FOLIO at Bright Moments London
From July 14th to 17th, 2022, I'll be exhibiting FOLIO, a new generative art collection at 13 Soho Square in London. This is one of the six artist shows that will be on display from June 30 to July 28 as part of the Bright Moments London Collection.
The short pop-up exhibition for FOLIO will cover a broad range of print and real-time displays from a single algorithm. The code will be hosted on the Ethereum blockchain, with a total of one hundred ERC-721 tokens minted in-situ by collectors during the event.
The software is inspired by concrete poetry like that of Paula Claire, and early computer artworks like Frederick Hammersley’s Computer Drawings. The FOLIO drawing system recursively packs bins of data to fill the page, constrained entirely by the use of typographic glyphs and a limited palette of discrete colour layers. The algorithm builds on some of the techniques and code I’ve been developing over the last two years, including monospace, type overflow, and various typographic and concrete poetry sketches posted loosely on Twitter.
Program
FOLIO is a JavaScript program that takes an input hash (256-bit integer) and emits its associated output process, which may be realized digitally, in print, or through another medium. By default, when no input is specified, the program will select a random integer. Each time this code executes, it produces an output process that—if not captured and recorded—will be forever lost, effectively impossible to recover.
Live Minting
In the context of FOLIO, minting refers to the act of recording and preserving the program’s input hash as a transferable and signed digital edition on the blockchain. Each time a mint operation occurs, a new input hash is generated and assigned to a token (ERC-721 NFT) which is then transferred to its new owner. At this point, the hash can be fed into the FOLIO program, revealing a new output process, and preserving it as a digital object on the blockchain.
Minting will be live and in-person, taking place within the Bright Moments exhibition space at Soho Square. The space and its displays will be specifically tailored to FOLIO for the course of its four day exhibition.
Printed Matter
As FOLIO tokens are not JPGs, but are instead output processes of an algorithmic system, the work will be represented through a range of digital, print, and projection media within the exhibition. Much of this will be from out-of-band output processes, i.e. random input hashes that have not been recorded and preserved on the blockchain.
In particular, there will be a focus on layered printmaking techniques including screen and Riso printing, placing the work in the context of the instruction-based drawing algorithm and its range of possible output processes.
In a screen print process, a fine mesh has to be prepared using a stencil for each colour layer, and then ink is pushed through the mesh onto substrate. Riso printing is similar in that it uses multiple master stencils, but the ink is applied mechanically by feeding the paper over a rotating drum of ink.
Where each colour layer overlaps, new colours can be produced. The animation below simulates the layered screen and Riso print process, with the color green emerging as a result of mixing yellow and blue inks.
Mint #0
The initial Mint #0 of FOLIO is reserved for the artist and will be deployed prior to the exhibition as a special case. The input hash for this token will be selected manually by the artist as a form of curation, in order to find a token that is broadly representative of the algorithm and its strengths.
In addition to the token, each minter will receive a high quality artist-signed and limited-edition A1 screen print of Mint #0 (with an edition size of 100). These will be unframed and tube-rolled, and can be claimed and collected during the event in London, or shipped to minters after the event (note that by the autumn, if there are any prints still unclaimed, the remaining supply may be raffled off to other interested collectors).
All subsequent mints (#1 to #99) will use the usual random and non-deterministic inputs from the blockchain contract. This gives FOLIO some elements of both the so-called “short-form” and “long-form” generative art process.
Further Details
Keep an eye on my Twitter and @brtmoments for more details on FOLIO and its exhibition, including more pictures and an update on the exact opening times for the general public.
And be sure to check out the other exhibitions that will be part of Bright Moments London Collection, it will be an exciting month of digital art and I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to showcase my work alongside such a talented group of artists.