Art Blocks Marfa 2024
A digital art event held in West Texas.
Hello and welcome to The Culture Project. Today we talk about the amazing event held by Art Blocks in Marfa. I love making the trip out to this magical place. It’s something I really look forward to every year. It really changes the way I look and feel about this space after each trip. Every year my trip there is a little different. The first time I went with my Dad & Daughter, last year I went with my friend Ben, and this year I took my wife with me. We both are already planning on going again next year as she had a great time on the trip.
Lets dive in.
This year I had my camera on me the whole time. I took some photos of the events we attended and I took a lot of photos of Marfa. Last year my article was basically a play by play on what I did and attended. This year I’ll talk about some of the events and things we did, but also I want to focus on some of the artists I met and the work they have released or are releasing. This year had so many things to do it was impossible to attend all the things we wanted to. I did miss a few things I really wanted to see, but all in all I’m happy with the way it all turned out.
This year we ended up staying in these tents at a place called El Cosmico. It was a very minimal spot to stay for a few days and right up our alley. It was actually pretty nice. They did have communal showers and bathrooms which was interesting. We’ve camped a lot in our lives and that isn’t uncommon. It’s not like your really showering with other people or anything.
They provide a heated blanked and we brought a ton of blankets with us. Ended up being pretty cozy all snuggled up with the wife.
After we settled in there we headed over to the Art Blocks house. We checked in got our badges and goodies and signed the yearly squiggle board.
This is the finished board with everyone who signed it.
They handed out a badge that was scannable. It is tied to Generative Goods which was a really cool NFT tied to stitching. A piece you could have put on a hat or shirts.
Then we headed in the house to check out Tokens of Presence.
I was blown away by the plotting James Merrill was doing there. The pieces were huge and had so much going on. They were amazing and it was fun to watch the plotter creating them in real time.
You could explore the algo in real time there as well. They also had a book with all the assets and things that would show up in each output. It was a really cool setup to see some of the magic behind it.
Go to Lost Pixels to see more of his work.
Here are a few that I really liked.
Every year the house is setup differently with new artists showcasing work.
Here are a few grainy photos of our walk through. I’ll have links and info to each artist below with an output from each project.
Box Light Studies by Zach Lieberman
They had a little machine in the back that spit out little plot prints from different artists.
I ended up getting a Piter Pasma piece and my wife got one from James Merrill. All brought to you by Bantam Prints.
Glitch Gallery is one of the staples amongst the digital art community in Marfa. They have been open there for three years now and do art residencies during the year. They always have great exhibits and panels during Marfa.
This year I was wearing a Prohibition shirt that I got from a panel last year at Glitch. I love the shirt and have fond memories from last year. Winning a piece from Jimena Buena Vida’s project Resonance which was minted on the Prohibition site. Sadly that market place is no longer around.
Resonance #4 by Jimena Buena Vida from my collection.
I met several people that use to work at Prohibition and ended up meeting the owner Jordan Lyall. He was a really nice guy and he loved that I was wearing the shirt.
A picture of Jordan and me. He introduced me to the Owner of Glitch Derek Edws which was really cool.
Squiggle DAO had a nice breakfast opening where they gave a few things away and had an opening for a new permanent statue in front of the building. Was pretty cool to be there for the reveal.
Not my photo. Not sure who took it.
The statue with Snowfro and Derek sitting by it. They were taking photos with this little cool camera that shot out tiny prints. I took one with Snofro and got him to sign it.
We went to a few panels, but one that really stood out was the DADABOTS Panel at Crowley Theater. They are generative music innovators that create AI-driven experimentation with music.
He had such great energy and passion about their work and creations. It was a lot of fun to listen to what they have done and how they approach their work. They have a youtube channel that has streamed generated ai music 24/7 for years without repeating itself. Pretty crazy to think about. Check out their website dadabots.com and Youtube channel.
There was an Artist Activation at the St. George Hall. This years event was very heavy on the physical side of digital art. Having a blend between the generative world and the physical. Artists all approached this differently, but each interaction was a lot of fun.
I’m going to show a few from this event as there was a lot to check out.
Dadabots had a nice presentation and chart to map out music blends. You could get a little sd card that had individual blends on them. The color of the logo would indicated what genre blend the music would be. They are trying to combine all genres of music with each other.
