At the Still Point of the Turning World: Algorithmic Self Portrait, 2025

I find myself in a world of chaos and turbulence, of confusion and disorder. At the still point, I—or perhaps we—find ourselves, yet we are never truly still. This work is both a meditation and a portrait of modern awareness: an algorithmic reflection on the search for calm within uncertainty.

Guardian Sigils

Guardian Sigils are magical emblems, powered by $PLEDGE, that are unique to each Guardian. Summoning a sigil carries a cost, but each one fortifies a Guardian’s resolve to uphold their vow. Sacrificing a sigil releases the $PLEDGE stored within back to the owner, but at a steep price: it permanently reduces the available supply of Guardian Sigils.

Slitroll Sculptures

Looping videos of abstracted sculptural forms are created by using industrial equipment, high-speed photography, and experimental video animation techniques. Contains nudity.

Painted Paths

In “Painted Paths”, I use a large, customized pen plotter to execute perfectly positioned brushstrokes. While the path the brush takes is controlled by my code and the machine, the results are anything but perfect due to variation in how I load paint for each individual stroke; the surface variations in the canvas/medium; and brush, paint, humidity, drying time, or other environmental variables.

Scribed Scratch

“Scribed Scratch” is a possible physical output from the Scratch algorithm (in addition to pen-plots). Using a specially reinforced pen-plotter, the artwork’s lines are scribed into metal. Scribed outputs of Scratch tokens are reserved for Scratch tokens owners, but “exploration” outputs using the same algorithm are available to anyone.

Gen. Phototypes

In “Gen. Phototypes”, I combine modern generative / algorithmic art processes with primitive photographic printing technologies. Starting with creative code written in JavaScript and Solidity, outputs are transferred to acetate before being used in contact-prints on personally crafted emulsion papers. The result is a blend of organic and inorganic, chemical and geometric, modern and vintage, and wholly unique.

Delineation

In “Delineation,” specialty lasers are used as the primary illumination, casting perfectly straight lines across the natural form of the body. This unconventional lighting technique, with its stark, geometric lines, asks viewers to engage with the subject in new and provocative ways. The interplay between the bright curves cast by the harsh laser, the diffused lighting of the nearby body, and the deep environmental shadows challenges traditional representations of the body, beauty, and sensuality. By partially illuminating the body with this rigid, digital technology, the project explores how modern technology influences identity, boundaries, and freedom.

GMers

Custom coffee art by PoisonFemme meets an experimental NFT contract by Matto. Each GMer artwork is a different coffee-painting made by PoisonFemme’s hand. Every hour, the NFT contract returns a different artwork for the token (6 GMers at launch – as seen in the gif). PoisonFemme can add more GMers at any time, and they’ll get added to the mix, making the GMer NFT able to evolve over time. Licensed CC0, powered by Base, and launched for onchainsummer ’24, nothing says GM like a GMer!

Metta

“Metta” is an exploration of the interconnected world, visually represented through procedural patterns and Voronoi tessellations created through a process similar in principle to signed distance functions. The patterns created in this project reflect life’s intricate web, showing how individual entities, distinct yet interconnected, form a cohesive whole. The artwork’s animation, driven by interaction between the entities, brings these connections to life, illustrating the dynamic nature of relationships.

Mythics of the Multichain

Mythics of the Multichain is an experimental PFP collection destined to be deployed on every major blockchain and layer. On compatible chains, each Mythic PFP accrues Mythic Points between transfers, and royalties from Mythic sales are sent to the Mythic Treasury contract. These points can be converted into Mythic Treasure ($MYTH) on the Mythic Treasury contract. $MYTH can be HODLed or burnt in exchange for a portion of the pooled royalties (NOT AN INVESTMENT).

Strange <Block> Buddha

Strange <Block> Buddha offers deterministic and unique variations of the Buddhabrot with each new Bitcoin block. It grows in scale and computational difficulty with every additional block as the Bitcoin network grows.

Time Between the Lines is Thread Through the Mind

Time Between the Lines is Thread Through the Mind (AKA “Thread”) is a meditative plotter-performance artwork, where each experience is uniquely recorded using specific pens on dark or light paper.

Squirals

Plotting the same digital shape – a square spiral – analog differences in material become the inputs to a generative art system that reimagines uniformity.

