E43 - Where's Waldo
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01. News
Objkt Updates
Glory be, Objkt has taken incredible strides in the last week to improve its integration with fxhash. Not only will projects (finally) show up in Objkt as separate collections, but the marketplace will now display offers and listings as they are on fxhash proper. We'll miss the loophole of being able to find deals through separate Objkt listings, but usability will reign supreme.
Tender Updates
Tender has also been making platform updates in the background that should really be getting more love and attention. Recent quality of life improvements include the ability to list, delist, relist, and send tokens en masse. No need to be a TENDER Pass holder to take advantage of this functionality; it's free for everyone.
At this point, Tender has all of the capabilities of fxhash proper, with the exception of marketplace statistics and fxtext articles. We strongly recommend checking it out if you haven't done so already.
In other Tender news, a change to the reserve mechanism on Tender collaborations has changed, which is why you may have noticed a recent run on passes. Moving forward, projects will be fully reserved for pass holders for the first 24 hours (and ten minutes) of the release. Once that time has elapsed, remaining mints will be opened to the public.
Interview interview interviews!
Friends, we have a new interview out with the always amazing Leander 'Lenny' Herzog! He is an absolute joy to talk to, and we love his fresh perspectives on the generative art space and NFTs, especially as they collide with the traditional art world. Also on Apple Podcasts and Anchor.
We also recorded another interview with Jaime and Zeneca of Two Bored Apes (in)famy. This one is currently in WillPop's editing bay and will be released in the coming weeks.
02. Projects of the Week
This was a lighter week on projects than usual, and only four new projects broke into the 7-day marketplace ranking.
larswander
Don't worry - you didn't miss a stealth drop from larswander this week! He is topic of conversation on this show due to the huge run on his fxhash projects, particularly Gossamer and Geode. It has been a minute since his last release here, but he has been getting huge attention and accolades for his 1/1 work over on Objkt, which everyone should absolutely be checking out.
ZOOM (4hwf)
No, not the delightful video conferencing application that has taken over our lives for the last nearly three years. Kim Asendorf's ZOOM (4hwf), a Herbert Franke tribute piece, was released last week to much excitement and some confusion around getting on the reserve list.
It's important to note that the rectangular thumbnails will expand to fill the entire screen when running the project and, as expected for any project by Asendorf, is fully animated. Smash that play button, friends.
Will's #57 mint has undulating gradient patterns swirling against each other, and the effect is subtle and not quite as cinematic as he may have wanted. Amazing all the same.
In contrast, this 9-layer piece has noisier components that evoke watching the clouds in different elevations in the sky go by, some faster and some slower, but truly conveying a sense of depth.
Keeping with the sky theme, #21's chill vibes are totally reminiscent of the night sky and we could watch it move by for hours. Keep that in mind the next time you have a downbeat party for the cool kids (we'll be there).
In a Moment, a Thousand Years
The abstract train has left the station and moving full steam ahead into our hearts. We love this latest project from XALTED and think it's incredibly deserving of its spot near the top of this week's chart.
A bit of a reminder / alpha from Will this week - if you are feeling some fomo from the last few weeks and don't want to pay the high secondary prices for work, tominto's Fragment Assembler is both amazing and still available to mint.
When it comes to In a Moment, Trinity isn't sure that all palettes are created equal, but that the 'Summertime' colors are absolute 🔥. It isn't at all a surprise to see lemonde2d sweeping through the collection and targeting such nice outputs as #98 below.
We are both enamored of the execution of this release, and feel it successfully straddles the line of 'art that feels painted' and 'art that feels made of code' - a line that most projects fall firmly on one side of (see: ZOOM).
XALTED wrote a fantastic companion article to In a Moment that is a must-read for anyone at all interested in either the work or generative art. It goes into the creation of the project, including the details behind some of the trippier, drippier pieces like the one below.
One insight from the article is how In a Moment is a direct relation to prior project A Fissure in the Megastructure, a familial resemblance immediately obvious when looking at them side-by-side. Both projects were developed in Cables.gl, with Moment derived from an experimentation with network / 'patch' from its predecessor (just read the article, it will all become clear!).
