LW Art Challenge VIII - Results
Sit back and enjoy the submissions for 'The Year Ahead'
Hey friend,
This month’s challenge has come to an end and now it’s time to share the brilliant submissions that were created by some very thoughtful artists. The challenge for this month was fairly broad with the theme: The Year Ahead.
See the original challenge post here:
There are many ways to interpret this theme and each of these artists took a very different approach. We have examples that range from outward premonitions and potential fears around global or political events to inward, introspective expressions of growth and mental frameworks.
I’m constantly impressed by the work being produced for these challenges by artists who consistently show up. I’m also very happy to see a new face or two each month🙌
If you are an artist in any medium, you are more than welcome to participate in these challenges. They have short deadlines of 2-3 weeks and the intention is not to make a masterpiece or even a refined piece. The idea is to get out of the box or out of a rut and create something you may not have created otherwise. Say something, create new neural pathways, try a new experiment or a new medium, etc. It can be super rough or it can be as perfected as you’d like. It is not a contest and there is no judgement about quality. Get in here and make stuff.
Without further ado👇
DBB
‘For a spin’
I’m always excited to see how DBB will interpret these challenges. He is always very intentional in his placement of elements on every part of the canvas. He also works in a variety of mediums, whether it’s AI-assisted imagery or video with sound, super impressive raps recorded in voice memos with screenshots of lyrics, or various forms of collage. This time around, he’s chosen composite photography from photos exclusively from his phone and a hand drawn sketch. One of the aspects I find interesting about this piece upon first glance is in the seamless placement of elements. It almost looks like an unaltered photo (see the starting image below).
In talks about For a spin, he begins by describing the greens in the bottom right corner alluding to our nature and physical nature itself. He goes on, “It blends into the top edge — where I see us going in the year ahead, alluding to an erosion of privacy in an increasingly digital world. Data in the clouds with the burned ‘no trespassing’. The sun on the top left is represented by the cold sterile light. The sign is what you see first. I needed to draw that part because it’s what I saw when I first saw that sign. I was riding my bike and I saw a sign that made me think about your art challenge. I saw a pirouette. And I thought, ‘I can say with the clearest breath the year ahead will be a pirouette.’ It seems simple, elegant, and concise. This is what I see happening for the year ahead metaphorically. Whether that’s for the better or worse I guess time will tell. Anyway, I saw this sign and wanted to make a piece that’s composite photography of only what I had taken with my phone. The drawing part was in sketchbook. But had to be done.”
Seeing the original sign below, I’m really impressed with the clarity of his pareidolia.
littlecakes
‘the end of the world’
littlecakes is an artist whose work I identify with very much, so I was very happy to see her participate in the LWAC for the first time. She primarily works with AI and sound design (no sound in this one). Much of her output is surreal and absurd. There is a lot of humor, randomness, and juxtapositions of extremes such as the use of pink, soft whites, cupcakes, and scenes of childhood mixed with psychotic bloody scenes and monsters.
the end of the world is one of the tamest artworks I’ve seen by littlecakes, but it might actually be one of the more impactful works, particularly in relation to the theme, ‘the year ahead’. There’s a provocative contrast between the sentiment of the title and the peaceful imagery. In her words, “Sort of like are they watching the end of the world or something that is just beautiful in this moment, and are they the shoppers or the merchandise, and are they together or alone… or something like that”. I appreciate the open-endedness to the interpretation. She isn’t projecting too much onto it, but rather exploring a multitude of considerations and unknowns.
Lin Xir Wengi
‘Repeated Seeds’
Lin’s Repeated Seeds is a vibrant and juicy take on the challenge. This is an artist who works fully in the abstract, as far as I’ve seen in the past couple years, and makes beautiful designs in any medium. Her work ranges from IRL paper collage/assemblage art to code-based generative art, with this piece belonging to the latter. Her preferred coding platform for works like these is Hydra, in which she builds continuously generating works that evolve infinitely. This video is just a screen recording and doesn’t capture the resolution or quality of the original. It’s absolutely worth your time to experience the vibrant, crisp, and ever-changing design of this work in its full glory.