Freestyle H-ai-ku

“Freestyle H-ai-ku” is an AI-enhanced exploration of my Freestyle Haiku poetry. This project utilizes AI as a collective unconscious that not only intensifies the expressiveness of my poetry but also unveils hidden truths and newfound meanings within my words.

AnnoMetta

AnnoMetta is an artwork that symbolizes community connections through a dynamic canvas. With elements shifting daily, monthly, and annually, the generative art is fully customizable via URL parameters.

CoinTokens

A ‘CoinTokens’ contract (template I coded and implemented for $LFG) allows back and forth exchange between an ERC-20 and ERC-1155 NFTs that represent integer denominations of that ERC-20. 

Scratch

Scratch is a Zen-inspired generative art project that explores the captivating patterns that sanding discs create on metal surfaces. The digital artworks can be pen-plotted at any scale, and an alternate physical output can be created on sheets of metal using CNC machines.

genPepes

Feels Good.

Additional Info:
On every refresh, a Pepe design is randomly chosen and drawn with random shapes.

LIGHTS

LIGHTS is a burn-to-mint collection. To me, the folded hands emoji is an image of gratitude & appreciation – and I’m creating this project for my collectors. I hope that owners will use the Folded Hands NFTs as ‘tokens of appreciation’ and will occasionally send them to others. Folded Hands is the burnable token needed to mint all future pieces in the LIGHTS collection.

Mathare Memories

Mathare Memories is an interactive, multimedia collection of 68 photographs taken in the Mathare slum of Nairobi, Kenya in 2007. High resolution images and audio files are permanently stored on Arweave, are backed up on Github, and are retrieved for display by on-chain JavaScript running in your browser.

Chainlife

Chainlife tokens: microcosms of digital life, that are interactive, evolving, and aware.

Chainlife world: ever-changing macrocosm controlled by you, that is collaborative, (also on-chain), and extendible.

Chainlife forest: growing a healthy forest ecosystem (not on chain) to fight climate change and keep Chainlife carbon negative.

Texture and Hues

A minimal, live-rendered, on-chain/in-chain, monochromatic token collection.

deFOCUSed

deFOCUSed is a 100% on-chain project closely associated with Matto’s Art Blocks ‘FOCUS’ project.

BLONKS

BLONKS is a collection of 4,444 completely on-chain vector-graphic illustrations with personality and with unique design mechanics. BLONKS token images are deterministic and change when transferred between wallets, they’re licensed CC0, and they live on Ethereum.

Motion Studies

Animated scenes, editions of 25, on Tezos Ethereum (this Tezos work can now be bridged).

FOCUS

FOCUS is an exploration of, and meditation on, the act of directed attention, the fixture of concentration, the state permitting clarity, and the mathematical point of convergence.

Yin Mandala Series

This series is inspired by the duality of Yin and Yang: the opposing but complementary forces, aspects, and energies present in the world.

The Yin Mandala series has been completed. The Yang Mandala series is a work in progress.

Crystallized Illusions

Inspired by Buddhist philosophy, Crystallized Illusions is a collection of 99 pieces created through a generative process.

Three variations of this process were made to correspond to the categories of illusions as described by Zhiyi (538–597 CE), the fourth patriarch of the T’ien-t’ai (or Tí Taî) Buddhist tradition.

Ensō Water Paintings

100 Ensō Water Paintings were created to reward lucky buyers of my Art Blocks project Ensō.

Dice was rolled and recorded, paintings were made with water, video recorded each painting’s creation and evaporation.

Ensō

In Zen, ensō is a circular symbol that represents elegance and enlightenment. It is typically painted by hand in an uninhibited way, allowing for unexpected and beautiful results.

String Vibrations

Our perception of an object’s form can be manipulated based on its speed and motion. Line becomes solid and ridge becomes texture; time and motion come alive.

Fractured

Exploratory digital paintings of posed models, enhaneed/dehanced by early AI tools.

PXXL

Exploratory digital paintings of original, implied-erotic photographs.

Compositions in Energy

Original photographs capturing energy in nature.

Ariel Motion Studies

Digital composite of original photographs I took of the model known as ‘Ariel’ while in motion.

Golden Deer Skull (1st NFT!)

Photograph of a white-tailed deer skull I collected from my family lands and painted in 2010. Hung by a piece of red leather.

