What is Generative Art?
First of all, the term “Generative Art ” loosely translates to “A union between an artist and an autonomous system”. It is a digital art style in which artists use algorithms as a tool. What does that even mean? Using a machine that can randomly produce colors, patterns, and shapes that are then organized into an appeasing piece of digital artwork. But what are generative art NFTs?
History of Generative Art
No, we did not invent this concept in the 21st century.
Initially, generative music dates way back to the late eighteenth century and specifically our bud Mozart’s “Musikalisches Würfelspiel” which is German for “musical dice game”. It was a system for using dice to randomly generate music from precomposed options.
As for generative artwork, it appeared in 1965 by German philosopher Max Bense; it arises from algorithms programmed to specific parameters by engineer-artists.
Moreover, all the artist has to do is define the general process—what colors, or shapes they need and then feed into the algorithm with random quantities. Consequently, whatever comes out is the generative artwork.
In 1965, The first ever exhibition of generative artwork was “Computergrafik” by Artist Georg Nees. That guy was way ahead of his time… It took place in Stuttgart, Germany and included sci-fi works featuring repetitive, somewhat eerie squiggles in large grids.
The Birth of Generative Art NFTs
With the rise of the Blockchain revolution of the 21st century, Gen Z artists set on a quest to fabricate art that was more in touch with the digital world where it was selling.
The Result? Digging up an old trend from the eighteenth century and claiming it as our own. We love doing that around here…
Generally, generative Art NFTs include components related to the mechanics of the blockchain, smart contracts, and NFT “minting.” Generative art makes use of machine learning and blockchain-native randomness to produce striking art NFTs that are perfect for the buzzy market.
To sum it up, NFTs have given generative artists a platform to regain their popularity after over 50 years of being cast aside. Finally, artists promoted their generative art! It proved to be a worthy venture when producing large-scale NFT projects. And they range from thousands to even millions of unique works.
Our Top-Picks
Autoglyphs Generative NFTs:
The first “on-chain” generative art on the Ethereum blockchain. This collection is a creation of Larva Labs, the company behind the iconic CryptoPunks from 2019. Not to mention, 512 glyphs were minted before the generator became inactive. And no more new glyphs could be minted. Now, the only way to get one of those rare possessions is if a seller is willing to make you an offer.
On OpenSea, this collection sits at a floor price of 325 ETH or 484,768.83$. Excuse me while I wipe some tears… Holding onto your precious Autoglyphs for dear life huh?
Fidenza Generative NFTs
Brought to us by Artist Tyler Hobbs, this collection uses the most versatile algorithm to this date. The NFTs which came to life in October 2021, feature structured curves and blocks of varying scale, texture, and colors.
Through this mechanism, a wide scope of artwork came to life. Still not into these? One wallet alone spent around $900,000 on one of the Fidenza generative art NFTs. As you can clearly see, the buzz this collection created was MAJOR! The floor price on OpenSea for this collection is 89 ETH or 137,486.31$.
Lost Poets Generative Art NFTs
One of the most technologically progressive NFT projects is by single Artist Murat Pak, a motion and graphic designer. A brilliant concept with astonishing depth, if I must say so myself. On September 3rd, 2021 Pak breathed life into those long-forgotten Poets who were just chilling on shelves,collecting dust in the Library of Babel. Users who managed to snag a Lost Poet NFT consider themselves part of the “Culturally Woke” movement.
The floor price for this collection is 0.105 ETH or 162$ on Opensea, finally a price I can get on board with… Pak did not stop at giving the audience an eye-candy piece of art, he gave them a beautiful piece with a message behind it. Pak’s NFT “The Merge” broke the record for most expensive artwork sold by a living artist. This guy literally made history… As I am writing this, there are 28164 NFTs minted with a 3.8285 ETH (5,914.23$) 24h volume according to Coingecko. The enchanting roadmap features numerous acts, much like a play would…
These acts play out as follows:
Act I: The sale and minting of the Lost Poet NFTs; The 48-hour sale ended in just 2 hours, with fans all over the world sweeping up all 65,536 poets. Fun fact: This number is not random, it is the exact maximum character limit for 1 message on WhatsApp.
Act II ‘The Reveal’: The Lost Poets NFT owners were only able to see a fraction of their poets’ attributes. Over time, more attributes started to show, revealing the complete NFT.
Act III ‘The Explorer’: The NFT collectors will learn more about the mechanisms as more traits come to life. In this stage, collectors can feed ‘Pages’ to the Lost Poets and the poets will be able to say more words.
Where Can I buy these NFTs?
As with most NFTs, generative art NFTs can be bought on platforms like OpenSea and Nifty Gateway. There are other more art-specific platforms like Art Blocks, which act like digital and virtual art museums for fancy fans.
The Gist of It
At the beginning, the Art Community did not take NFT artwork seriously. It wasn’t legit art in their opinion. Why? It attracted many amateurs and resellers rather than the upper-class magnates of art exhibitions. Can we really blame them for their pretentiousness? Have you seen some of the NFTs floating around?
Generative Art NFTs gave those hard-core fanatics something to gawk at and ponder over their favorite pastimes… Finally, that kind of NFTs became a social standard by which people classified each other, and it was seamlessly accepted by the higher art establishments.