Alexis André

Minted by m00se

Acquired from above

Alexis André is a French visual artist who lives in Tokyo. His main activity consists in taking generative approaches to redesign the future of entertainment, and his artistic practice is just one aspect of his overall work.

When André started his Ph.D. in Computer Graphics in 2004, his supervisor really wanted him to use Java to do graphics (while C++ was the established standard), so when he started researching 'java graphics programming', he stumbled upon the works of Casey Reas which changed his conception of art. He later found Processing (at the time, it was still proce55ing!), and that changed the trajectory of his career. 

The artist's conception of a real-time generative piece that incorporates an element of time represents a compelling shift in the discourse surrounding the concept of scarcity within the context of generative art. Snowfro (founder of Art Blocks), remarked on the strong pulse feel of one of the artist's daily animations, sparking a discussion about the potential for NFTs to "do something" beyond simply existing as static images. This conversation prompted the artist to contemplate the implications of creating a generative system that could continue to produce an infinite number of variations, calling into question the validity of fixed minting limits. These musings on scarcity and variation ultimately led the artist to conceive of a system that would create a unique generative piece that relates to time, by way of a collection of live clocks, each one linked to a particular point in time. The number of iterations for this live piece would correspond to the number of minutes in a day or half a day, resulting in either 1440 or 720 iterations. The artist's innovative approach highlights the transformative potential of incorporating time-based elements into generative art, further expanding the possibilities of this burgeoning field.