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gm! Roll Some Bones releases on October 31st (Halloween) @ 1pm ET on @artblocks_io Studio! 🖍️
About the collection
Roll Some Bones draws its title from the age-old phrase "roll the bones," a reference to the casting of dice in games; it alludes to the work’s playful exploration of chance and desire. The collection is a dance of human creativity and machine execution, where the artist and machine engage in a game of algorithmic chance. By manipulating a pseudorandom number generator (PRNG), tweaking variables, embracing probability, and refreshing the page, the artist sets the stage for the machine to interpret the algorithm. The result is a rich interplay where each hash generated by code leads to hand-drawn, crayon-like textures blended with digitally native patterns and artifacts, celebrating the beauty of unpredictability in the creative process.
Influenced by Vera Molnár's explorations of order and chaos and “1% disorder” in algorithmic art, Roll Some Bones questions the nature of authorship in human-machine collaborations and how the blockchain immortalizes the consequences of chance – one that includes happy accidents and unforeseen outcomes. The contrast of slightly messy, childlike crayon textures created with sophisticated and structured algorithms offers a familiar visual representation of human creation in algorithmic form while using Molnár’s concepts of disorder. As the audience engages with the piece, they're drawn into a world where the joy of a simple game of chance meets the infinite possibilities of algorithmic art, encouraging reflection on the evolving nature of creativity in digital art on the blockchain.
Diving deeper into the consequences of chance
The duality of chance in Roll Some Bones presents a fascinating paradox within the world of blockchain-based generative art. Molnár uses the "1% disorder" principle to introduce controlled chaos to humanize algorithmic creations, the same way Roll Some Bones makes cold computation feel warm and organic through crayon-like textures. The blockchain context transforms chance into a mechanism of anticipation and desire. The interplay between these two roles of randomness – one that softens and humanizes, another that creates scarcity and speculation – mirrors our complex relationship with technology itself. There's an almost poetic tension in how the same element that makes the artwork feel pure and approachable also drives a very adult form of engagement, where collectors mint and "roll the bones" in hopes of landing their preferred output, akin to a gambler seeking a favorable roll of the dice. This intersection of innocence and intention, of artistic authenticity and market mechanics, adds another layer to the work’s exploration of human-machine collaborations.
Features and characteristics
Building on this narrative, the features and characteristics of Roll Some Bones are given whimsical names that serve two purposes – they describe the visual elements with childlike wonder and designate specific desirable outcomes within the collection. Analogous to how a child might proudly title their crayon masterpiece or how dice games have colorful nicknames for specific rolls – "snake eyes" for double ones or "boxcars" for double sixes – the work’s various characteristics are labeled with similarly evocative terms that serve both to describe the visual elements and to create a shared vocabulary among collectors. This naming convention further reinforces the collection’s portrayal of chance and desire, transforming coded parameters into entertaining descriptors that simultaneously function as markers of rarity and artistic expression. Roll Some Bones straddles the innocence of childhood creation and the strategic nature of collecting.
Thank you!
Thank you to @pleasuredoing, @pompeyplottin, and my partner, Nora in pushing my thinking of Roll Some Bones. A special thank you to @martingrasser for a wonderful conversation in Marfa (2023) that led me down a rabbit hole of digging into Vera Molnár’s work. This collection wouldn’t exist without that chat.
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