More Background

This is another multi layered artwork as is common for my art. Often while exploring shapes and forms I find what I am feeling and thinking. It even happens with art with more entropy and randomness in it. With my artificial intelligence art I often subconsciously build models and curate generated images that correspond to the thoughts I am having. The process of making art allows me to explore the thoughts and feelings I did not know were there.

I was fascinated by the I Ching and how it seemed to correspond to the western binary number system. It has 64 combinations and is based on yin yang or 0 and 1. But the meaning of the I Ching goes deep into a thought system to explain the universe. But I also wanted to make an artwork that commented on the popularity of Art Blocks and NFT art. I see people throwing the coins or dice and betting on getting a rare piece of art they can resell. So included the ideas of gambling, fortune and fate in the art.

In addition artists I admire and emulate like John Cage and Nam June Paik used some part of the I Ching in their art. I enjoy exploring the use of non intention or randomness in my art. The chaos of the universe tends to order and patterns it seems. How can we say that any of us is so imperfect as to corrupt the order of the universe.

With this type of generative art there is an element of chance, of luck or fate. Based on the token hash that is selected at the moment of the mint the art is created. It does not exist before that point. Is it aligned with the universe somehow. With I Ching the yarrow sticks are drawn or coins are thrown. At that moment the meaning is revealed. Entropy and change are critical to the way our universe works. Without entropy would we exist?

Can the blockchain and the transactions flying by tell us something about ourselves and our community?

In creating this I was exploring symbols. Symbols and meaning in the trigrams of the I Ching and other symbols we have decided to place into unicode. I have been giving much thought and emotion to the concepts of gender identity lately so these symbols appear. We cannot choose certain things about ourselves as we are born that way and need the freedom to exist and be.

☿♆♁⚧⚤⚥⚢⚣♂♅

Many symbols have more than one meaning. Some of the gender symbols are also stand for various planets. I wanted to have some sense of the movements of the solar system in our fortunes.

The art also has interactive features. You can change the color, background, move specific symbols and reveal the I Ching.

You can a list of my inspirations on a blog post I recently wrote: Eight Inspirations for Eight

Spoiler Alert

I feel that I must explain the risks here, the caveat emptor and my intent because of your gamble in your choice to leave the mint and your fortune up to fate. Absurdity, randomness, fate, luck, free will, fortune and gender. With this I want evoke the sense of the absurd and randomness of life. If this art does not make sense it was intentional in part. But yet I desire to expose the beauty and joy in the surprise that comes from the moment of creation when the blockchain births its next token and generates the art which might produce absurd combinations. I do not know what might appear. The traits you are given sometimes do not match the reality you experience.  As in life there are traits that have no name yet. Traits that are undesired and marginalized but are actually superpowers.The colors will clash or bleed together but with an intentional non-intentionality. These are my stream of thoughts – emotions — a tableau of symbols and myths from an art outsider. It is absurd and that is my intention. Out of entropy order and absurdity emerge. I feel I must explain my language of symbols. It may be ugly or not what you want but this is what the universe has delivered.

First thought is a meta reference to the gamble of this art and your gain or loss using an illusion to the slot machine using the fruit of the slot machine. The Bagua or Pa Kua appears in many which holds the I Ching trigrams and then explore the nature and methods of divination. We have the simple magic eight ball which recalls the eight sides of the Pa Kua. To the slot machine a game of luck and fortune invoked by the fruit symbols. This in tern evokes the movements of the planets which have been used for eons to foretell the future. The symbols of the planets have yet another meaning. The symbolic planets hold a possible spectrum of gender and the unease we might feel with being defined in a binary fashion. The I Ching is a binary system that predates the computer. The working of our mind and body has given us a sense of a uniqueness that our culture may try to tie to a modality. Like this art with a defined trait, the universe has give us a gift born of entropy a unique trait that has been defined as gender. Like the I Ching out of the binary of one and zero is born an endless variety of fortunes. This brings us back to life and the art forms we use to explain the mystery. I attempt the symbology of the all seeing eye, Ezekiel’s extraterrestrial vision, LOST, His Dark Materials and The Matrix. As they are ancient and modern myths in the struggle to comprehend the nature of fate, luck, free will and the absurdity of our existence. And if you have lemons try hard to make something out of them. If your traits are misdefined and mislabeled may we all work with love to make them true. Anyway it makes sense in my head and I am told it is pretty to watch.