Before we jump in, what you’re here for (I hope): The art.
ROX & data-driven parametric art, explained
TL;DR
ROX is a generative, data-driven art project minted as NFT tokens on the Solana blockchain. The Footie ROX formation machine takes in the 2022 statistics of 100 of the world’s best football ⚽ players. For each player, it outputs a unique looping abstract painting of a football.
The players serve as the muses for the ROX, and the ROX are lasting digital artifacts to celebrate the muses. ROX seeks to find something beautiful in the numbers and reveal soulfulness that transcends the quantification of value that data is almost exclusively used for.
Some history
Last year when Season 1 launched, I wrote WTF R ROX?https://medium.com/@ROXcollective/wtf-r-rox-da543da09d3a
Give that a read if you’d like more context.
What’s new with Season 2?
First and foremost, FOOTBALL! The world’s game, the beautiful game, the best players in the world transmogrified into moving paintings.
A new sport gave me new and unique challenges. This was way harder than basketball. The wide variation and accumulation of stats made it basically impossible to make anything as uniform as what I had done before. I really gave in to that and let the data lead the way.
As a result, Footie is much more lively with many more strokes that aren’t confined to the shape of the football. They are even less data visualization than Season 1. I got to what I desire for data art with Footie ROX. This truly is my ideal.
I consider Season 1 a huge achievement in my life and am beyond proud of the work, but for Season 2 we made some refinements. Three major ones: Fewer muses, smaller supply and 100% unique NFTs. No duplicates for Footie ROX.
So, what that means is we have 100 muses taken from teams playing in this year’s Champions League — each with at least 7 unique editions. (Only 18 of the best footballers are getting a Lights Out edition.) Add that up and we have 718 total NFTs, all 1 of 1.
Because bots are asses, supply is low and community is everything, Footie ROX will be primarily a whitelist mint. Jump in the Discord to get a spot. It’s not a wild undertaking to get a whitelist token. No need to do any crazy bullshit that I know of.
What’s old with Season 2?
If you know me at all, you know one thing: “Art for everyone.” Mint price is .33 SOL for whitelist spots and 1 SOL for public sale. Easy peasy. An NFT mint should never cost more than a date night out and I still strongly believe that.
Connections are still at the forefront. Your connection with your favorite footballer is a wonderful thing, built on years of experiences. Hopefully, these artifacts can strengthen and celebrate those powerful connections, or even build a new connection. It’s art for both fans and non-fans to fall in love with and cherish.
It’s also a celebration of the muses. Ultimately, ROX couldn’t be what it is without the players who breathe life into the formation machine. Finding the soul of the numbers and giving that form is the mission.
That is where it begins. That is where it ends.
Okay, ROX 101(102?)
- ROX are dArt (data art). All ROX are parametric artworks built generatively based on sports statistics.
- dArt is not data vis. Data art aims to find aesthetics that can be subjectively appreciated. The worst footballer may inspire the best ROX. An excellent player may not inspire the greatest piece of art. We are here to find and build beautiful, soulful digital artifacts — not make quantifiable read-outs.
- Season 2 was built in Cinema 4D using the nodes engine to build logic and render trees. The data was parsed from one CSV of stats from this year's Champions League. The project was rendered with Redshift and exported with that old stalwart, Adobe Photoshop.
- Yet again “The ROX exist as they are, a structure built to collaborate with the numbers and celebrate the muses. Once it was done, there was no going back. Any changes I wish I could make are irrelevant now, though they will provide guidance for future projects.”
Inspiration and influences (excerpt)
A simple artifact can have the ability to carry with it such a strong connection to something we love. I grew up collecting basketball cards and as a teen played Pokémon cards competitively, later graduating to Magic the Gathering. I still keep my “Your name” Chansey on my fridge. Maybe one day I’ll have the balls to write fubby14 on the line.
Artifacts carry those strong connections with their owners. They are scarce not only because of some rarity charts, but also because they have been infused with meaning by the collector and the creator.
I know the power of a visual artifact and with NFTs, the door is open to explore those and build those connections. The possibilities are limitless.
The tech of the ROX machine
Football stats forced me to rethink a lot of things. Each position is basically playing a completely different game and accruing different stats. I couldn’t just pick the eight main stats and let it run.
I needed to build a machine that would allow for goalies and strikers. To do this, I gave up control. I wasn’t going to be able to confine the art. Most of the rules had to go, and I had to just let the data decide.
So we ended up with a larger set of stats, 24 total: Matches played, minutes played, passes completed, passing accuracy, assists, touches, distance covered, top speed, goals, shot-creating actions, fouls committed, fouls suffered, balls recovered, shots, dribbles, tackles, interceptions, goals conceded, saves, clean sheets, launches attempted, average length of passes, number of defensive actions outside penalty area, and goal kick average length.
This season, of those stats, no stats were disqualified. Each muse gets a brushstroke for every stat that they can at their position. Each muse is dynamically ranked against all other muses in every category at run time. They are given multiple breakouts (how they stack up in raw totals, per game and per minute — all relative to the means, medians, highs and lows). The math isn’t much more complex than last season, but it is far more robust.
Muses also have some general style algorithms to decide what feel they will have. Nimble field generals and bruising defenders feel different. Muses also all have a uniquely random seed based on their birthdays. (I’m a sucker for using birthdays this way.)
And lastly, each statistic itself biases towards a feeling. Tackles and fouls produce different strokes than dribbles and goals.
To ensure all Footie ROX are unique, each edition generates a salt to reprise the positions and rotates the compositions. In lay terms, each edition has a fully unique placement of the strokes and the football, while the stroke, ball sizes and dimensions stay the same.
ROX are fully deterministic. The same data will always produce the same ROX. All randomization is derived from the data itself through simple algorithms.
Also, a million other things … but I don’t need to write a whole history book on ROX. If you have a question, always feel free to reach out.
The results
I can say with a straight face this is the best work of art I have ever made. 002 abstracted is very specifically my favorite work I have created. I am so excited to see how fans of both art and football feel about them.
I made it for the humans who love the game, for the humans who love art. I do hope you find a ROX you cherish. I made these for you.
Oh yeah … Wen mint?
February 28 on Exchange.Art. (Just to be transparent, I am a co-founder of Exchange.) Make sure to drop by our Discord if you don’t have a whitelist spot. Honestly, I’d be happier if you minted for a third of a SOL.
