Hello and welcome to The Culture Project. The new year is almost here and it’s time for us to look back on 2023, reflect on all the things we’ve done, and talk about the future. I wrote and released 49 articles through our substack this year. We started the fx(hash) Weekly Roundup series where I cover upcoming projects that are being released on the fx(hash) platform. We gave away over twenty pieces of art. We’ll showcase some of those and talk about some of the projects. This was a crazy year for NFTs & crypto. With the bear market and tons of people leaving the space. I think it really says something about the ones that stayed and continued to build and share art. It shows who was here for the art and who was here for the money. It’s great to see things starting to do better at the end of the year.
First thing I want to cover is the Brush Strokes V0 release. It has been pushed back several times. Things just keep coming up in the real world that took up a lot of my time this year. I’ll cover some of these set backs in Part 2 of these articles. As some of you may know, I’ve been working with DevHegemony to release a Brush Strokes project on fx(hash). I needed help with the coding side of things and he graciously stepped up to help with it. To get Brush Strokes V0 to work with the platform a lot of things had to be changed and reworked. It started to look less like V0 and more of a derivative of it. Which got me thinking, this should be a params release with a new name. This could be a fun release where you have control over the output you get. I think Brush Stroke V0 still has a time and place to be released on ETH and it should look just like it has since the beginning. There is no release date at this time for any projects. We are going to start backup on the fx(hash) params project in January. I will release WIPs and information on it as we work on it. I’m going to show a few outputs from Brush Strokes V0 and then a few from the new Brush Strokes project below. A little taste of the future.
I wrote a lot of articles this year and have had a blast doing so. I want to highlight some of my favorites. I also created a video that was a promotional piece for an article I wrote. I put a good amount of effort into it and am really happy how it turned out.
The first one to share is The History of The Culture Project.
A good start to understanding our community and how it came to be. It covers how I became the owner and why we started the giveaways and articles.
I went to the Art Blocks event in Marfa, TX again this year. It was my second year going and I’ve already made plans to go again with my wife. I’m lucky enough to live somewhat close to Marfa. It’s an amazing trip that I look forward to every year. This article covers my experience with photos and videos of some of the events. If you’ve never been it’s a great article to check out.
From time to time I will write an Artist Spotlight article. I really want to write more of these this year. I love writing them. It’s a great way to really get to know an artist. My best of these this year was on Kim Asendorf. He has an amazing style of art and I’m a huge fan of his work. I ended up creating a little promo video we released right before the article. It was a lot of fun to create. Big shout out to Indiorobot for the inspiration. I watched some of the TinyTV stuff he created and it spawned the idea.
We ended up giving away over 20 pieces of art this year with the last giveaway starting with the release of this article. So if you are a Brush Stroke holder, come join us in discord to join in. There aren’t going to be as many giveaways this coming year, but we will have a few randomly sprinkled throughout. We’ve collected and given away some cool stuff this year.
Phenomena is an amazing artist that I got to know this year. We’ve collected work from their fx(hash) & Art Blocks projects. They have helped me in the background when I had questions about releasing work. It’s been a pleasure having their support. They had an amazing physical installment released this year. It’s a data sculpture called ‘MOMENTS IN TIME’ and is located in Sweden. There is a great interview at The Vale Magazine about it. It’s worth checking out.
That brings us to Longing, an animated landscape project they released on Art Blocks. It syncs time with the owner of the works location and displays it in the art in real time. It’s so well done and just a beautiful project. The video below shows the animation in action. I recommend clicking the links below each art work and watching them live. We ended up collecting three in total. Keeping one and giving the other two to the community.
This video was created by Phenomena.
Longing #46 & Longing #125. Click the links to see them live.
We also acquired three Rococo's and gave two of them away to the community. It’s one of their fx(hash) releases.
Zancan released an amazing project on Verse in late 2022 called Landscape with Carbon Capture. I’ve loved his art for a long time now. He’s had a lot of amazing drops this year. I recommend checking out his work if you haven’t seen it. His objkt collection page is a good place to start. We ended up collecting some of these. I think we’ve had seven or so and gave four away.
It wouldn’t be a good year if we didn’t collect something by Robert Hodgin. He’s had amazing releases on both fx(hash) and Art Blocks. We acquired pieces from two of his projects on Art Blocks. One from the Latent Spirits collection and two from the Solar Transit collection.
Latent Spirits #377 by Robert Hodgin
Solar Transits #18 & Solar Transits #160 by Robert Hodgin
That brings us to Alba Art and some of the pieces we’ve collected there this year. Haiver has been a good friend to our community. He wrote the fxGems articles and posted in our discord when he would release work. He’s continued to share his curations on Alba.art with us since he started working there. We thank you for your contributions to our community.
I highlighted a few of the pieces we collected and gave away.
Spazio/Colore by Alessandro Fiore is such beautiful work. I’m really surprised it hasn’t minted out yet. It’s so close with only nineteen more to go. Please follow the links to check it out. It deserves the attention.
Spazio/Colore #248 & Spazio/Colore #249 by Alessandro Fiore
Volatile Moods released Undercurrent about a week ago. As soon as I saw WIPs for it I knew it was one we would mint. Really love the colors in the one we got.
Undercurrent #64 by Volatile Moods
We collected and gave away a lot of fx(hash) art this year. Way to many to cover them all. I’m going to pick a few of my favorites to share.
Frederik Vanhoutte is another well known name in the Tezos community. He’s been around for a long time and has created a lot of unique and beautiful art. I wanted to share some of it with the community.
Organicon, variation I #329 by wblut
Let me fall by Eric Andwer feels like one of the hidden gem of 2023. We collected three of them and gave two away. This is one of those projects that I can scroll through the whole collection and I won’t find one that I dislike.
let me fall #234, let me fall #317, & let me fall #341 by Eric Andwer
Paper Planes by Phaust is another unique project with a really cute idea that was very well executed. There is such a great range to the collection. It’s another older project that I wanted to share with the community.
Paper Planes #8 & Paper Planes #169 by Phaust
That leaves me with two people I would like to recognize and thank.
Gramajo is someone I’ve come to consider a friend in this space this year. He’s been very supportive of The Culture Project and someone I can reach out to. He had me on his podcast this year and let me talk about our community. He contributes a lot to this space. Check out his stuff below and give him a follow.
Behind the Screens with guest abnormality - The podcast I was on with him.
Behind The Screen with Gramajo - Check out some of his other episodes.
gramajo.substack.com - His weekly article on NFTs and more.
We gifted him a Brush Stroke as a thanks.
Brush Strokes #744 by 0xculture
I think I met LoneWick this year through his substack articles, but I can’t really remember. We have a lot of similar tastes in generative art and he’s someone I quickly became friends with. We are constantly supporting each others work. He’s another person in this space that contributes a lot. He has wonderful insights on art and I’m happy he shares it with all of us. Thank you for sharing your articles in our discord server. Check him out below and give him a follow.
lonewick.substack.com - In-depth articles on art.
We gifted him a Brush Stroke as a thanks.
Brush Strokes #58 by 0xculture
Happy New Years to everyone. Thanks to all who have followed and supported my work this year. It really means a lot to me. I will have a Part 2 to this series out in a few days. Covering my personal collections from the year and talking about more art and artists.
Thanks for reading! Please like and share the article if you enjoyed it. We are starting to cover more of the art world. Though the The Culture Project’s roots are in the Generative Art scene. Our community is open to anyone that wants to learn about or share generative art. The communities Twitter & Discord. My twitter is @joshripple. If you like the content please give us a follow.
Thanks for everything you do as well and for being on my podcast. Looking forward to having a strong 2024 together!