Five Naturescapes from (fx)hash 1.0
After taking several weeks off, following the end of the beta, the release of (fx)hash 1.0 was quite a rush. 417 new projects were minted in the first 48 hours alone (the Waiting To Be Signed podcast referred to it as “a week in a day”) and there was plenty of pent up demand to meet them. The first major project to use the new collaboration contract, (kinder)Garden, Monuments, dropped from Zancan & Yazid. (fx)hash also saw the release of other hits like iRyanBell’s illustrative and referential Sprocket Factory, Krankarta’s exploration of crystalline structures in Atoms’ Gaze, and the haunting landscapes in Mrkswcz’s Hollow.
Maybe it’s that spring is in the air (quite literally if you’re allergic to pollen), but one big theme this week on (fx)hash was landscapes and nature. After looking at every project that dropped in the first week, I came up with five generative art favorites:
Ed Cavett’s The Light of Summer is his most refined work to date, and what it lacks in variety it makes up for in sheer beauty. The landscape is drawn in over two layers, which adds substantially to the impression of a lush garden of tangled plant life. One interesting touch is that the dust-mote-like lens flares don’t appear to be deterministic, so they’re different every time you reload the same mint.
Contrast that wild splendor with the abstract, gestural plants in To the Air by Rami Awad, which are stirring as flat, static images. Give them a click though and they reveal that not only are they rendered in interactive 3D, but the piece also comes to life with gentle synth tones—a “generative music system” as Awad describes it.
Perhaps the most stunning and accomplished work on (fx)hash this week is Mediterranean by kira0. Thanks to the incredible use of shadow and perspective, it almost looks like a photograph at first glance. Similar techniques were used in their CityScape: Istanbul, but the move to smaller and more detailed objects makes this feel like a big leap forward for their work. I tried without success to pick one up when it dropped, which is no surprise given how amazing this work is. By far one of my favorite artists to watch.
Windswept by Teaboswell is an explosion of life and color. Thin branches bear a cascade of hand-drawn flowers; the high contrast color pieces are a particular standout. And in addition to varied flower shapes and line weights, what really makes this work sing is how the outlines of each flower don’t precisely line up with the color fill underneath; it’s an illustration trick that that really pays off here.
The individual plants in Enlightened Journey by Tezumie may lean heavily on Zancan’s thin-lined vegetation style, but Tezumie makes it their own through a rich diversity of plant life, and the addition of a staircase to create a strong sense of perspective and scale that draws viewers deeper into the work. The adherence to a mostly black and white palette with small pops of color is also an inspired choice.
More Picks
If you’re looking for more art picks, here is a twitter thread of all my favorite projects from opening weekend (59 in total):
As well as an ongoing list for the month of April that I add to each day:
And if you want to support the curation work of this newsletter, consider picking up a mint of my project Infinite Jazz.