Nguyen Wahed presents Infinite Garden, a solo exhibition by Leander Herzog in New York. For two months, beginning March 17, the standalone installation transforms the concept of digital materiality through an ever-shifting botanical ecosystem on blockchain where no single moment repeats itself.

ARTXCODE proudly presents Virga, an exploration of transience by William Watkins. Inspired by the meteorological phenomenon where rain evaporates before reaching the ground, Virga captures the delicate tension between presence and disappearance — where abundance gives way to absence. It is a meditation on impermanence, revealing how fleeting moments shape human experience in ways we may not immediately perceive.

Virga unfolds in layered compositions where faces emerge from shifting, atmospheric backdrops. Some figures step forward with clarity, while others dissolve into the visual cascade — sketch-like, spectral, elusive. As these forms morph and distort, they oscillate between human likeness and organic structures, evoking the fluidity of corals and the intricate formations of shells.

At the heart of Virga is a system written entirely in code, creating everything from the faces to the sketch-like rendering. Each subject is constructed from approximately 50 mathematical primitives — spheres, boxes, ellipses — sculpted through variables such as line length, density, repetition, and blur. Subsystems govern the expression and the surrounding environment: one ensures figures gaze at us, while another transforms background textures into fragmented silhouettes. Triplanar mapping introduces subtle variations across surfaces, producing a shifting interplay of abstraction and realism. The result is a work that feels both deliberate and organic, precise yet deeply emotive.

Beyond its technical intricacy, Virga radiates a deeper resonance, embracing the paradox of impermanence. Though precipitation may never reach the earth, its effects like downdrafts, temperature shifts, and new cloud formations reshape the atmosphere. Even the most fleeting gestures, like virga itself, leave unseen yet lasting imprints. "Small moments," Watkins reflects, "are integral to the human experience. Life is shaped by them.”

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Virga makes heavy use of the GPU, lower-end devices my struggle to run it properly.

William Watkins x ARTXCODE March 2025

This series takes its cue from the concept of AI agents, which are predicted to become increasingly widespread in the near future. Multiple doubles, generated from the artist’s own body and facial data, persistently process vast streams of information without revealing any emotion. In doing so, they re-enact the stereotype of the Japanese “Office Lady (OL)” an archetype that serves to make prevailing gender norms visible.

OLs were once referred to as the "flowers of the workplace," or shokuba no hana (職場の華) in Japanese. This phrase denotes someone, usually female, who brings charm and positivity to the office environment. At the same time, OLs were expected to leave their jobs upon marriage or childbirth, reflecting broader societal views on gender and work.

While AI poses the risk of learning and amplifying such historical biases, it also holds the promise of spurring a reconfiguration of work practices and divisions of labor. By foregrounding this duality through its “doubles,” the work prompts viewers to consider whether an AI-driven future will merely reproduce the past or whether it can potentially establish a new social order.

“Link” is series of 28 generative stop-motion loops, with each sequence comprising between 32 and 224 individual long-exposure photographs. Each frame of the sequence is obtained through a long-exposure capture (~30 seconds) of a vertical LED array in motion, resulting in precise, three-dimensional light-trail geometries. The custom hardware system combines several synchronized elements: individual LEDs that can be programmed for specific colors and brightness levels; an XY plotter with a 30×30cm range that controls the position and movement of the LED array; captured with a DSLR camera in bulb mode. All components operate within a light-controlled black box environment, controlled by custom software that synchronizes the camera shutter, plotter movement, and LED behavior. Each frame takes around 1 minute to be produced, with a complete loop taking several hours.

The geometric compositions made of light and movement appear to float in a dark environment, where the reflections of the shapes are visible on the ground/floor, exposing the physicality of these ephemeral forms.

This process and its accompanying research were developed for a commission by organizers of an Italian electronic music festival, though the event was ultimately cancelled. The initial concept (from 2012) included a large-scale installation using a custom system with industrial cranes. The research continued independently and extensively, resulting in the series “Link”.

To maintain the photographic origin of the project, the playback of each edition is handled by a custom script that sequences the individual images. The scale, direction, and speed can be modified interactively. Each edition contains two image sets: Full-resolution images, direct from the camera sensor, only slightly cropped, with metadata intact at 4000px per side. A smaller, lighter version at 1400px for smooth playback.

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Gysin-Vanetti 2023-25

https://link.gysin-vanetti.com

deviates.website

Art Blocks Collection: Curated

Project Description: BUSY is a generative reflection of urban complexity and interconnected systems.

As an artist who works at the intersection of code and mechanical plotting, James Merrill has become fascinated with the contrast between overwhelming city dynamics and the quiet stillness of his Vermont studio. He seeks to transform apparent chaos into structured beauty, creating works that reveal the hidden patterns within our seemingly disordered world.

Merrill says, "What drew me to generative art was the ability to make programs that generate infinite numbers of outputs. I often observe cities as layered systems that we've normalized through familiarity, and I wonder how to capture that totality. I'm interested in offering viewers a god's eye perspective—not just of urban environments, but of the underlying coexisting elements that form them." This tension between randomness and order drives Merrill's creative process and shapes the intricate compositions that emerge. BUSY explores the overwhelming sensation of being pulled in countless directions—notifications, movement, tasks—while seeking the underlying structure beneath.The work emphasizes relationships over randomness, causality over noise, and cause and effect over disorder. Drawing inspiration from highly detailed Wimmelbilder scenes, BUSY applies generative techniques to build complex compositions that feel both familiar and abstract.

This collection of 50 unique works invites viewers to discover new details with each viewing—much like exploring a metropolis where chaos resolves into structured complexity when viewed through the right lens.

Spectramnesia is a painting of a story, a narration untold— an arthouse dream of clerks and sharks, mysticism at the edge of the horizon, alchemy behind office doors.

SINE is a comprehensive exploration of one ostensibly simple function - sinθ: distorted, mangled, modulated, folded, blended and employed in unconventional ways to generate layers of textured formations that are not evidently organic or geometric.

Études is a collection that, much like the artist’s sketchbook, mirrors the fluidity and spontaneity of artistic evolution via hand-drawn marks. Each work memorialises the essential role of drawing in the artist's exploration—both as a process and as a tool for discovery.

Pacific Spirit is the second studio album from Canadian electronic music artist 747, set to release on the Aquaregia label. Its acid-inflected dive into jungle breaks and dreamy atmospheres is extended through an accompanying generative art series.