We checked out Riso Printing by Sarah Ridgley. Which was a really cool setup. She had this little screen where you could generate pieces and then hit a print button.
These little tiny prints came out on thermal paper.
I missed the name for this next project, but just thought it was neat. Everyone helping create a big painted piece. People hard at work together.
M.A.S.H. by Maya Man was a walk down memory lane. I’ll have to say that Maya Man was another person that really made this trip. Her energy is infectious and she was just so incredibly nice. It was great meeting her and getting to know her art a little more. I did watch her talk at a panel at glitch as well. She is amazing.
Does anyone remember the game you would play with your friends when you were kids? It would predict your future. Who you marry, wealth, vehicles, all kinds of stuff. It’s something I completely forgot about until I saw this. This would generate random options and plot them to the paper and then she would play the game for you and tell your future. So much fun.
The Queen at work.
Check out her website her Maya on the Internet to see more of her work.
I wanted to share one of her works that I really enjoyed that was released on Art Blocks. FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT
After that we headed over to DCA’s exhibit. He created tiles with generated patterns on them. I think the idea was to make zen gardens on these plates and then he would ink them up and transfer them over to paper.
I love the mesh of old school print techs with new age ways of creating.
There were tons of types to choose from. I ended up trying to make a hieroglyphic bird god of sorts. Crystal made a beautiful zen garden. We had a great time creating these.
Our prints.
Tribute Labs was heavily present this year hosting events. That had a pretty cool setup like an old chill outdoor theatre. It was playing some AI generated videos by Mind Wank called Deepfake Prophets.
Check out this tweet to see some more of the videos.
There was free drinks and food. We ended up meeting a few people there and had a great time hanging out. Shoutout to all the people who work these events. They make it happen.
We got a free mint from Mind Wank for attending the event. It was my wife’s first ever NFT and she loves it.
If you want to check them out you’ll have to follow these links to opensea to watch the videos. I could not find a way to download them.
Vitalik Buterin on Gardening 1
ClownVamp had an amazing setup for his exhibit. Everything was pink and he had some old school toys from the 90s all over the place.
We ended up going during the day and checking it out. Then went back for the party he threw on Friday night. It was a lot cooler atmosphere at night with all the energy in the room. It was a lot fun hanging around the AI robot and watching what people got from it. You could print two from the bot and then switch out with pieces on the table if you wanted.
This place was a vibe.
My wife ended up getting one of the rarer prints we had seen come out of the machine. It was just coca cola bottles all stacked and melting. One of the only ones we saw with no people or text in it. One of her prized possessions from this trip.
The Physical Marketplace was badass. We had a super small budget for this and ended up picking up a few small things.
Shaderism was there with physical pieces from his Art Blocks project Blind Spots. An amazing animated gen art project. Each piece is quite stunning.
These paintings by his wife were soooo damn good. She’s an amazing artist as well. One of a few things I wish we could of collected.
Ended up getting these smaller prints and a cool cutout he was handing out.
Crystal and me both wanted to get one of these prints by DCA. We came back thinking we might get one and they were sold out already.
Daniel has released some amazing projects in the past most of them on Art Blocks. He did the Marfa Yucca from Marfa 2022.
Marfa Yucca #179 from my collection.
His project called Genesis was the second project released on Art Blocks after Chromie Squiggle.
Though I think his Bright Moments release Bosque de Chapultepec is my favorite.
We walked up to a table that had some really cool plotted art on it, but no one was there. I started going through the physical outputs and saw one I really wanted. I didn’t know if they were free (surely not) or how much they were.
Nat Sarkissian walked up to the table from a conversation he was having and introduced himself. I was like “ohh shit I know you.” lol It was a funny way to meet him and I ended up picking up this piece from him. He had an insane amount of plots of these. He’s released some amazing work over the years on fx(hash).
The plotted piece I bought from him.
Harvey Rayner should be a well known name amongst my readers. He is someone I write about quite often and he’s one of the artists I meet every year. He is also one of my favorite artists in this space. He’s always building and trying to figure out new ways to interact with his collectors through his art. He has at least three projects he’s currently working on that I know of.
My yearly photo with Harvey.
ChatFUKR on bitcoin is an ongoing project. An evolving generative PFP project. A really fun tongue in cheek project.
