Rarities on long-form generative art
NFTs valuations are notoriously complicated and absurd, but the one thing that is a constant in this space is this: The rarer something is, the more valuable it becomes.
This begs the question: What does rare mean in the context of long-form generative art? What is a “good” rarity?
Those are the questions we will explore in this article, and I’ll describe all kinds of rarities we usually see in collections from the most appealing to the least appealing. But before we hop into the good stuff, I want to talk about bad rarity first:
By far the worst form of rarity is that which makes the pieces look worst. While that seems obvious at first, it’s a little bit counter intuitive, because everything that makes the pieces look better should be made common in order to strengthen the core for the collection and not generate just a few incredible outliers. If we accept the idea that the best collections have the best and largest fat middle and not the best outliers, all that improves the work should be made common. Far worst than a bad rarity is a bad collection and no artist should limit the frequency of something that can improve their work just for the sake of making it rare. But now what have we left to create rarity? If all that improves the outputs are common, how can rare traits not make them worst? let’s take a dive into the good rarities to understand.
- Emergent rarity is the best kind of rarity.
This is the grail when it comes to rarities. Unforeseen interactions create something that is unique and appealing. This kind of rarity can be further split into 2, one where the parameters of the code interact in a way that was unexpected and the other where the output resembles something unexpected to the collectors, like The Goose ringer.
The best example of the first kind is “God Mode” Fidenza, but other collections have similarly unexpected outputs.
I like to call the second kind “God on the toast” rarity since its uniqueness is based on our ability to find patterns where in principle there’s none. While “The Goose” is the most famous example, we also can find outputs like it elsewhere.
“God on the toast” rarities are based on social consensus and not traits, and therefore the premium on their value can go from effectively 0 to unbounded, depending on how strong the consensus is.
But regardless of their form, emergent rarities are the best kind, the ones that give meaning to a work beyond the traits and the artist’s original design.
- Trait Based rarity
By far the most common type of rarity though is the one based on traits. This is probably due to the prevalence of profile picture NFTs, where traits are the distinguishing feature between them. But whatever the reason, the rarer the traits, the more people will be willing to pay a premium over it even if the aesthetics lacks.
Because of this nature, many artists add “gimmicks” that happen with a low probability precisely to artificially create rare outputs. This is not wrong per se, but one needs to be careful, are they designing something that is supposed to be admired for being great or for being rare? There’s an important balance here.
If we understand “the fat middle” of the collection as the core upon which everything else is built, then trait rarities are like seasoning on top of a dish. A pinch of salt and pepper that makes the whole dish better. They can enhance a collection, but can also ruin it if added excessively. But even if they add value to the collection, there’s only so much they can do. The perfect amounts of salt and pepper can’t save a burned toast.
With that analogy in mind, it is easy to see that the best trait rarities are the ones that make the individual pieces better but would make the collection worst had they been more common. This happens when many together would start looking “indistinguishable” or boring. I think a good example of a rarity like that is micro Fidenza. In general, I think that being a micro adds value to the individual pieces but if they were more common the collection as a whole would suffer.
Another example of this kind of rarity is the absence of “Splotches” on Screens. Their clean and direct look is incredibly appealing, but the absence of “splotches” also removes depth and makes them blander when seen together. Despite individually adding value to outputs, they can’t be the default aesthetic or you risk hurting the collection.
After this kind of rarity, the second best are the ones that don’t make the pieces better or worst, but just change it. Then making it rare becomes an artist’s discretion based on their vision for the work. The Scene trait on Archetypes is a perfect example of that where Cubes and Corners do not make a piece better on their own, but they also don’t feel like a sacrifice in quality in order to create scarcity. You could mix their frequency and the collection would be just as good. Their frequencies are a choice based on artistic vision.
The next step in terms of rarities is low frequency traits that make sense in the context of the collection. They are part of the narrative and/or artistic intention, and give a meaningful break from the common aesthetic.
But the most common kind of rarity are the ones that make a piece slightly worst on its own and most of their value derives from the fact that they are rare, not that they are the most appealing of the set.
The “Isometrize” trait on Edifices and the “Newsprint” trait on Meridian are examples of rare traits that in my opinion derive most of their value from being rare and not from adding significant value to the pieces. Of course, it’s not black and white, and some rare traits (including those two above) are a mix of the groups we mentioned before.
But I think the best collections will not only have a very strong fat middle, but most of their rare outputs will come from the first few types of rarities I described here. What you really don’t want is to make a piece worst just so that it can be different and therefore rare, or save the best your code can offer to a few outputs.
Obviously, a lot of this is subjective and personal. All the examples I used here are from collections I adore and the goal is simply to exemplify how I see different kinds of rarities and the role they play in making a collection stronger.
