December 2021 – MARG.ART

Gas

Artist: Perry Cooper

_{Above: a still image from Gas #6/48 by Perry Cooper. Click to view the full, hilarious animation.}

Perry Cooper is a British 3D motion graphics designer who now lives in the USA. I found his work in 2020 on Maker’s Place, where he brought an amazing eye to commonplace items like milk cartons, juice containers and even game cartridges.

Above: a still from Condiment Collection / Cheese Sauce. Click image to view full 3D animation.

Milk Monitor Open Editions was a part of Perry’s second Nifty Gateway drop. There were three milk bottles in this time-limited drop: FOMO (Fear of Milk Outage), 24/7 and Gas, and Perry describes the collection brilliantly:

_{This collection is a time capsule for the joy, stresses, anxieties and fun we’ve had over the last few months. I liked the idea of turning a common baby bottle into something rare and valuable, like a Fabergé egg. I’ve also found great pleasure in finding the crossover terms for baby related things and crypto. I’m a dad now, so I can officially do dad jokes!}

As a then-expecting father, these pieces spoke to me. What can I say? I had to own one, knowing that at a future date I’d be able to pass this one along to my own daughter (now at three months) and get a big laugh out of it. I finally settled on Gas, as I laughed when I read further. Perry’s description of this piece is amazing in itself, as it goes from the cost of crypto transactions, to farting, to embarrassing your offspring well into the future:

_{We pay the price for minting our NFTs in Gas, and all of that milk leads to an equal amount of Gas. My daughter used to sound like a trumpet, but that seems to have calmed down now. This is forever on the blockchain right? So I can embarrass my daughter 20 years from now? Hello! This is your dad from the past, you passed gas a lot! You’re welcome.}

The piece is hysterical, enjoyable, playful and fun, and I can totally sympathize with the artist, now that I know just how much my own tiny tot can toot like a tugboat. The mildly explosive (and musical) sound design was done by Guilt Free in Soho, London. Perry has a very helpful YouTube channel here, and can be found on Twitter here.

Between Stations #95

Artist: Lisa Orth

Lisa Orth is an artist from Seattle, who has worked in the past with the incredible Sub Pop Records, designing, among other things, an iconic logo for a somewhat popular band on the label. I discovered her work on the Tezos-based generative art site (fx)hash, and I’m so glad I did.

So far she has released eight projects on the platform, all of which carry a striking contrast; so far, three are in black and white and five are in color. The color pieces are bright, the pallet conveying a vintage, cool vibe. Here’s the artist from the description of Between Stations:

Blue Note jazz albums. Imaginary television color bar test patterns. It’s 1962 and anything’s possible.

I definitely get the retro feel for these. They remind me a little bit of the analog feel of Spectron by Simon de Mai from earlier this year, but with a much warmer vibe. I also love the consistency of the variation of color throughout her projects. Check out another favorite of mine by her, from another fxhash project, Hex Flex #197:

Lisa’s work continues to impress me, and it’s getting harder and harder to acquire one of her drops as they are released. Her last project, Angular Variations (Holding Space), sold out in minutes, and I had to acquire one on the secondary market for about 3x the mint price. Despite this, it was well worth it. I don’t plan on selling anytime soon, but her work continues to gain value among the fxhash ecosystem. Needless to say, I look forward to attempting to mint more of these as they are released!

For more of Lisa’s work, follow her on Twitter or find links to her work here.

The House of Bluebeard

artist: Yakudoo

Karim Maaloul, known on Twitter as Yakudoo, is a Belgian artist and an incredible storyteller and illustrator in his various works. In The House of Bluebeard, he takes the 17th century French folk tale by Charles Perrault as inspiration, and combines the story into an NFT that you can navigate and discover, interactively, by moving and zooming and panning around each of the 12 static scenes.

If you don’t know the story of Bluebeard, I recommend reading it or a variation of it before viewing this NFT. You don’t want to spoil the ending, do you? Keep in mind that, like most folk tales, it can get a little gory.

The wonder of tiny details abound in each frame. Notice the details from inside the house — the upstairs dining hall, walls and grandfather clock — all of which you can zoom into — to see ever-clearer details:

The piece never ceases to amaze me. In writing this up I discovered that detail exists even inside the paintings on the walls.

It’s an incredible work, and has a dark sense of foreboding in every frame. Maaloul is no stranger to folk tales. He’s also done an interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood, another interactive work that, as with Bluebeard, lets you pan around the scene and zoom in and out for detail, some of which you won’t notice till your fifth or sixth viewing. It’s amazing.

The interactive zoom/pan “trick” (I’m at a loss for what to call it) that is used in both works is subtle, and adds to the wonder and sense of mystery of the original folk tale. It’s a style that is clearly Maaloul’s own, and I hope he continues to produce more of these little gems soon.

Day 4 abstract event

Artist: rio_p

Today’s post features the 4th installment in a fun, abstract advent collection by rio_p, available as an NFT on Tezos. rio_p is an artist/facilitator who works with mixed media, and whose Twitter profile says that they are “dipping my toe in the NFT waters…” I love seeing these new works each day — they are bright, colorful and totally abstract, almost dreamlike at times. Also, they are based on something relatively new to me: Art Pedagogy, which is defined as follows from their website:

ArtPedagogy aims to promote reflective, authentic art and design teaching and learning, delivered with a spirit of ‘serious mischief’.

Looks like I have a bunch of more research to do on this, but it seems like a very cool concept to learn, and maybe pass on to my daughter. Each NFT has been extremely inexpensive at around ten cents $USD. I missed out on the first couple of drops, but intend to get one of each remaining day. Here is day ten, released today:

There are plenty of rio_p’s works available via Objkt.com here and be sure to keep an eye out for each new one in this series, dropping daily till the 25th. Enjoy!