A Brief Guide to Curated, Playground, and Factory Projects on Art Blocks

Druid
The Link — Art Blocks
5 min readAug 26, 2021

Art Blocks has three collections — Curated, Playground, and Factory. In this article, I’ll walk you through the collections and highlight some stellar projects from each. Hopefully, after reading this, you’ll check out the Art Blocks Gallery and explore a project you haven’t yet.

Curated

The Curated collection on Art Blocks is home to some of the best generative art in the world. Projects like Ringers, Fidenza, Singularity, 720 Minutes, Archetype, and Apparitions have all been part of the curated collection.

Singularity #472 — Hideki Tsukamoto

To have a project launch in the Curated collection, an artist submits their project to Art Blocks and loads their script on our testnet to generate sample outputs for consideration by the curation board. Then, the curation board evaluates the project to see if it belongs in the broader collection of curated pieces.

Apparitions #97 — Aaron Penne

To introduce the members of the curation board to the Art Blocks community, I’ve been releasing brief interviews with one member of the board per week — you can see this week’s curator spotlight here (and previous ones here, here, here, here — with more on our Medium publication). The Art Blocks curatorial board is a diverse group from all walks of life. They bring their own experiences and perspectives to the table with one common goal: find the most interesting and innovative generative art projects in the world, and add them to the Curated collection.

Ringers #333 — Dmitri Cherniak

Playground

Once an artist has released a Curated project, they gain access to the Playground. In the Playground, artists are encouraged to experiment with their projects and have a little more fun. This is where things loosen up a bit. Artists are encouraged to take wild swings and experiment with styles.

Gen 2 #196 — DCA

In my opinion, some of the best community experiences have come from the Playground. For example, Kjetil Golid released Paper Armada in the Playground with a 3,000-edition size. At first, some people thought the project was too large and stayed open too long. But a core group of collectors would randomly mint a few pieces every week or so for months. Then, Westophalopalis shared their Paper Armada fleet in episode 5 of After Dinner Mints which opened the community’s eyes to the power of collecting multiple pieces to build your own fleet. The project sold out shortly after.

Paper Armadas (various) — Kjetil Golid. Collection courtesy of Westophalopalis.

Similarly, Alexis André’s project Void was open for nearly a week with an edition size of 500. It was great to watch people mint a piece here or there throughout the week, then jump over to Alexis’ channel to talk about what they added to their collection. When the first Time for Blood palette popped out, I was blown away.

Void #19 — Alexis André

You cannot talk about the Playground without mentioning Dmitri Cherniak’s project, The Eternal Pump. The motto of the project is “Don’t fight it. Just respect it.” With an edition size of 50, these beautiful pieces resonate nearly everyone. You know if you see this in a collector’s wallet, they are deep in the culture.

The Eternal Pump #17 — Dmitri Cherniak

I highly recommend you read this Twitter thread by community member Dandelion. They are one of the best voices in the community and properly convey how The Eternal Pump is more than a beautiful piece of code, it’s an experience:

Factory

The last collection added to the Art Blocks platform was the Factory collection. With the increased interest in Art Blocks, the queue for applications exploded. While some artists are happy to wait to be considered for the Curated collection, others just wanted their project on the platform without going through the curation process. So, the Factory was created to get more generative art in the hands of collectors, and recently, some of my favorite projects are housed in this collection.

Octo Garden #40 — Rich Lord

The Factory collection still has an onboarding process with the Art Blocks team, but the process is slightly quicker since artists don’t need to wait for the curation board.

Ode to Roy #883 — artplusbrad

Don’t Get Hung Up on the Label

I’ve seen a ton of conversation in the community with new members asking which collection to get started with. The only correct answer to this is to check out all of them. If you’re looking to buy your 1st piece or your 100th piece, your decision should not be guided by the collection — the only relevant factor for collecting art is personal taste. While the Curated collection is great, there are absolutely stunning pieces in the Playground and Factory. I highly recommend you scroll the Art Blocks Gallery, find a project you’ve never explored, and check out the work. All projects on Art Blocks have their own merit and attributes that make them special. Don’t be too hung up on the name. Appreciate the art.

--

--

The Link — Art Blocks
The Link — Art Blocks

Published in The Link — Art Blocks

The Link is a newsletter by ArtBlocks.io. We cover the world of generative art on the Ethereum blockchain and stories at the intersection of technology and art. Follow us for project announcements, artist interviews, and more.

No responses yet