As with all previous interpretations of these challenge themes, she approaches this one with a nuanced and poetic angle. As I read into the combination of the title, the visual, and the poetry, I’m getting a holistic sense of seeds constantly being planted and growing, whether consciously or not, and maybe the idea of turning your attention to them to determine which ones need to be sown and which need to be pulled or discarded. At least that’s what I get out of it and it actually gives me something to consider as I finish clarifying my goals for the year.
Seeds that have been sown
Seeds that must be sown again
Over and over until I was bored
Over and over until unaware
Unaware of how much they have grown
Unaware of growing new seeds that need to be sown again
Michael Hughes
‘The year ahead’
When I see Michael’s GIF work on the timeline, it always stops in me my tracks. He seems to be obsessed with noise, but not just random noise. He starts with a video around 20-30 seconds or longer, then meticulously whittles them down until he finds bite-sized 2-5ish second clips that feel just right.
On the surface, the piece appears to be random noise, but after watching more intently, I found that there is a gradual opening that happens. It feels like the noise is dissipating and we are left with a black void, only to return to the patchy chaotic state. With no description, it makes me wonder whether this is symbolic or a purely intuitive work by the artist. It feels both ominous and hopeful. And what is to be said about the muted tone? Much of his work involves multiple colors. This feels like a conscious choice. Beautifully done.
Christina S. (paraxeno daimonio ᴺᶠᵀ ꜩ plektani-art)
‘NOW I AM! and it feels good’
Christina’s piece is beautifully intimate. Between the visual and the poetry, it feels like I’m zooming into a quiet moment inside of her mind. There’s a visual element linked with the opening phrase of the poem that feels like I’m peering through her very eyes, or maybe her mind’s eye as she visualizes herself in an out-of-body context. The sound has this cool 80’s synth style that sounds like the underscore to a documentary about space or the inner workings of the mind.
I appreciate the approach of seeing the future as a series of present moments. It’s a great reminder that, while having goals inherently set in the future, all we have is the present moment and plugging into that as often as possible is the surest way to whatever success may look like for us. An acceptance of now for the sake of presence itself, as well as with a peripheral forward-looking objective.
Blurred thoughts as eyes dim,
colors burst,
a quiet flame.
A never-ending NOW—
the future,
a flicker in the mind.
Hope searched,
strength found.
Now, the only moment of truth,
the only thing that ever truly exists.
Now, I am.
Each year, a promise and a lie.
Each tomorrow, a dream pulling me back.
Now, I am—
for what I can, for what I cannot,
for what I remember and what I forget.
For all that was, for all that will be.
NOW, I AM.
The year ahead winks.
I keep my mind blank,
erase the agony,
silence the fear.
NOW, I AM.
And now creates its own path—
millions, billions of nows,
shaping the past, and the year to come.
NOW, I AM.
And I feel good for this.
The mediums used here, in her words: “digital painting and an ai assisted image, music created with mubert ai, and moshed and glitched with photomosh pro”.
Rangga Purnama Aji
‘Cracked Hesitation’
I’ve had a lot of great conversations with Rangga, many of which go deeply philosophical and technical, especially in regards to music and art. He is a prolific code-based artist, both in visual art and in music.
Rangga’s work often goes deep into conceptual territory and it usually takes me several reads to break down everything he is communicating in his work. Cracked Hesitation comes as somewhat of a surprise and a breath of fresh air in it’s clear and concise delivery. That’s not to say it is any less thoughtful than previous works by any means. Where he goes more direct, while still deep, he takes a more complex approach on the backend by building a full generative collection of pieces rather than just one. The output shown is the one I minted and it is a lower resolution to the original. What is also cool is that the piece adjusts to your screen size and resolution. Please take a second to check out the minted collection so far and pick one up your own for only one Tezos.
