NFTs and Generative Art: Women Working with Code by Aleksandra Art

It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to publish on my personal blog. But key things remain, including the timeliness of our commentary and efforts towards building space with equal opportunities. If 2021 was a rollercoaster for artistic creativity within web3, in 2022, we somehow collectively accepted that the world is changing at an accelerated pace and are just trying to keep up.

I thought enough players had entered the space since my early rambling about why digital art is fascinating. But it seems that is not enough since there is still room for awareness. After seeing an all-male generative and algorithmic works exhibition announced, it felt like a good idea to highlight some of the amazing women artists working with code and Blockchain.

As defined by Tate, generative art typically refers to art made using a predetermined system that often includes an element of chance and is usually applied to computer-based art. Blockchain has enabled a new, somewhat participatory role of the audience to interact with the medium, allowing buyers to be directly part of the creation process as the works become minted at the time of purchase. We’ve seen marketplaces and artists working to create unique experiences where the time of day, latitude, or wallet address can determine the final output.

Moving on from the prologue, let’s dive into a highlight (that I intend to grow) of some women artists that have caught my attention over the years. Descriptions taken from profile bios or written up based on collections.

Iskra Velitchkova @pointline_

Collection: Generative nature. Name: no name I, Iskra Velitchkova, 2021


Iskra Velitchkova is a Bulgarian artist based in Madrid. In her work, Velitchkova explores the present and potential interactions between humans and machines, and how instead of making technology more human, this relationship can push us to better understand our limits. She believes that roots and tradition can nurture her work with greater truth.

fxhash profile

Feral File profile

Aleksandra Jovanić @alexis_o_O

Aleksandra Jovanić Herbarium

Herbarium, 2022, Aleksandra Jovanić

Aleksandra Jovanić is an artist and programmer from Belgrade, Serbia, where she teaches at the new media department at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade. She was part of the first cohort of artists to exhibit at Art Basel in 2022 in Hong Kong as part of the Tezos-based platform generative art platform fxhash live minting experience. Visitors of the art fair were able to set up a Tezos wallet at the show and mint a free edition of the Herbarium collection.

fxhash profile

Anna Lucia @annaluciacodes

Loom, Anna Lucia, 2021

Anna Lucia is an artist and engineer, and her preferred medium is computer programming. She writes compositional instructions to be executed by a computer within a space of randomness. Her aesthetic is characterized by geometric abstraction and bold color palettes.

Art Blocks profile

fxhash profile

Melissa Wiederrecht @mwiederrecht

Orbs, Melissa Wiederrecht, 2022

Melissa Wiederrecht is a Generative Artist from America. She uses code (any and all sorts) and procedural processes (of any sort) to generate her art. She is a computer scientist (MS) and machine learning engineer by education, but an artist at heart. Her work ranges from surface pattern design collections to NFT collections on the blockchain.

Art Blocks profile

fxhash profile

Hiro Ozaki @Sputniko

The Nursery, Sputniko!, 2022

Sputniko is a multi-media artist and filmmaker creating works on the themes of technology, gender, and feminism. Her work has been exhibited across major international museums and she was awarded Vogue Japan Woman of the Year in 2013. Sputniko taught at the MIT Media Lab as an Assistant Professor and is currently an Associate Professor at the Tokyo University of Arts. For The Nursery, Sputniko's first edition of 100 NFTs at Bright Moments in London, the artist collaborated with a female programmer and designer, Misaki Nakano.

OpenSea Collection

Sarah Ridgley @sarah_ridgley

Himinn, Sarah Ridgley, 2021

Sarah Ridgley is an internationally exhibited generative artist that has been minting work since 2019. Her work focuses and blaring the boundaries between the hand-drawn and the computer-drawn, reflecting human touch in machine-made work. Ridgley uses Processing (p5js) and JavaScript to build her programs, and designs her own algorithmic brushes to complete each piece. There is also a frequent tribute to Poetry in her work, including the series “The Lover’s Case” for theVERSEverse poetry NFT gallery that was made using the artists asemic writing algorithm to explore symbology in dialogue with the meaningless.

Art Blocks profile

fxhash profile

Emily Xie @emilyxxie

Memories of Qilin, Emily Xie, 2022

Emily Xie is a NYC-based generative artist and engineer. She works with algorithms to create lifelike textures, patterns, and forms which are often encoded with elements of her own culture and femininity.