An Aristocrat chatFUKR
Velum II is about to come out which will be for all the collectors of the first Velum. Velum was a small run of 100 pieces released with Bright Moments.
Velum II Output.
Harvey also has a card game project in the works. You will collect cards and be able to connect them to other pieces trying to add up to bigger numbers. It is a work in progress.
This is an early stage layout of the game. Bouncing ideas and coming up with rules still. The pieces below are from Monty Carlo and will be prizes for the card game.
The card game is planned to be an on chain (L2 Shape) accessible fun game where winners will get a free Monte Carlo mints on L1 ETH. I'd also like to do a gallery show for this project.
The last panel I saw and one I really wanted to attend was the Preserving Digital Art for the Future.
Experts discussed strategies for safeguarding digital art’s longevity amid rapid technological evolution.
I took a photo to get all of their names and didn’t think about taking one while listening. It was a great conversation and I really enjoyed it.
Art Blocks has recently turned 4 years old and turned over to on chain generative art. I recommend reading the article below and checking out what they are trying to do to preserve the art you collect.
Previously, while your artwork was secure on the blockchain, you still needed external resources to experience it. Now, everything needed to create and display these works—from the artist's core script to the supporting libraries—lives directly on Ethereum. Using any modern web browser with JavaScript support and access to the blockchain, these artworks can be generated forever, independent of Art Blocks or any other platform.
True On-Chain Preservation: A Four-Year Journey by Erick Calderon (Snowfro)
One thing I got to do this year was explore Marfa a lot more. We’ve always explored abandoned places and hiked so we set out and checked out places to take photos.
There were plenty of interesting places to find.
Took a 25 second shutter shot on this one. The moon lit up the building very nicely and made it pop out so much more.
I’m from a small old town and a lot of places have strange doors. Marfa was no different. The lost door series has expanded.
Another long exposure night shot. Loved the colors and lighting here.
Marfa Burrito is def one of the places you should check out. The breakfast burritos are amazing and the place has such a cool vibe.
We came across this pay phone. We thought it was so cool they still had a working phone. So I picked it up to check if there was a tone. It was playing Taylor Swift Shake it Off. lol
Before I cover the last part of our trip. I wanted to talk about two artists that were at Marfa that I completely missed out on. I wanted to talk about them real quick and share some of their work.
So me and Crystal are sitting outside a place waiting to get some food and I see someone walk by. I kind of do a double take and say to my wife “I think i know that guy”. I think to myself was that Mendez? Well it turns out it sure as hell was! I didn’t realize he was even in Marfa and he had an exhibit also. I really wish we would of got to see it as I’m a huge fan of his work. I own some and have a print on my wall at home. He’s one of the best surrealist artists in our space. Check out his website and work here, mendezmendez.com.
I have Lucid Dreaming which is the print I own as well.
I also own I guess I'll see you next lifetime and a few others. He started a daily art release that is amazing and impressive.
Joe Pease had an exhibit at glitch on the final night. I knew we would have to get there early to get in, but it didn’t work out. By the time we got back to glitch the line was waaaaay down the road. I knew from last year that there would be a capacity limit and we most likely wouldn’t get it. We came back by a few hours later to check it out and it was still packed. Pretty sad we missed this one, but it’s okay. We had a great time nonetheless. I wanted to showcase a couple of his visual masterpieces below. Watch with audio on.
Everything vs Nothing by Joe Pease
Gamble by Joe Pease
Planet Marfa was where we hung out for the rest of Saturday night. We had some drinks and met some really cool people. Ended up taking a lot photos of everyone hanging out. We had such a great time there.
We listened to this live band The Amigos from Austin, TX for a few hours. They were a pretty damn good cover band. Loved some of the songs they played.
DCA and some of his friends showed up and chilled with us for the rest of the night. We were there till the bar closed at 1am. We chatted with DCA about his different projects, coding, and art. It was so much fun and an amazing way to end our trip. He introduced us to his broth Eric (Snowfro) and I took this cool photo of them three together having a conversation.
Dadabots came on to DJ for the last hour of the night. What a crazy ass way to end it. His energy while playing live was on another level.
Three years of Marfa. The poster from 2022, the marfaMESH badge from 2023, & the Generative Goods badge from 2024.
See ya next year in Marfa.
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