The Series

​The Cosmic Reef works begin with a simple geometry that is designed to become progressively more complex through the interaction of composed dynamic layers, each reflecting a combination of human control and computational chance.   Coded using three.js, a JavaScript library of tools for the creation and display of 3D objects, the visual display is produced by over 100 carefully coded parameters, pursuant to a single software script created and calibrated by the artist.  Each unique work is generated from this master script using a randomly generated “seed.”  The unique combination of script and seed is recorded securely and permanently on the Ethereum blockchain as the NFT.

 

The result is a collection of visually related but individually unique works of art, each of which constitutes a singular dynamic composition of controlled yet randomized layers and degrees of geometry, color, motion, noise, scale, and, above all, light.  

 

Drawing inspiration from the infinite array of patterns and sequences found in nature, the Cosmic Reef series is crafted to produce captivating, celestial blooms that evoke the geometry and symmetry of these universal natural algorithms.

 

A Natural Evolution

​Cosmic Reef is a logical and organic extension into the purely digital realm of Villareal’s long-standing artistic practice in the areas of generative art and public art.

 

Since Villareal presented his first fully formed computer-controlled strobe sculpture, Light Matrix (1998), over two decades ago, he has used code at the foundation of his practice.  He creates digital, generative programs that evoke the complex and rhythmic underlying rules and structures of organic systems in order to operate the hardware components that constitute his physical light sculptures.

 

Translating this artistic practice into the purely digital medium of generative NFT artworks was an inevitable and natural evolution for Villareal.  The NFT medium allows the programming that the artist previously created to operate his sculptures to emerge and be appreciated in its own right as a natively digital artistic creation.  

 

Not long after he completed Light Matrix, Villareal unveiled his first public art installation, Supercluster (2003), at New York’s MoMA PS1.  He was intrigued by the accessibility and immediacy of public works of art and went on to create many of them, including the two monumental examples for which he is best known: The Bay Lights, a site-specific light sculpture that occupies the entire western span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and Illuminated River, a generative light sculpture installed on nine bridges over the River Thames in London.

 

It is not surprising that Villareal responds strongly to the way in which NFTs, like his public works, are democratizing art, freeing it from elite channels and elite collectors and making it readily accessible to everyone.  Cosmic Reef offers Villareal an organic way to extend his practice into an artistic medium that is not only purely and natively digital, but also widely accessible.  

 

Villareal is enlivened by the prospect that Cosmic Reef will lead the way to other digital mediums and realms, such as virtual reality and augmented reality.

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