Art Blocks Marfa 2023
A fun & crazy generative art event.
Hello and welcome to The Culture Project. I made the long drive from East Texas to West Texas again this year. A little over eight hours to get there and it was totally worth it. My trip was a lot different from last year when I went with my Dad & Daughter. I got to experience more of the wild side of things this year and a lot of it was pretty damn fun. Marfa is a very unique location to have an NFT event like this, but it works so well for Art Blocks. I hope they keep it there for the years to come as I plan on making this a yearly trip. I took my good buddy BensBigOlBeard this year and we had a blast. There were a lot more people and a lot more events to check out.
I took all the photos and video on my phone this trip. I didn’t really feel like caring my big camera around this year. It was much easier to attend the events & parties and not have to worry about it. The camera on my phone isn’t as nice as I would like it to be, but I think it was good enough for now. I’m going to look into getting a nice point and shoot camera sometime in the future. I would love to carry a nice little camera on me most of the time.
We arrived on Thursday, which was the first day of the event. There was a check-in we needed to do when we first arrived. A nice little gift bag with some goodies inside to get us started. There was a nice map with key locations marked and a listed itinerary with dates and times for all the events ahead. The majority of them were held at the Saint George Hall & Glitch. A shot below of all the goodies I got from the trip. A good amount came in the first bag. I got three shirts as well that aren’t in the photo.
Last year they gave out these cards after you walked through the Art Blocks Gallery. It was a little thank you and something to commemorate your journey to this place. It was a Marfa Yucca by Daniel Calderon Arenas.
My daughter and I got to mint one each a few weeks later with instruction inside the card.
This year they did a project called marfaMesh. The newest Explorations project coming to Art Blocks. We were given this badge that we had to activate with an app we installed on our phones. You scan your badge first with the app and it sets it as your badge. Now when you meet people you get to scan their badge and take a photo with them or of… whatever. People would just walk up to you and start talking and at some point ask to scan your card. Some people would be way more direct. Sometimes you would get the drive by scanners that didn’t say anything and left you feeling used. All of it was in good fun and people even started coming up with punch lines to break the ice. I would ask people if I could scan their belly. The whole experience added a new layer to the event and was overwhelmingly positive. You ended up talking to people you never would have.
Every time you would scan someone your art would update. My first scan of Ben when we got there.
As you scanned more and in new locations it would evolve and change. It would take colors from the picture you took and put them into the circle it generated. Then it would add other random abstract pieces to the art. The locations you scanned people at played a roll in how the art would shape. There were several geo locations you could visit.
Every new location would add a square area that would fill with circles as you scanned new people. Watching it grow and change in real time was a lot of fun. You would get to see a preview of the circle it created before it was added to the bigger piece. At the end as you added more they became a lot more intricate. Some completed pieces below that I snagged from twitter.
It took a team to bring this all together. Shane Richardson wrote the app that you interacted with, Harvey Rayner was the generative artists, and IYK provided the underlying technology in the badges. IYK is a company that “Create tangible digital experiences﹡”. They had a small presence in Marfa last year as well. This year they played a much bigger role. They had a professional looking video team following them around doing interviews. I think a documentary is coming out at some point about them.
The first little event was a pool party. We got a few free drinks and chilled by a nice pool and chatted. Started meeting new people and scanning some of them.
We ran into a group of guys from the Monster discord. I had messaged KevBot about meeting him when I heard he was going. They had a small group that came together; KevBot, Adam (Rhynotic), Yah_boi, and Collin. Ended up chilling with them a lot throughout the weekend. Which was pretty cool, they know a lot of people in the scene. It was fun hanging out with them.
That night was the solo exhibition for Grant Yun at Glitch. The first time they have done a solo showing. One of the coolest things about this event is how small it is compared to other NFT events. Everyone is so approachable. You can walk up to an artist you like and just start talking to them. Grant Yun was walking around and taking photos with his Fiancé. I captured this random moment. He noticed I was taking a photo and smiled and pointed at me. I just smiled and pointed back. It was a fun, cool moment I will remember.
There are some huge names in our space and if you waited for the right moment you could go up and talk to them.
Collin & Adam, getting our scan on.
On Friday morning we got some breakfast from a local place then headed to the Saint George Hall for the Artist Activations. A collection of ten stations of artists presenting work in different media formats. There were a lot of different experiences from an interactive gen art display, generative embroidery, various kinds of plotters, and an Augmented Reality setup.
Dmitri Cherniak - Ringer #962: The LACMA Iterations
A nice art display when we first walked in.
Most of the time we got to places when they first opened. As you can see not many people were around yet, but that just gave us a chance to do a lot of stuff quickly. We didn’t have to wait in lines most of the time and got to talk to a lot of people.
