Panes by

What is “Panes”?

Panes is a collection of dynamic artworks that subtly change every day of the year. The artwork is generated directly from the contract each day, fully onchain.

Each piece in the collection has a corresponding open edition piece.

How “Panes” Works

Each piece is composed of a large image that is cropped to become the daily image. The part that's visible is based on the day of the year, so the section of the image we see changes each day.

Dynamic - every day of the year, the smart contract generates a slightly different SVG image. On Jan 1, it starts over.

Onchain - the artwork comes directly out of the smart contract code as a base64-encoded SVG image.

Open Edition “Negatives”

The term "negative" in this context is borrowed from Jack Butcher and is meant to describe the "source of truth" image that ultimately gets cropped in different places each day. The term originates from analog photography, where a single negative can produce many outputs, but the outputs are considered the art.

In “Panes,” the full image (the negative) is what's stored onchain. We'll see many outputs that are generated from it (and considered the art), but we'll never see the full image all at once.

To highlight that juxtaposition, each piece has a corresponding free open edition mint of the full size image (as a second collection).

Why does it matter?

As a code-based medium, blockchain unlocks incredible potential for what art can be. Artwork can be dynamic in its native form. The potential for art to interact and evolve is exciting.

Dynamic artwork with no dependencies is challenging to put onchain. But artwork that's onchain is the only artwork we're sure will live forever.

This project hints at what we can strive for in the future... specifically what types of art we might create and how we can craft it for longevity.