piñata3

from backyard to blockchain (and beyond?)

I just got back from Art Blocks weekend in the quirky town of Marfa, Texas. If you have no idea what I’m talking about - this is an annual pilgrimage made by hundreds of digital/generative/web3 art enthusiasts from around the world to the tiny, artsy desert town of Marfa. This extremely difficult-to-get-to spot is home to Donald Judd’s legacy, The Chinati Foundation, the mystical Marfa Lights, and now, a growing digital art scene.

This year I decided to put together an activation. A performance. Something special for all the people making the long journey to Marfa.

I brought a piñata.

While piñatas are normally filled with candy or fruits, this is a web3 piñata… filled with strange poems that unlock access to digital wallets on Ethereum.

Using these wallets gets you on the discounted allowlist for my new generative art project, piñata3. Normally allowlists function analogously to loyalty programs - if you show support for an artist, the artist rewards you with discounts and early access to new projects. In this case, though, you get on the allowlist by being quick enough to grab a colorful plastic capsule as it flies out of a piñata!

This entire experience was kept a surprise, only a few Art Blocks employees knew about it. Shown below: a sample poem from inside the piñata and a post-destruction photo of people trying to figure out what they just got looped into.

I love nerding out about the conceptual cycle of this project: physical piñata → human-sourced randomness → secret paper poems → secret digital wallets → PRNG-sourced randomness → digital piñata.

This project is very much about the materiality of digital art, bridging between physical and digital across multiple dimensions. Even the artwork is a new experiment in blending together algorithmically constructed forms and patterns with a new set of ink drawings I made by hand for this project.

I’ve included a set of sample works from the generative system below. The color palettes are all named after celebratory occasions (birthdays, graduations, retirement, etc.). I really wanted to capture the joy, the spontaneity, and the festivity of people gathering together for a good time, much like we did in Marfa.

Anyone who got a prize from the in-person event can mint at a discounted price through Nov 24. Public minting begins on Art Blocks Studio on Monday, Nov 25, at 10am ET. Visit the official project page via the button below!

I have some exciting future plans for this generative system, including running a print-only variation of the piñata experience in Mexico City next year, and (hopefully) setting up an interactive design-your-own-art website for this system. I’ll send out updates on these as they materialize!

In the meantime, enjoy these images, and make sure to find some time in your busy schedules to play :)