Art Blocks profile

Objkt profile


Alida Sun @alidasun

glitch crystal monsters, Alida Sun, 2021

New York raised and Internet-based artist Alida Sun has studied industrial design with a Bauhaus foundation school. Her current studio practice is primarily concerned with assemblage, fluid dynamics, time crystals, and experimental humanities.

Art Blocks profile


Sofia Crespo @soficrespo91

neural swarm, Sofia Crespo, 2022

Lisbon-based Sofia Crespo is an artist working with a huge interest in biology-inspired technologies. One of her main focuses is the way organic life uses artificial mechanisms to simulate itself and evolve, this implying the idea that technologies are a biased product of the organic life that created them and not a completely separated object.

Feral File profile

Amy Goodchild @amygoodchild

Maplands, Amy Goodchild, 2022

London-based artist Amy Goodchild uses a mix of code and other technology to create art which explores generativity, group experience, and interaction.

fxhash profile

Melissa Rodriguez @hellomelissarod

Lunar, Melissa Rodriguez, 2021

Artist and creative coder Melissa Rodriguez began her journey in 2018 learning p5.js and currently primarily uses Processing.

Objkt profile

Anna Carreras @carreras_anna

Trossets, Anna Carreras, 2021

Barcelona-based creative coder and digital artist Anna Carreras is interested in experimentation on interactive communication. Her work focuses on the use of generative algorithms, creative code and interactive technology as a means of communication and an experience generator.

Art Blocks profile

Monica Rizzolli @MonicaRizzolli

Fragments of an Infinite Field, Monica Rizzolli, 2021

Monica Rizzolli is best known for her computer so wares that transform environmental cues into landscape animations. The simulations explore themes such as: the image of the city, environmental psychology and the human perception of space. Rizzolli currently lives and works in São Paulo.

Art Blocks profile

Jess Hewitt @rustysniper1

Divergent Convergence, Jess Hewitt, 2022

Jess Hewitt is an artist, developer and the co-founder of Generative Toys, providing tools for creators to produce generative art. Her work mainly focuses on abstract digital art, generative, AI-assisted and glitch art, inspired by the psychedelic, surreal and playful.

Art Blocks profile

fxhash profile

Teia profile


Kaoru Tanaka @v_kaoru

廻る, Still, Kaoru Tanaka, 2021

Kaoru Tanaka is a digital artist based in Japan who creates real-time generative art and experiments. In July 2022 she has worked with Richie Hawtin (performed by Manami Sakamoto) for the Prada Extends cultural series that celebrates the creative community, connecting Japanese culture, music and internationally renown artists.

Foundation profile

Helena Sarin @NeuralBricolage

Artificial Blues, a Sketchbook, from the Etchings of Latentscaux series, Helena Sarin, 2022

Pioneering visual artist and software engineer Helena Sarin has worked at Bell Labs, designing commercial communication systems, and for the last few years as an independent consultant, developing computer vision software using deep learning. Sarin finds inspiration in unifying patterns of nature and computation. The artist uses Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) that reveal some of these patterns and reassembles them in intriguing ways. She strives for her generative artwork to be not only interesting and aesthetically pleasing, but to reflect the characteristics of her analog art—improvised, bold, and deeply personal.

Foundation profile

Superrare profile

Itzel Yard @ix_shells

How do you feel?, Itzel Yard, 2021

Known under her artist name IX Shells, Itzel Yard is a Panamanian-based artist and self taught coder. In 2021 she became the highest-selling female NFT artist with the $2 million sale of her artwork “Dreaming at Dusk”. The artist trained herself in coding and various computer process languages ​while simultaneously studying architectural technology in Toronto.

Foundation profile

Ivona Tau @ivonatau

Mythic Latent Glitches, Ivona Tau, 2022

Ivona Tau is an award-winning generative AI artist exploring the subjective world interpretations, fragmented memories and emotional states by training custom neural networks on photography. Her work “VISIONS: reflected” was one of the early tokenised works sold at Sotheby's in 2021.

Foundation profile

LIA @liasomething

little boxes on the hillsides, child, LIA, 2021

Austrian artist LIA is considered one of the pioneers of software and net art and has been producing works since 1995. Her practice spans across video, performance, software, installations, sculpture, projections and digital applications.