Is anyone sick of talking about September yet? No? Didn't think so. It has become so difficult to talk about the huge interest in abstract projects without bringing up its spectacular market performance over the last month.
This week the tie-in is our preference between September and In a Moment. While it's obvious what the market prefers, Trinity feels that she would rather have a strong Moment than the average September, which speaks to the strength of the project. Hot take? Hot take.
The City
The one-two combo of Laxraven and r1b2 is back again for their first collaboration of fxhash 1.0! The City is complex movement forward from their beta project, Mining Structures, which was released under a shared contract before collaborations were natively possible.
Laxraven provides the inspiration sketches for the collaboration, while r1b2 provides the code. Read more about their process and the creation of The City in their accompanying (and awesome) fxtext article.
The City isn't the first medieval-ish project on the platform. The whimsy of the towers and roofs reminds Trinity of beta project Medieval Village from Waxhead.
Will loves the 'where's Waldo' aspect of The City that is enabled by inclusion of the 'Rare Item' trait. Go grab a sharpie and circle the obelisk and the 'tree of Gondor' in the following pieces (jk, please don't do that).
The City has another fun (and probably unintentional) flashback to the days of beta with the inclusion of the 'Elevated' trait, which brings to mind some of the zanier pieces of anaglyphic's Glyphic - Pyramid scheme.
Some of our other favorite special features include the red wash as seen in #125 and the blue inverted line paper color from #32. r1b2 shared a rainbow gradient on Discord, but unfortunately that feature was pulled from the final project.
Enfantines I. Small Talk
Enfantines is such a fun project and we were delighted to see it show up in the top five for the week. Speaking of hot takes, there is one big one floating around the community discourse that artist (rat)chitect was able to channel some major Contrapuntos vibes and itch some of those same scratches for collectors.
There is a ton of detail and nuance that went into this project, and it's all covered by the unsurprisingly excellent fxtext article that accompanied the release. Please read to learn more about the background of Enfantines, how the music was recorded and midi-fied, and some of the features that are included in the project.
One hidden feature is the 'bugged' trait that unfortunately broke previews but creates a lovely imagine when successfully rendered. It reminds Trinity of the 'Downtown' variations of Uninhabitable.
Will enjoys how different pieces are constructed via the features. Some, like #117 are densely constructed...
...while others, like #107, are quite sparse. There is just about something for everyone, and of course don't forget to turn your sound on and run the project to enjoy the music and accompanying animation.
Enfantines is such a departure from (rat)chitect's prior work, like Sparsely Populated Grid, and we can't wait to see what else could be coming in the future.
03. Shoutouts
Improvisation I
Hrunz released a new project that follows in the footsteps of Turner Light (and perhaps Primordial) in the use of Fractal Brownian Motion to create noisy and warping fields.
As with Primordial, there are some natural diptychs to be found, like here with #83 and #84.
magmatic
Is this a potential breakthrough thirteenth project for ella? The cellular construction on its own is quite fun, and the addition of physics-based interaction makes it even more fun to play with.
Indistinct Places
Sound aficionados, don't forget to take a look at Indistinct Places, which combines planetary visuals with dulcet tones. There is a wide variety to explore (pun?), and we have called out some of the different oscillations below.
square4:
sawtooth:
fmtriangle:
fmsine:
fatsawtooth:
Will also wishes to add a PSA that pxlshrd has a few project that are still available to mint, as well.
04. Looking Ahead
Todemashi
This new project reminds Will of a late beta favorite, Celestial.
pixelwank
Pixelwank is putting together something new and spicy. Check out Discord for more WIPs.
Volatile Moods
We didn't realize it has been so long since a Volatile Moods project. The WIPs displayed in Discord are looking niiiice.
Well that's it for this week! Thank you so much for listening and reading, and please don't forget to collect this article to help support the tremendous effort that goes into producing Waiting To Be Signed each week.