital humanity

Internal Monologue launched on fxhash on 29th August 2022, it was a couple of months in the making, and more challenging than I initially imagined. I launched it as a free mint, with a reserve list for owners of some recent works for 48 hours. 128 edition minted - but hey! everyone loves free.

Why free? well, I want people to own, see and take something out of it.

So the artwork hopefully is pretty self-evident, It's called Internal Monologue, and it has two core 'versions' Good Day 32% and Bad Day 68%. The work has an 'ink-like' quality to the lines, but they are not 'brush strokes'. A bit like 'imitation question' there's a hand-drawn look at first glance, but it's clearly bold graphics on close inspection.

There's tension, discomfort and disorder to the bad day editions, and a calm almost landscape-like feel to the good days. The rings represent the openness and comfort level, the lines, trains of thought. It is also a departure from the clean graphic lines in my previous works, Though I had to have some in there ....

I deliberately didn't turn every element into a feature, so in that respect, it's up to the viewer to label and find the meaning for themselves. While they all make sense to me, they may trigger other feelings in the viewer.

One of the colour schemes for a good day, looks quite dark, against the others which have more traditionally calm hues. The colours in this 'feature' are based on highland tweeds and landscapes, calm can be rugged, dark and stark. A day in the highlands is a good day.

Making it

The inception of Internal Monologue was quite some time ago. I wanted to start playing with analogue aesthetics via p5js. The first experiment with 'imitation question' took a more pencil/pen-like approach to looking 'hand made' With internal monologue, I wrote a bezier function to look 'digitally hand drawn' - The bad day versions came quickly and easily - chaotic, aggressive pallets and obscuring elements, or tight tension in the composition.

The good day also came quickly as an initial vision of the calm and expansive view, ordered but flowing lines with a natural pallet.

Here's literally the first output....

Making it for the platform

So while I had my core good and bad day visions, I now am starting to understand the platform more, initially, I thought people wanted something that looks like the thumb but is unique to their mint. But variety is key, so it took some time to build in that variety in colour schemes, elements and the way the patterns appear. I ended up quite pleased with these variations, in fact, some of the late additions are my favourites, more so than the initial vision.

Everything about this project has been a little stressful, spending hours looking at a visualisation of my poor mental state isn't the best- however I feel like it added some therapy, and allowed me to see it for what it is. When there is a lack of focus, and feeling trapped or pressured, I can use this to recognise that state and have the calm to aim for.

So I hope you enjoy it, managed to grab one. At the time of writing, there are 36 on the secondary market many sub-3 tezos so very collectable.

early chaotic bad day / good day together WIP output

Gliference

Prior to finishing 'Internal Monologue' elements of it are in included in the artwork 'Gliference'

This work takes elements from 'Internal Monologue', 'Pages from a redacted document' and 'The question' and merges them together in a glitching interference-laden concoction. I love this intersection, which aims to bring that feeling of tuning a TV or radio, or when it loses signals and other stations start to bleed in.

mac