DCA had a really cool vending machine setup. They provided the two quarters in your original setup bag when we checked in. There were fifteen different pins from all different artists. I got lucky and snagged a really good one. It’s the only one that came in a little baggie. An Archtype pin by Kjetil Golid.
I’ve never seen an Infinity screen in person. These pictures don’t do them justice, they are impressive. I saw a Longing by phenomena and had to get a shot of it. Big fan of their work and had to share it with them.
This was one of my favorite experiences at this event. I listen to a lot of different kinds of music and I love ambient and chill music. This project captured sound from the crowd around us and converted it in real time to ambient music. It was really loud in the building with all the people inside. You sat down at this station and put on noise canceling headphones and watched your generative art be drawn with a pin plotter in real time. It took about seven minutes for the whole experience. Sonatina for Plotter & Laptop by Night Sea.
I wish I had some of the audio they created to go along with this video. It was amazing, it really elevated the whole thing.
I finally got to meet Harvey Rayner and talked to him for a while. I’ve been pretty active in his discord and love the Quasi Dragon Studies project he has going on. We talked about the marfaMesh project and got more information on how it worked. It was a real pleasure meeting Harvey.
After that we headed to the Art Blocks Gallery for a walk through. Every year there are a few artists I know on the list and get excited about seeing their work.
Collectivus - Computation, Consciousness, and Collective Memory.
Big fan of these artists and was nice seeing their work at the gallery.
In order; Cargo by Kim Asendorf, Memories of Digital Data by Kazuhiro Tanimoto, and Speak to Me by Lisa Orth. There was a lot more art displayed, but these were just the highlights for me.
That night we went to this crazy ass event held by StevieP. It was showcasing his Dopamine Machines project that released recently on Art Blocks. We sat in the Crowley Theatre with large projected screens across the whole stage.
A weird pano shot to set the mood. Beware of the loud sounds in the video below. This was incredibly overwhelming and a bit much, but still a lot of fun at the same time. I’m surprised we lasted as long as we did in there. It was a sensory overload.
Saturday morning we headed to the Bright Moments event at Glitch. Really enjoyed their stuff last year, so I wasn’t missing them this year. If you don’t know who they are check them out. They are a huge presence in the live minting generative art scene. They create amazing immersive experiences all over the world.
Phil Mohun doing his thing.
This is the Dream Machine project they are working on. Voice to text image generation. You could keep telling it different things and it would update the image in real time. It was a lot fun to mess with.
‘Dream Machine,’ an AI-powered experience that empowers visitors to create imagery that is only bounded by their imagination.
We went to lunch after that where I finally got to meet Haiver. I’ve known him online for a while now and it was great to sit down and talk with him. He wrote the fxgems publication and now works with Alba.art. They are building a really cool generative art marketplace that will be a lot more than that. Some big news coming out from them soon.
We went to the Gallery.so & Prohibition panel with a group of artists and collectors. It ended up being a really great discussion. The struggles of being an artist and dealing with things like imposter syndrome. Jimena Buena Vida was very raw and relatable, really enjoyed her conversations. All of the speakers were great.
(Not my photo / Taken from the email Jimena sent out)
I ended up being lucky enough to get a free mint for Jimena’s new project coming out on Prohibition, Resonance. Which has now been sold out. A big congrats to her on the success.
Resonance #4 by Jimena Buena Vida
That night we ended up going to this crazy ass flee market at glitch. It was held with Transient Labs and die with the most likes. He had a drop that night called Beef Brothko and it was a brilliant release. It’s a take on Mark Rothko paintings, but in die’s style. I didn’t know much about him going into this, but had seen some of his work before. I love his approach to art and the message he sends with it. This party was crazy. They had this little table in the corner with art supplies and tiny frames to draw on. People drew art or just came up with the most random stuff to trade with. Everyone was at this thing. You had to wait to get in if you came late. Only 100 people could get in at a time and it filled up instantly. It was a wild and fun way to end our trip.
These were just most of the things we did for the Marfa event. There was so much going on you had to pick and choose what you wanted to go do. It really felt like the right amount of activities and people. This event always makes me excited for the future in this space.
We had breakfast at the Art Blocks Gallery in the morning and set out on our eight hour drive home. Much love to Ben for going with me and making the trip a blast. If this thing is held in Marfa every year I will continue to go. These trips are highlights to my year. It was great meeting everyone and hope to see y’all in the future.
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Oh yeah. I’m on one of the picture in the glitch garry, Right behind Phil.mo 😅
Oh sweet, We propably saw each other then! I was there too. It was such a nice weekend.