Modern Times #4/196

Traffic explores a crossroads between the metaverse & reality through organized chaos. The complexity of this aural / visual landscape demanded over 200 hours of design time between Slimesunday & 3LAU. Every detail of this piece was built from scratch, from the reflective puddled pavement to the stabbing synthesis of the song. We think we'll be spending a lot more time in the metaverse in the future, don't you?

Sophia Instantiation by Sophia the AI robot x Andreas Bonaceto

"Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?" is dedicated to the mysterious creation of Bitcoin, and acts as the showcase artwork within Javier Arrés’ exploratory series "Bitcoin, The Origin". "Who is the creator of Bitcoin?" The artist, Arrés, explores this question, and the feelings of doubt and mystery that accompany it, through his unique artistic language. An unknown, an enigma. It should be remembered that the name Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym of Bitcoin's author or authors and gives us little insight into its true creator. For this Visual Toy, Arrés uses the signature claw machine, his famous half-operation, to symbolize our collective ignorance and unconfirmed belief: As soon as it has the stuffed animal within its grasp and appears to have solved the puzzle, the animal escapes again, and again. At present, there are three more public and studied possibilities who are either believed to be the creators of the currency or who directly claim the creation of it. It may be all or none of them, yet these three personalities leave us clues which are an important part of this interesting enigma. For this moment, it will remain unknown... In this artwork, Arrés elevates the claw machine from the apparatus, to an iconic pop art object serving as an important element to the Bitcoin creation narrative. Action is everywhere, with each movement serving an iconographical or metaphorical purpose related directly to cryptocurrency: Various ups and downs, roller coasters, mining points, robot, coins and more speak to a sense of hope, risk, mystery, randomness and possibility of pay out. Hundreds of manically thought out details make this creation one of the artist’s most complex Visual Toys to date. ------- "Bitcoin, The Origin" is a set of two Visual Toys, titled "Who is Satoshi Nakamoto" and "It’s Alive!" which reflect and explore the mystery and enigmas behind the creation of Bitcoin. Arrés presents these proposals to us in his signature style, full of iconography, fantasy, maniacal animations and a panoply of details (both subtle and overt) which simultaneously fascinate, hypnotize, and narrate this historical milestone through the singular vision of the artist. Through this series, Arrés freezes a crucial moment of cryptocurrency history, taking a still photo under his vision and turning it into two unique crypto artworks. ---- More info about Javier Arrés: https://javierarres.com/about.html

First Christmas-themed Visual Toy. For this work the artist has created a fantastic sleigh, ornamented in detail and with all the Christmas spirit that transports us to childhood, illusion, innocence. With its gift wrapping machinery, its Santa, a snow globe, the nutcracker, the European-style village and its soundtrack (first time with music) it is a whole Christmas mosaic for the imagination.

Welcome to the ‘Beautiful worlds’ where nature and technology have merged into a single entity. These are Ai generated and hand finished visions of solarpunk future in which I would really like our future generations to live and prosper: the future we might have if we took the very “alternative route” which now lies before us: replacing states and corporations which free federations of communities and cooperatives, using decentralist and ecological technologies to create a world beyond economic scarcity and social hierarchy, defined by autonomy, mutual aid, diversity, and inclusiveness. The long-term goals of solarpunk are freedom and well-being for all by adopting and developing such ecological technologies as: solar, wind, wave and geothermal energy rather than oil or gas to generate electricity; a world of decentralized eco-cities, permaculture and vertical farming, free and open-source software, open-source hardware, small-scale fabrication laboratories, micro-manufacturing, 3D-printing, and countless examples of commons-based peer-production online: meeting the maximum amount of needs, in the shortest time, using the minimum possible amount of energy. It’s a world of decentralized and confederated eco-communities, using technology for human-centric and eco-centric ends rather than for accumulating power and profit – mending the metabolic rift between first nature (the natural world) and second nature (human culture) – and where social hierarchies of race, gender, sexuality, and disability are considered horror stories from the past “oil age”. Solarpunk desires societies of polycultural ethnic diversity and gender liberation, where each person is able to actualize themselves in societal environment of free experimentation and communal caring; This philosophy proposes that in order for the social and natural worlds to reconcile, humans must first transform their relations to each other – recreating society along egalitarian, cooperative, and democratic lines – and then transform their relations towards nature – adopting an attitude to cooperation, rather than domination, towards the planet and its nonhuman forms of life. Text by Connor Owens. This artwork took me a year to create and for you it will take a year to discover. Master autonomously updates once a day at 12am with one of 366 original artworks. Enjoy!

The term “Fuku” refers to fortune or good luck. “Shiva” refers to the Hindu deity who represents strongly polar qualities, both severe and delicate. On a beach inspired by adventures on Phi Phi island in Thailand, three youths cavort. Two are representational figures and the third is psychologically rendered. A dynamic relationship ensues between the triad; a reciprocity of active and passive states. The boy on the right engages in maneuvers of evasion, defense, and is dressed in a speedo which reiterates the colors and symbolism of the caution tape on the left and upper right frame of the composition. In concurrent reaction the psychedelic figure shoots out a rocket powered paper airplane. The nude boy seated in the froth and sand approaches in passive repose, and is met with active attention but equal physical reserve by the psychedelic being. Perhaps the most naked figure is also the least representational. Looming large, dynamic, and active, it engages its companions playfully. Various symbols interject into the otherwise naturalistic scene, most notably a beach ball and two contaminated barrels nested in the sand. The upright barrel reads “FukuShima” in Kanji. The barrel laying down reads “Dharma”. To the left the scene is bounded by caution tape, reiterating the danger of the nuclear waste while also hosting alien archetypes, whose presence, as is the nature of these entities, runs up and just behind the consciousness of the psychedelic figure’s eggshell-like skull.