It was the day my daughter was born that I decided to learn to code. Looking back now, it was a strange attempt to distract myself from the massive life change underway. Because when better to dedicate yourself to learning something new than when you're exhausted, terrified and emotionally drained?

Fast-forward ten months and I now have two healthy babies; Two genesis projects, if you like. One human and one human-readable code: my first fxhash project 'Sublimations'.

Sublimations

In physics, a sublimation is the conversion of a substance from the solid to the gaseous state without its becoming liquid. In other words, a change from one state to another so rapid that it leaves you thinking, what the fuck just happened? In trying to think of a name for the project this summed up where I was at in life quite succinctly.

Having a background in art and technology (I'm a musician and designer depending on my mood of the day), I wasn't coming at this completely from scratch. I'd dabbled with a bit of Processing in the past, I'd made an Arduino blink an LED. I'd binged a couple of Coding Train episodes. This time though I wanted to really learn how to make something special with code (not that my blinking light wasn't a sight to behold).

Process

In terms of process there was a lot of, to use the technical term, "fuckin' around". Throwing things at the canvas and manipulating pixels until something decent arose from the darkness. A back and forth narrative with no real expectation of outcome.

I've always preferred to work this way creatively in my music and was happy to realise that it applied here too.

Outcome

Seeing your child for the first time, whether it be a baby or the output of some p5js code is something that stays with you for a lifetime. Indeed, when I started spitting out these undulating textured forms I knew I was finally on the way to something special.

I settled on an algorithm that first paints many random shapes to the canvas in either a horizontal or vertical orientation with a random spread in each direction. Each shape is then filled with colours from one of 8 pre-defined palettes.

Following this, wave functions of various intensities are applied to the pixel array one after the other in varying combinations producing the rich shapes, distortions, colour mixing and details you see in the final mints.

Something about the depth and texture of these shapes spoke to me deeply. It was the first time I felt I approached the same sentiment of atmosphere and drama in generative art that I try to capture in my music.

The release has been overwhelmingly positive, with many great interactions with collectors. I may have priced it a bit high for the current market, I may have set a few too many editions but who knows, it's all one big pixelated learning curve.

If you haven't come across it yet I urge you to check it out.

If you already own one then I urge you to blow it up to the largest resolution possible and appreciate it in its full glory! (and buy another one of course).

I'm already working on number 2 (fxhash project that is, no more kids yet please) and hope to release in the coming months.

Until next time,

YULYSEUS