Conceptually, he gives us a single sentence: “Interpreting the willingness to break the border of hesitation for a better attempt at future achievement and hope.” I love the sentiment and the way it is directly represented in the visual. We see a collection of borders/frames and an animated texture superseding them. This is yet another great reminder of an empowering perspective to hold in the year ahead.
Anuomii
‘Time for Reflection’
Anuomii’s work is always immediately recognizable. It tends to be loud, colorful, and intense, a sort of street art meets art studio desk meets native digital feel.
In Time for Reflection we get this cool iridescent effect, which beautifully ties into the notion of reflection. I’m also seeing a face in the top right corner with a blank stare, which stands out as something significant considering there are no other figurative elements in the work (that I can find). The blank expression is consistent with the theme of reflection.
The inclination for a piece like this is to zoom in and see what details you can find. In this case, this is a great idea if trying to understand the layers used. However, I prefer to look at a piece like this from a few feet away to get a sense of the aggregate. When close to the screen, it’s easy to get a sense of chaos. When zooming out a bit, you start to see the composition. The thick black lines come into view. The placement of yellow/orange and blues become more apparent. The white area has this great contrast to the rest. The piece slows down a bit. Overall, the piece is weighted in the center with the feel of revolving atoms around a nucleus.
LoneWick
‘The Year Ahead’
I didn’t get the time I was planning to have for this month’s challenge due to the extra time it took to finalize my little album release. So my piece for this challenge is a super raw recording of a classical guitar improvisation. I was hesitant to share it because it’s very rough and my pride and perfectionist alarms are ringing. I’m taking this as a sign to show some vulnerability, so here we go. I even kept the extraneous sounds in the beginning to emphasizes its makeshift nature.
Though this is an improv, it is still structured and intentional. I started by thinking about my objectives for the year and broke it down into a spoken phrase. That phrase is the only thing that will stay private here, but I can say it has a syllabic rhythm of 3 + 2, so that’s the rhythmic gesture that starts in the melody after the initial two chords turn the light on and wet the harmonic palette.
The first little [A] section was consciously written, then the rest was fully improvised based on the loose structure in the sketch above. The larger structure on top is the [A] section zoomed in. The lower structure is the general formal idea for the full piece. It’s a simple binary form of [A]-[A’]-[B]-[B’]. This means that a first section is played, then it repeats with some variation. Then a new section is introduced, usually complimentary or contrasting to the first, and it is also repeated with variation. In this case, [B] is a longer, higher energy development section and [B’] is much shorter. If you need a name for it: extended or asymmetrical binary form.
There are now two established filters through which I dive into in a stream of consciousness: (1) the formal structure and (2) the 3 + 2 gesture. You’ll hear a cohesiveness in the rhythmic feel of the melodic phrases and a bit in the rhythm or in the count of chords based loosely on the influence of the initial gesture.
For those familiar with my music, you will find that there is almost never a strict adherence to a beat. Where many musicians/composers have an inherent assumption that music should be locked into equally spaced measurements of time, I am sensitive to the point that this is merely another technique for a specific effect. I can achieve the effect of forward motion through harmonic tension and release, through consistent driving rhythm, dynamics, melodic phrasing, etc. Of course, I have nothing against a consistent beat and I use it when I want to communicate the things that it communicates.
Music is a visual process for me, much like an abstract painting. Time and space is the canvas and I’m painting it with sound in a way that relates to our natural vocal cadences and sentimental or energetic impulses. There is a general pulse and cohesiveness among the whole. If I want a more minimalistic painting with perfectly spaced stripes or squares in a sort of algorithmic rhythmic sense, then I will adhere to a danceable, foot-tappable, headbangable beat for the desired effect.
I hope the music is somewhat bearable and I hope this was a little bit educational.
Thank you
I want to thank you for taking the time to experience the wide range of art created for this challenge. It has proved time and time again to be a lot of fun for the artists, including myself.
If you are able, please consider supporting these artists by collecting their work or by sharing them. They spend a lot of time and effort to create beautiful and provocative pieces for us to enjoy, to help us see things in a new light, to find a sense of connection, and at the very least, provide an escape from daily life.
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