Urban Disorderly is a free mint project, inspired, protest art.

The core visual hook of the narrative is a gritty ‘grid’ representing an order, but somewhat dysfunctional/decayed or chaotic system/city etc. This is then attacked by deformed /scratching/ aggressive grid elements that have broken free. This provides some energy to the otherwise static urban scape.

The metaphor is pretty blunt but abstract enough to allow viewers narrative interpretation and the variation creates new stories and extremes of the elements. I won’t explain anymore as that’s spoilers.

It was coded mainly on one day – but borrows elements from previous projects. The core shape generation algorithm is from Rain and Acid Rain, but in those projects, it was used as a mask for pixel manipulation or infill with patterns. This project, it is creating blocks of colour – or rectangles filled with ‘blobs’.

As can be seen in the three works side by side below

I ended up not making the 4 pm deadline on Saturday, so had some extra time to tweak, and test.

The colour pallets are a variation on some of my core pallets (Shine and Street Art are directly lifted from previous works) along with some new ones based on images of three cityscapes – Southbank, St Giles (London) and Old Town (Edinburgh).

The work is heavily influenced by 4 fx(hash) projects

Contrapuntos – by Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez - the disordered grid, contrasting and complimentary pallets and ‘noise’ rather than flat colours all live on in ‘UD’

d/e/m/boss invaders by Diego Pintos – primarily the noise effect was emulated (though with a far more basic effect) but this work also uses a similar grid aesthetic, though the rectangles are offset from a grid and maintain their structure.

Ichigo – by Studio Yorktown. Ichigo uses a similar distorted grid of non-rectangular shapes, this time the elements are a flat colour – but the texture is created by a series of dots in the same pallet aligned to the grid, and some smaller dots are scattered off the grid - creating texture and uneven edges. Go look at it and zoom in. The pure genius of design – I used a similar overlay for some variations but not aligned to the grid.

Punktwelt – by Erik Swahn – What's not to love about this work – I added a rectangle drawing function that fills the rectangles with ‘blobs’ in a similar(ish) style to Punktwelts ‘points’. This allows the elements behind to be seen, creating new textures. For ‘UD’ this is layered 2D rectangles vs Punktwelts 3D Isometric.

So all four helped shape something new, the big shift in my work is the disorder and chaos which is absent from the four above which while organic in their grid use, stick to it.

So there we have - inspired work, making a statement. My thanks to the artists on FX(hash) that inspired the work, and create a movement of generative artists. And to all those that minted, bought or just looked at the work. Hopefully, it gave you a visual and mental treat.

Fight on. Peace.

Outtakes