Art Blocks profile

fxhash profile

Nadieh Bremer @NadiehBremer

Twistings, Nadien Bremer, 2022

Nadieh Bremer is an award-winning data visualization designer and artist, working from a small town near Amsterdam, with a background in data science. In 2011 she graduated as an Astronomer from the University of Leiden. As a freelancing data visualization designer, Bremer’s projects include web-based (subtly) interactive visualizations. They mostly focus on static visualizations that allow freedom in their design, and creating data art where the final result could be framed on a wall, or can be used as branding or marketing material.

Art Blocks profile

fxhash profile


Lisa Orth @LisaOrthStudio

Suspended Pathways : Aqua 00a, Lisa Orth, 2022

A creative polymath, Lisa began her artistic path in Seattle as a graphic designer and art director. Since entering the NFT art space in 2020, Lisa’s been focused on creating abstract generative art with processing and p5.js. Over the past two years, her generative art has been exhibited at conferences, galleries and museums around the globe.

fxhash profile

Objkt profile

This is a non exhaustive list of talented women artists using code in creative way. You can add suggestions here.

Pickles, #HENThousand and Curating NFTs by Aleksandra Art

A day on crypto Twitternet feels like a week. Hence, I figured there's enough information for a blog series that will capture those days (weeks?) and perhaps provide insights for those missing from the dialogue. It's also an excuse to rejuvenate my blog - a place where I don't need to stick to 140 characters and on-topic banter. So here we go! 

The day is Friday, and its beginning is nicely captured by @Loopify


Now before you run off to buy a year's supply of the fermented vegetable, let me clarify what Loopify is referring to. "My Fucking Pickle", pardon my French, is a name of an NFT collection of 10'000 unique NFTs that will resemble a pickle, each with its unique traits. It started as a joke but quickly escalated to being released for purchase. Now I say "will" because the owners actually won't know what type of pickle they're getting (what traits the pickle will have) until a specific date next week. 

The project follows the example of other so-called generative collectible series like Cryptopunks, Bored Apes or Hashmasks, minus the fact that the execution time to bring it to life happened within a week - as opposed to others, some of which would take months in the planning. It will be interesting to see how this low-effort spin-off that doesn't make any promises will perform on the market. Since its inception, Fucking Pickles already tripled in price overnight. 

Lisa Odette's Lady_008_Totem

Lisa Odette's Lady_008_Totem

Next up, it was hard to miss some quality art exchange under the #HENThousand tag influenced by a ten thousand work edition released for 1 tez by John Karel. The initiative provided an opportunity to snap artworks by one's favourite artists for a fraction of the price with the remaining copies being burned by the artists in 24 hours. Some artworks minted include Von Doyle's morphed painting Andromeda, DALEK's 10000 spacemonkeys, Lisa Odette's Lady_008_Totem, and Marcus’ ‘Simpler Times’ to name a few.

Von Doyle's Andromeda

Von Doyle's Andromeda

And finally, we wrap up our Friday with "Curation in the NFT space", a weekly Twitter live talk with @VerticalCrypto, @colbornbell, @sambrukhman, @flakoubay and today’s special guest @martjpg. We discussed NFT collection building, latest creative approaches to curating crypto art, the opening of the Crypto and Digital Art Fair (CADAF), experimental approaches to selecting artworks, buying them, marketplaces, generative collectibles, and more! You can tune in next Friday to hear more ;)

MOSHED-2021-6-18-13-22-43.gif

Oh, and follow me on Twitter: @aljaparis

Cover image by Marcus titled ‘Simpler Times

Toonify yourself - your chance to become a Disney character by Aleksandra Art

abe_toon.jpg

Overnight there was quite a storm of cartoon characters appearing across Twitter. A new Ncage-style Chrome extension? Nope, it was a website called Toonify Yourself rolled out by developers Justin Pinkney and Doron Adler that uses deep learning to toonify images of faces. As they explain the solution was created after Doron fine-tuned a faces model on a dataset of various characters from animated films. The model picked up key elements of what a cartoon character looks like based on a couple hundred of images. The duo then made a hybrid system using which the structure remained of a cartoon face, but also kept a photo realistic rendering. Justin and Doron then launched https://toonify.justinpinkney.com website through which anyone could upload a picture of themselves to turn into a Disney character!

Cartoon images as inspiration via https:/justinpinkney.com/toonify-yourself/

Cartoon images as inspiration via https:/justinpinkney.com/toonify-yourself/

Unfortunately, just as it went viral the website had to be turned off due to… costs :(
Justin Pinkney commented on his twitter account “Sorry everyone, this is going to have to go offline for now. It got popular and running neural networks in the cloud for thousands of people costs real money it turns out!” Turns out keeping a fairy tale alive isn’t so easy!

