Who are you?
Punevyr
When did you start making generative art?
I only started actually creating generative art when I first noticed fxhash, so around November 6th 2021.
How did you first hear about FxHash?
I was actually looking for a way to release a generative work for the delegators of the baker that I run, and happened to bump into Ciphrd on twitter talking about the project.
Your Genesis mint and the 3rd work ever on FxHash was “Punevyrs face”. What was the story of how this became your first artwork on the site?
The face was actually just a test mint for me, as I was curious about the platform and thought that I could use it for the project I had in mind. I never thought that it would become this symbol of my identity within that ecosystem.
You released the 100 editions for free and the floor is currently sitting at 210Tez. Did you ever imagine it was going to get that high?
Never crossed my mind, I didn’t expect anyone besides the friends I told about it to mint it. My mind was blown when it fully minted out. Still blown away every time someone collects one.
A majority of your works are set to 0Tez on primary. Why did you choose to sell lots of your early artworks for free?
At the beginning, the main drive for me creating these projects was seeing them get minted out. It was really awesome to see something I made get collected by so many people. That enjoyment of seeing them get fully collected almost turned into a form of self doubt at the beginning. It had me wondering if people are only collecting it because they were free? Or do they actually enjoy what I’m making? If it wasn’t for one of my closest friends convincing me, along with bots sweeping free projects, I may have never transitioned to charging for my work.
“Bubbles”, “Squbbles”, and “Trubbles” are all very clean and minimalist works. What inspired these works?
Well, to be honest, bubbles was created by accident(along with quite a few of my works). While creating circular, a few of my variables were off, which ended with randomly placed circles. I ended up liking the way it looked and modified that accident into what bubbles is now. If you actually look at the code for circular you can see that the class name for creating the circles is bubbles.
Squbbles and Trubbles came from a 50/50 mix of lack of creativity and the enjoyment of making projects along with me just liking the way they looked.
What is your creative process when making a piece of generative art?
It usually starts with an idea I have while looking at things in the real world, either textures I see on random objects, or just ideas I think I could implement with code. However, I don’t think a single one of my projects has ended up where I expect it to be. There’s almost always a large pivot mid project stemming from an idea I had while coding. An example of this is glass, my original idea was something more along the lines with depth, a big grid of isometric shapes, but somewhere during that process the pivot happened ending up with glass. I have a massive folder of unfinished projects that I walk through every now and then to see if any other ideas get sparked.
What would you call your style?
To be honest I don’t really have any idea how to describe my style, I honestly just play around with algorithms until I create something I think looks cool, then I roll with it. There aren’t many consistent traits throughout my projects, besides the use of simple shapes a lot of the time.
“s p i n” and “c u b e” are two of my favorite creations by you. Spin has an absolutely insane amount of variety in what you can get. How were these two works made?
These were actually some of my favorite projects to make. I had the idea while making wave, where I wanted some way to easily create pixelated shapes. I’m sure there is a much better way to do this, but what I ended up doing is rendering what I wanted in an off screen webgl(3d) canvas, then on a second canvas I got the average pixel color from sections within the original canvas. Its efficiency is absolutely horrible, but I was thrilled with the outputs so I kept it. I would endlessly click refresh watching all the variations while making it. So from this pixel “renderer” cube was made simply with different shaped cubes rotating on all 3 axes, while spin had a multitude of shape types and amounts, rotating on only one axis.
Out of all your creations do any stand out as favorites?
Deform is by far my favorite of my projects. Again, it was completely an accident, but it blows the original idea I was aiming for out of the water. While it does not have the obvious variation that some of my other projects have at first glance, the depth within the 2d canvas made from the algorithm is something I really enjoy looking at. While coding it, I was reminded of scenes from Interstellar or Doctor Strange, or just the multiverse in general, where you are seeing reality warp into shapes and other things, and I really liked that image. It may not be my most popular piece, but it’s definitely my personal favorite.
Did you ever think you would be constantly selling out when you originally started on FxHash?
Never, and I still don’t! A couple of my newer pieces, deform and trip didn’t sell out, and I burned the remaining editions after about a day. I am ok with not selling out, and i don’t think every project needs to, I would prefer if people collect my work because they like it. I have nothing against those here purely for profiting off reselling works, but seeing people with awesome deca or other galleries of pieces they have minted is always a more welcome sight.
“g l a s s” and “p a n e” have seen lots of love on the secondary markets and is now one of your most popular pieces. What is the story behind these two sibling works?
Well glass started as me trying to make something similar to what depth became, a bunch of isometric shapes covering the canvas. After inputting some variables and having some results form the grid like shape I ended up changing the algorithm to be more geared towards that look. A lot of the times, to find variation with my projects, ill put fxrand in obscure places in my algorithms, just to see what happens. And in the case of glass It worked in my favor and produced some outputs that I really love.
For pane, I was actually on a discord call with jimthebim and flonhon. We were going through some of my partial projects to see if any of them sparked any interest/looked good. While going through we found a completely separate project that just featured a lot of horizontal bars. Which I then used the same idea as on glass, transparent sides to the isometric shape with randomness occurring across rows/columns as well as colors.
I’ve really enjoyed making use of the transparency and palate featured in these works so I expect there will be more down the road in a somewhat similar style.
What advice would you love to pass on to the reader?
Not really advice, but collecting on Tezos is a lot more fun if you have no expectations and are collecting a piece because you like it.
What are your plans for 2022?
Got some stuff in the works with a few different people, have a ton planned with Jim the Bim, along with a super super cool project in the works with Dalton Mannerud, the creator of GEMZ and a ton of other really awesome projects.
Is there anyone you want to shoutout?
I have a huge list, I’m not able to be super active on twitter/discord with everything I have going on Irl, but there are a few names that keep popping up, whether it be sharing the art I made in their collection, or just in general praising my work. And as someone new to the art scene seeing this kinda stuff is really nice to see, and honestly great for my confidence as an artist. I’m sure I missed many, so apologies in advance, but here are just some of the ones I’ve always wanted to say thanks to.
Kenconsumer, Rudxane, Metacaffeine, Jimthebim, Surferdrew, Tobiasreber
Anything else?
I always love to see peoples collections of their favorite pieces of my work so feel free to tag/dm me if you ever make a collection.
Also if you are not delegated/want to delegate(or even learn what delegation is) to a baker with a purpose, check us out at zerostake.xyz