TECHNICAL NOTE
Symmetry
When takawo developed the algorithm, he focused on the cognitive nature of human beings trying to find something of characters or life in symmetrical patterns. The prototype of Generativemasks started with a simple graphic like dots in March 2019. He discovered that he was able to make some characters look like an invader game by placing the low resolution dots symmetrically on the screen. He then applied this idea to other graphic materials such as 2D and 3D primitive shapes, photographs, and letterforms, and continued to make more prototypes.
Patterns
The way that takawo lays out geometric shapes like a pattern is also a characteristic of his graphics. His code is designed to create sophisticated patterns like a handmade craft through the combination of colors and shades. The layers of arcs, circles, triangles, and squares in two symmetrical compartments (vertical and horizontal) using rotation and scale inversion adds extra dimensions to the flat graphics. And then he gets creative with the overlapping of shapes and the repetition of colors.
Shapes
Each shape of the mask is created by its unique ID as well as the pattern. It’s also defined by the Perlin Noise seed value. The fluctuation of the mask gives off the presence of both human beings and creatures. Offsetting the shapes increases the visibility of the image and allows for great collaborations with other PFP projects.
Colors
Generativemasks changes with 28 color palettes. Since the shape and pattern remain the same, each Generativemasks still can be individually identified even if the color changes. That means you can have your own powerful, cool, dark, and pop Generativemasks for your own.
CONCEPT OF MASK
NFTs and Anonymity
We believe that the possibility of self identity will dramatically be changed in the web3 world. That means it’s not about appearance, race, or even ethnicity anymore. And it’s also becoming quite common to use different accounts for different communities which allows people to choose different preferences as needed. With the blockchain technology that captures these fractional thoughts and histories, Generativemasks is a decorative piece of the web3 world embracing diversity and recognizing the uniqueness of each individual.
For a very long time, masks are used to hide our faces and sometimes obscure our identities. It is also believed that a person wearing a mask can take on a different personality. Some people are using masks in religious rituals as well. One of the well-known Japanese artists, Taro Okamoto, once said that “Art is magic". Okamoto was the one who exhibited a number of masks that he collected from all over the world at the Osaka Expo in 1970.
So, takawo wanted to bring out the magical aspects of masks and art that Okamoto fucused on through his creative coding. And takawo hopes to create a generative art community that believes in the new medium of code. At the same time, this is another effort to overcome the cultural values of Western centrism by creating NFT art with folkloric designs.
Cognitive Science Aspects
We human beings have the ability to recognize faces as well as language for our social life. This human ability for facial recognition is incredibly sophisticated, and it enables us to identify any individuals based on small differences in the location of each body part and the color of eyes and skin. For example, a media artist, Ryota Kuwakubo, created a work called “Nikodama (2010)” in which a gadget like an eye blinks as it’s placed on things around you, making you feel that actual character comes to life. Generativemasks borrows the face recognition mechanism that allows humans to detect parts of the face such as the eyes, nose, and mouth from symmetrical generative patterns, and this allows each Generativemasks to be uniquely identified.
We hope you will imagine some characteristics and stories of the 10,000 masks and find the best one for you.
CODE COOKING
takawo is continuing his creative coding as if he is doing live coding. He is writing short pieces of code every day and is sharing the code recipes. takawo really loves to share the creativity that he puts into the code and art with everyone so that we can be more creative together. Just like cooking!
CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
The code of Generativemasks is written in a Javascript library called p5.js, and it’s released under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0). The license allows anyone to freely modify the code to create derivatives of Generativemasks for non-commercial use.
takawo has a strong belief that he has learned a lot from his daily coding practice by sharing his experiences and ideas with others. So that one of his goals is to spread the social coding and make a community where anyone can enjoy and express many things in code. And we would love to connect with creative coding communities in Japan, Asia, and other countries and use the proceeds of this project to help creative coding grow as a culture.
Derivatives
We have our Discord community where about 3,000 members are joining. And up until today, a lot of derivatives and tools have been created through our derivative art contests and Discord discussions. For example, we have a community tool to measure the size of each Generativemasks. In addition to that, one of the community members "deconbatch" made a Javascript library called “Garg” that makes it easy for anyone to create derivatives of Generativemasks.
We also have a collaborative work and its collection with an artist named "raf" using the Generativemasks design pattern and his illustrations. All of our holders are able to mint this NFT for free. Thus, we would love to create a platform for co-creation where new values can be born and shared throughout the community by making it accessible and easy for artists and holders to participate and create derivatives.
SUPPORT
Japan Generative Art Foundation
takawo founded the "Japan Generative Art Foundation" with the proceeds of the project. The foundation supports artists and communities involved in generative art in Japan and provides grants for their research as well as projects for building an international network of creators.
