ART BLOCKS × PACE

Schema

DRIFT with Jeff Davis

300 unique artworks

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DRIFT artists Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta—known for their explorations of natural phenomena through technologically minded artworks—and artist Jeff Davis, known for his explorations of color and form through algorithmic systems, have joined forces to produce a new generative art project titled Schema. Taking DRIFT’s widely exhibited Meadow installation as a point of departure, Schema comprises 300 unique, generative, and animated artworks uniting DRIFT and Davis’s artistic visions.

This collaborative new project is inspired by the beauty and simplicity of DRIFT’s two-dimensional schematic designs for Meadow, an upside-down landscape in which illuminated mechanical flowers open and close as part of a poetic choreography. Hung from a ceiling, this mesmeric work examines the impermanence of the changing seasons and the phenomenology of nature.

At its core, Schema is a love letter to the preliminary work that goes into realizing any large-scale art installation—in this case, diagram-making. Together, Gordijn, Nauta, and Davis developed a custom algorithm that brings the physical sculpture’s details and idiosyncrasies to life, recasting its diagrammatic origins in four possible styles: Diagram, the style that most closely resembles DRIFT’s preliminary diagrams for Meadow; Color Study, which strips out the structural elements of the diagrams and express the flowers as abstract rings of color; Sketch, which renders the flowers as line drawings with chalk-like accents; and Blueprint, which resembles the style of a blueprint.

In addition to these four different drawing styles, the project’s algorithmic system chooses two parent colors for each artwork, which may result in a wide spectrum of colors appearing across the composition from left to right or, alternatively, a more monochromatic scheme. The flowers themselves also have their own color systems that determine the relationship between their physical color and the color of their internal lights, creating gradient effects as the cast light blends with the local color.

Variable traits in any given Schema artwork also include: the total number and location of the flowers; day and night modes that impact ambient light effects; each flower’s apparent position relative to the viewer; and the frequency and speed at which each flower opens and closes. Flowers in these artworks also run on their own cycles, deliberately avoiding synchronization and giving the whole scene a sense of organic motion. Once the viewer clicks on a static Schema composition to activate its motion, the animations in the artwork evolve endlessly.

RELEASE DATE

13 Nov 2023

LIBRARY

p5@1.0.0

DISPLAY NOTES

Click to start/stop animation.

CREATIVE CREDITS

This artwork is a creative collaboration between Jeff Davis and DRIFT. Artists: Jeff Davis, Lonneke Gordijn, Ralph Nauta. Technical Development: Jeff Davis and Miro Bollen.

RELEASE DETAILS

300 works released with Exponential Dutch auction with settlement on 13 Nov 2023

CHARITABLE GIVING

20 percent of artists’ proceeds from the primary sale will be directed to YAKUM, a nonprofit organization that protects indigenous forests and builds cultural, medicinal, and food sovereignty through reforestation.

PROJECT ID

0xea698596b6009a622c3ed00dd5a8b5d1cae4fc36-7

CONTRACT

Etherscan

7000116

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Jeff Davis

b. 1972 Arlington Heights, IL Lives and works in Tempe, AZ

Jeff Davis is a generative artist who creates abstract artwork using algorithmic processes. He is a Strategic Advisor to Art Blocks and founder of Davis Editions. His art practice explores geometric structure and color arrangement through computation and iteration. Jeff has exhibited his work internationally with Bright Moments Galler...

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Jeff Davis

ABOUT THE ARTIST

DRIFT

Lonneke Gordijn b. 1980 Netherlands Lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands

Ralph Nauta b. 1978 United Kingdom Lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands

Dutch artists Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta founded DRIFT in 2007. With a multi-disciplinary team of 64, they work on experiential sculptures, installations and performances. DRIFT manifests the phenomena and hidden properties of nature ...

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DRIFT