So let’s hope they will find a way to bring it back because let’s be honest, who doesn’t love playing around with new technologies??

You can learn more about the process here.

StyleGAN2 blending of humans with cartoons by Doron Adler using @Buntworthy Google Collab notebook to create the blended model

5 London Art Exhibitions for Fall/Winter 2019 - 2020 (and yes, they involve digital art!) by Aleksandra Art

Olafur Eliasson Tate

Feeling the winter blues approaching?

Let this list of art events guide you

Recently several of my friends approached me, asking for art show recommendations. While sending over links and suggestions, I realised that many of these are not so easy to find if you’re not in the industry or are coming outside of London. Whether it is to escape the winter blues, find inspiration, hide somewhere warm or maybe refresh your Instagram feed, London is currently hosting an excellent selection of exhibitions. I decided to compile the following list below so a wider audience can take advantage of it. Without further ado, here are some of the highlights you may want to explore.

*Warning: The bias is present. My selection is likely skewed towards new media art.

  1. Olafur Eliasson at Tate Modern

Screenshot 2019-11-15 13.24.51.png

Tate Modern brings a comprehensive selection of the famous Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. Top show on every Instagrammers list.

Dates: Runs until 5 January 2020.

Pro Tip: (1) Bring an old T-shirt you no longer wear into Tate Modern for recycling, and you will get a 20% discount on an Olafur Eliasson exhibition T-shirt. (2) Tate Modern is also currently hosting a retrospective of Nam June Paik’s work, Korean artist and a pioneer of video art. It’s on my list to see, but if you have any space left to indulge more creativity after Eliasson’s show then can try visiting both exhibits while at the museum.

More Info

2. Somerset House: 24/7

Somerset House

Somerset House brings together a group show by some of the most renowned artists today working across a variety of media. Immersive, engaging and thought-provoking, the artworks serve as a reminder to take a break from our non-stop digital life. Personally, I fell in love with Pierre Huyghe’s video work, accompanied by house music. After the exhibition I definitely had a very good sleep.

Dates: Runs until 23 Feb 2020.

Pro Tip: (1) There is a special installation that you need to sign up in advance if you’re interested to participate. The piece is made by Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard and called the ‘Somnoproxy’. You can sign up on arrival by speaking to a member of the Visitor Experience team. (2) The show is a 2 minute walk away from The Store X (on the list below) in case you want to capture both exhibitions at once.

More Info

3. Antony Gormley at the RA

Antony Gormely RA

Antony Gormley is one of the leading British sculptors and on the list you should know if you live in London. What I love the most is how he manages to redevelop his practice over time while keeping a consistent style in his work. RA brings together highlights of his practice and provides an interactive maze for visitors to explore.

Dates: Runs until 3 December 2019. (Hurry!)

Pro Tip: (1) The tunnel is actually a human body sculpture, which you are walking through! (2) Don’t be scared of gravity, try taking an image like the one below!

More Info

Girl in museum

4. Other Spaces by The Store X The Vinyl Factory

Vinyl Factory Digital Art Show

If you want a truly immersive experience , try visiting the free show at The Store X, 180 The Strand. The experience is presented in collaboration with the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris

Dates: Runs until 8 December 2019.

Pro Tip: The show is a 2 minute walk away from the 24/7 show (No2) in case you want to capture both at once.

More Info

5. Anselm Kiefer at White Cube Bermondsey

Anselm Kiefer White Cube

White Cube gallery presents Superstrings, Runes, The Norns, Gordian Knot, a solo show by Anselm Kiefer, one of the most famous living German artists. The art exhibition showcases a selection of his new artwork. The interior of the entrance hall was also redesigned specifically for the event.

Although White Cube is a private commercial gallery, its space can easily compete with some of the public museums. If you haven’t been, strongly recommend discovering it. the neighbourhood is also excellent for a dinner or a glass of wine. The show takes place at their Bermondsey location, which is a 10 minute walk from London Bridge/ The Shard. The show is free, just check opening hours.

Dates: Runs until 26 January 2020.

Pro Tip: Grab a glass of wine after the show at B Street Deli or check out the new Vinegar Yard on the way.

More Info

Anselm Kiefer new work

Enjoy the shows and let me know if you have any questions of tips!