four & random(four)

four is a 1/73 created for the Blind Gallery: Bear Market Edition.

random(four) was inspired by four and substitutes tezos data with randomized inputs. Due to participation in the Blind Gallery event, both projects were released under my alt account.

Both of these projects began with @kaloh presenting the following prompt for the #blindgallery:

"Bear market, FUD, NFTs are dead, Right click save, economic recession, high inflation"

These themes immediately focused me on the importance of markets and price action, and how they drive the concepts of bear markets, recessions, inflation, FUD, etc. And because this was a blind release, I wanted to develop a project that was extremely aligned with the theme, different from my normal style, and inspired by my other interests. As I reflected on the theme's prompts, I quickly honed in on the idea of using tezos price data as the key input.

In the early iterations of four, I tried to entirely avoid the use of randomized variables, but I eventually decided to allow for the randomization of hue and saturation as it dramatically improved the final output. As I randomized those variables, I began to explore further, maximizing the number of randomized inputs without entirely changing the project; this led to the creation of random(four).

Initially released on June 30, 2018, tezos has served as the blockchain of choice for many digital artists. four utilizes tezos price data to transform four years of emotions--fear, greed, excitement, and uncertainty--into generative art. Carefully engineered to balance art and its origins (as price data), the undulating waves and cavernous corners within four represent the rollercoaster of emotions and dark spaces we experience during market turbulence.

As it's not clearly evident, tezos price data was used as follows:

• Individual columns represent one day within a year, with 365 columns across the entire canvas.
• Respective years are represented by color, with hue being the primary driver.
  • July 2018 - June 2019: tezos nascency, represented in white.
  • July 2019 - June 2020: price stabilization, represented in blue.
  • July 2020 - June 2021: momentum increases, represented in green.
  • July 2021 - June 2022: enthusiasm followed by a deep decline, represented in red.
• Daily price is represented by the length of the colored section, compared against that same day in different years.
• Represented by the long triangle within each day of price data, daily volume is compared against that year's annual low and high volumes.
• One additional use of volume data is the borders on each individual triangle. Thicker borders indicate higher volumes.
• Perhaps overlooked, there are only two uses of random() incorporated into the data, providing variation to the saturation and brightness.

random(four) takes the base code from four and substitutes randomized inputs for the tezos price data. In developing this project, I tried to keep random(four) closely linked to four while still allowing for sufficient variation.

One aspect that is not considered a trait is how the inputs (which replaced the tezos price data) are derived. All price data was replaced with a random number which then had one of various functions applied to it, including the incredibly useful functions from easings.net.