F(X)HASH – GENERATIVE ART FOR THE PEOPLE
MARCH 1ST, 2022
To know and love f(x)hash - is to know and love generative art combined with minting proclivities that are open to everyone. You may (or may not) be familiar with f(x). If not, then read with me:
fxhash is an open platform where artists can mint Generative Tokens stored on the Tezos blockchain.
f(x) was introduced back in November. You might remember this occurred around the same time Hic et Nunc (HEN) was ‘discontinued.’ One of the first tokens introduced on f(x) was minted by one of its founders – and surprisingly (or not) that went viral.
What fuels the platform is the philosophy of providing generative artists with the tools to mint their pieces sans curation – that’s right, f(x) has an open gate policy. Yes, in your face Artblocks – and your gated community ethos; f(x) is open to all who have a love of creating art of the generative variety.
Anyone (and sometimes, we do mean ‘anyone’) – can go on the f(x) platform and mint a Generative Art collection based on the f(x) guidelines – and start selling it on the secondary marketplace.
For newcomers; here’s a little rundown on Generative Art:
Generative art is the perfect storm of art skills and coding. In the case of f(x), the platform uses Generative Tokens (GT) – which are programs designed to produce random outputs – and can only be written in html/css/javascript. The result is art created randomly via an autonomous system or through algorithms – which captures the essence of an artist’s individual and unique style.
Thus, plenty of room for ‘happy accidents’ and unexpected creative turns when creating NFTs - the Generative Art way.
And by no means a new concept, Generative Art has been around for decades. (That’s right, we’re talking to you, Michael Doll - the first person to program a computer for artistic purposes.)
On f(x), each piece of work will be unique due to the element of randomness - based on the transaction hash of minting the token on the Tezos blockchain. So, whenever someone mints an NFT - that transaction is supplied with a script – and thus, the work will be unique based on the transaction hash.
A unique feature of f(x) is the platform’s sandbox – which allows you to test the token before you mint. Simply drop a .zip file into the test area, and it will show you how the artwork will behave when it is minted. Conversely, if it sucks in the sandbox – it will suck when minted.
The platform’s marketplace is for the primary drop, and once that sells out, you can start trading on the secondary market. An added bonus, f(x) transaction fees are pretty low.
But most of all f(x) is about inclusion. As the f(x) community manifesto states:
We all share the love for art and with it, the same values. Everybody plays their role in this ecosystem, be it creation, collection, talking, or even flipping. If you cannot identify with a role, try to tolerate it. It is the diversity that we love and that will ultimately lead us to create the best inclusive generative art platform for everybody.
Still, it’s a blessing and curse to have an NFT platform that’s not to be vetted by a central curation team. And, since anyone can do a project on the platform – anyone will; leaving f(x) open to scammers who might try selling their work under the name of a famous artist.
And also, this isn’t a platform for the Proud Boys to mint, say, white supremacist-leaning NFTs; f(x) does have a moderation system.
As f(x) states: “Its open nature makes it a perfect target for malicious individuals. As of 2021/11/21, the platform saw copyminters taking advantage of the momentum and good energy in the community to scam enthusiast collectors.”
To safeguard, f(x) has added a set of features to the front-end - to protect collectors from bad actors, i.e. a system for community members to keep an eye out for and flag against copyminting, stolen and hateful content.
If you want to see what a bunch of suspect NFTs look like, check out this Page of Shame.
But for the most part, f(x) allows Generative Art enthusiasts to mint what they want (provided it’s not racist, stolen, or minted by falsely using the name of a famous artist) whenever they want.