Unleashing the Future of Art: Exploring Generative Art on the Blockchain with Heeey
Welcome to a special guest blog that takes us on an extraordinary journey into the captivating world of generative art on the blockchain.
Today, we have the privilege of delving into the creative genius of Heeey, a Barcelona-based generative artist, architect, and designer. With a rich background in both the art and tech industries, Heeey has seamlessly merged his passions to become a trailblazer in long-form blockchain-based generative art.
Drawing on a decade of art world experience and his involvement in the Ethereum community since 2015, Heeey’s minimalist approach to art has created visually striking masterpieces. Through line-based diagrams, geometric elements, and vibrant colors, he invites us to witness the boundless possibilities of AI-driven creativity, where technology and artistic expression unite in harmonious and captivating ways.
Moreover, Heeey holds a masters’ degree in architecture and has rich experiences as a CEO at an art prints company.
Can you describe your creative process when working with generative art? How do you approach the concept and transform it into a tangible piece of artwork?
I always start with a prompt or idea, something I want to discover and where exploration will benefit from the endless-variations that long-form generative art allows for. Then, after generating a proof of concept, it’s when I start experimenting with the potential edges for features. How long can a line go? How thick? What about juxtaposition of lines, how does that look? And how many elements is too little, and how many too much? How does the combination of all these work together, and where should exceptions be made so that outputs look interesting in all cases.
During the process, usually new questions and options arise and it tends to be a matter of intuition as to where to stop expanding on the design and start concentrating on polishing what I already have underway. Polishing consists of making the code as streamlined as possible, on making sure that there are no cross-browser compatibility issues and also no bugs under any circumstances. This means generating hundreds if not thousands of outputs until I’m finally happy with the results.
Generative art often involves the use of algorithms and computational techniques. How do you strike a balance between the control you have over the process and the element of randomness or unpredictability in your work?
In my work, randomness is very restricted as I will usually work with a set of traits that have either very clear fringes or pre-determined steps. These will have expected probabilities to occur depending on how much that particular option within a trait adds to the artwork as a whole. This means that I never work with trait probabilities as a way to have artificial scarcity, but more in trying to position very pleasant and expected outcomes more prevalent than quirky or weird-looking ones and with the idea that all mints of my artwork are part of a bigger cohesive creation.
At the end of the day, however, the unpredictability we can find is that while one of my algorithms might have the chance to generate millions of unique trait combinations, only a few hundred may end up being minted. And then, also, balance is in understanding that while a “scarce” trait option might have 2–3% chances to appear in outputs the final recurrence might vary slightly with the chance of not even making it into the final collection.
Many generative artists explore the relationship between technology and creativity. How do you see technology influencing and shaping the future of artistic expression?
Within generative art we are seeing the emergence of pen plotters as the final step of many line-based artworks. I myself I’m really eager to dig into that area and experiment with plotting in the future. We are starting to see generative art in fabric, wearables and 3d printing that I find very exciting for what’s to come.
Not only related to generative art but for art in general, I can see how the use of robotics can become somewhat prevalent with robots or other mechanical devices painting on a canvas either very precisely or chaotically. I’m also particularly interested in how large displays such as that of Refik Anadol at MoMA or the Las Vegas Sphere will evolve in shape and size in the future. On a more personal matter, I’m really into technology applied to light installations, I think there’s so much potential there and something I’d like to pursue.
Each generative artwork is unique, yet the artist creates the rules or instructions for its creation. How do you navigate the line between authorship and allowing the algorithm or process to take on a life of its own?
Honestly, I don’t allow my algorithms to take on a life of their own as I like having full control of what potential outputs the algorithm may generate. We need to understand that how generative art has evolved is very determining for this. In previous decades, artists would create an algorithm that would generate them hundreds of outputs and they would be more liberal in their use of randomness as they ended up choosing just the single best of all the outcomes as the final artwork.
Today however, with long-form generative art, it’s almost the opposite. As an artist it’s my “duty” to ensure that all outputs minted are beautiful, striking, interesting to me and to the potential audience. This leaves very little room, if any, for the algorithm to have free will at all.
AI has become increasingly prominent in the field of generative art. How do you incorporate AI into your artistic process, and what unique opportunities or challenges does it present in creating meaningful and impactful artworks?
I see AI as a parallel art movement to generative art where both can be included in the “New Media Art” paradigm. It’s connected to generative art because both movements are evolving what traditionally has been understood as the creative process of art and both are generated via instructions given to a machine, but I wouldn’t personally define AI art as generative art as creation is so intrinsically different.
I sometimes take advantage of AI’s potential in 2 different verticals. For one, because uploading an algorithm to the blockchain can be so expensive, it’s essential that the code is optimized to its minimal possible expression and that’s where AI comes in handy sometimes by reducing a function or expression to its minimum size possible. The other way I use AI is to expand my technical capabilities. If I’m struggling to find the right mathematical equation that turns into the graphical expression I’m looking to create, I can sometimes ask AI to either help me translate from pseudo code into working code or to help me see where my code is missing something which is a huge improvement from traditional linters.
That said, I feel that while blockchain is crucial for long-form generative art both as a means of storing the artwork’s code as well as then using it to provably generate the right outputs, making it a very niche art movement with a huge dependency on blockchain technology to thrive and exist, that’s not the case for AI art which, in my opinion, may become one of the biggest and more consumer-friendly art trends for decades to come with NFT provenance being a non-essential but appreciated add-on to these artworks.
Conclusion
Heeey’s journey into generative art on the blockchain has illuminated the remarkable synergy between creativity and technology. Through his minimalist approach, he has crafted visually striking masterpieces that transcend traditional boundaries.
As we bid farewell to this extraordinary artist, we also look forward to the upcoming blogs in Season 2 of “AI-Driven Creativity — The Next Generation of Artistry,” where we’ll continue to explore the profound impact of artificial intelligence on the art world. Stay tuned for more captivating insights and innovative perspectives!
