A couple of months ago, I went to the MOMA in London, where I stumbled across artwork by Venezuelan artists Jesus Soto. I was immediately hooked as he designed his artwork to create a movement notion by just looking at it.
Esfera Caracas is one of the most iconic installations in Venezuela (1996).
He was born and raised in Venezuela (my home country) and is arguably the most significant artist to come out of my country after leading the op and kinetic art movements.
Kinetic art is art from any medium that contains movement perceivable by the viewer or that depends on motion for its effect. Canvas paintings that extend the viewer's perspective of the artwork and incorporate multidimensional movement are the earliest examples of kinetic art.
Still preview of the Soto FxHash collection by Kaloh.
I found inspiration in his work and tried to mimic the movement from his installations, but in a digital environment. My algorithm can produce shapes formed by “strands” that move at different speeds and directions until they rest in a final formation. The strands never stop moving, similarly to Soto’s pieces.
Jesus Soto with one of his artworks, inspired by Venezuela's national flag.
Still preview of the Soto FxHash collection by Kaloh.
Features
Although the algorithm has over 15 controlling variables, I ended up simplifying the features into these six categories:
Palette: Most are inspired by Soto’s most famous works. I created additional custom palettes.
Strands distribution: defines the strands configuration in the canvas and plays a factor in palette usage.
Strand growth rate: defines the speed of the strands’ movement. There are three possibilities, slow, standard and fast.
Strands width: this variable defines the width of each strand.
Hidden strands: Each piece has a certain number of hidden strands to produce different effects. Crucial for reproducing a similar effect to Soto’s penetrables.
One of the many Jesus Soto “Penetrables” (Spaghetti Jungle) installed worldwide.
Video Preview
Here are some previews (be aware the video quality is not great).
here is another #soto preview with movement (low quality, stills below) #fxhash #generativeart
Release
The collection will be released on FxHash at 3 pm CET through a dutch auction:
Price: 12 Tezos > 10 Tezos > 8 Tezos > 6 Tezos (price will go down every 10 minutes).
Editions: 270.
Reserve List: There will be 20 spots reserved for Impossible Sneakers holders.
Still preview of the Soto FxHash collection by Kaloh.
Until next time,
- Kaloh
PD: Last month, I lost my laptop and Soto’s source code with it. Fortunately, the airplane airline where I left my laptop found it and returned it 🎉
Lost my laptop during my trip and therefore lost the source code for the Soto project 😢 #fxhash