ANTIVENOM

It’s all come down to this: a call to the brave to do what’s right and kill who’s wrong. More than anyone imagined is on the line, and that line is a trail of destruction leading straight toward Væir. A small team of heroes has a huge task, but it’s not as simple as they believe…

MAELSTROM

There is no peace for the wicked, and tonight there’s none for anyone in Washington, DC. Minutes ago, horror was unleashed, and no one is prepared—they’re devastated. When push comes to gnaw, people must choose: try not to die, or sacrifice themselves to save another…

QUEEN’S GAMBIT

Exhausted after their weekend, a small-town family of vampires heads to DC. They’re greeted by a plot that threatens to blow their world apart and cast it into chaos. The fates of the nation, the Vampire Order, and their family are up in the air…

BLOOD 4 LIFE

Stay living in secret—in peace—or help the humans with their “zombie problem” and risk having the life you’ve built torn to pieces? One vampire family faces such a dilemma, and whether they like it or not, they’re about to have the biggest adventure of their lives…

SOPHIA’S JOURNAL

This documents one survivor’s journey and marks the beginning of the Infinite Vampire adventure. It features over two dozen custom, pen and ink drawings and 96 pages of handwritten story.

2:14 in 214

2 minutes and 14 seconds in room 214. The room had a speaker system installed and a dimmer switch to the overhead lights. Somehow the speakers were picking up electrical interference from the dimmer as I adjusted the lights. The video and sound is 100% raw (not manipulated in post).

Stardust Nudes

In this series I combine majestic satellite images of star clusters, nebulae, and supernova remnants with my own photographic work in nudes and portraits.

Freestyle Haiku

1250 poems and counting.

Est. 2010. Free forever. By Matto.

Welcome to Mathare

This documentary film and photojournalism project reveals the reality of living in what the UN called “The most brutal slum in Africa.”

AUX 2

AUX 2 [codename: spacejunk] is the second in a series of AUX works. These works are sometimes meditative and other times chaotic—all resulting from video feedback experimentation and other video manipulative processes.

AUX

AUX 1 [codename: kiwi]. The electronic image is doubled, crossed, combined, and looped upon itself, exposing the circuitry matrix and becoming its own surface texture, color, and motion. By pulsing to its own overlapping signals, it becomes a mediated self-destruction and/or a new art medium.

Awen

Awen is an ancient word meaning something like breath of inspiration or flow of energy. In this piece, two paintings and a sculpture of the cubist aesthetic come to life, shimmering, pulsing, vibrating, and transforming the image into a condensed expression of nature of the subject; scattering perspective, time, and form.

[tides]

[tides] is a video meditation on human movement, water, and our bodies. If surf were people, how would it move? The image was modified using a time-based
effect I programmed.

Limits

This film is an assemblage of short animations, each portraying a boundary or transitional zone within our bodies: breath, blood, flesh, and thought or desire. At these zones, inanimate becomes animate and chemical becomes life.

Perdurance

This film explores the motion of our minds, through observations of the persistence and endurance of daily living. It was inspired from metaphysical notions of perdurance through time. The image was modified using a time-based effect I programmed.

Dissolution

Dissolution attempts to dissolve the notions of personal boundaries through elemental transformations. It portrays life and human action as fluid, elegant, and ever-changing, through slit-scan, stroboscopic, and rotoscoped animation techniques.

Shadows

This collaborative piece is a playful experimental cine-dance film with a unique score. A custom light-box was created for shooting the choreographers, creating a different sort of stage, onto which they could perform. Originally performed with live dance in front of projected video, a cinematic version was also made.

Reflecting Pool

Sometimes the smallest event can have the most profound repercussions. Reflecting Pool creates a contemplative but highly charged visual and musical expedition through a cycle of chaos and recovery. Made with direct on film animation, macroscopic and microscopic digital video recording, as well as live action footage.

Tathata

A Mahayana Buddhist word for such-ness or that-ness, meant to express the quality and fullness of the universe in every instant, this film follows the path of a young man lost in his own mind on a journey towards acceptance and growth.

Reverberations

Using a video rotoscoping technique, the abstract imagery seen within this piece was all drawn from human movement. Inspired from martial artists and dancers, their motions are further animated and ultimately abstracted.

BLUE

Set to the classical piece “Hungarian Rhapsody No.2,” BLUE is a playful experimentation of dancing light and visual music. All imagery was shot as live action, then reanimated and composited.