Gazers — Matt Kane's Art Blocks lunar-data release

2021

Artists: Matt Kane · Year: 2021 · Medium: Generative NFT collection — 1,000 outputs, each responsive to real-time lunar data · Substrate: Ethereum; JavaScript generator that queries live lunar-position data; outputs update their appearance according to current moon-phase · Place: Chicago, Illinois, USA · Institution: Art Blocks Curated Matt Kane's Gazers (2021) was a 1,000-token Art Blocks Curated generative-art release. Each Gazer is a composition rendered by Kane's algorithm that represents a specific astronomical configuration — the piece's appearance depends on the token holder's location (latitude/longitude stored with the NFT) and the lunar phase at any given moment. Holders looking at their Gazer at the full moon see one version of the composition; looking on a new moon, they see a different configuration. The algorithm updates the piece continuously in response to real-time astronomical data. Gazers is Kane's clearest articulation of the live-data-responsive generative-NFT methodology he had been developing since Right Place & Right Time (2020, elsewhere in this archive). Where that earlier work used Bitcoin price as its data feed, Gazers uses astronomical data — a much slower, more naturally-rhythmic, more universally-accessible input. The work engages with an older-than-digital visual tradition (astronomical imagery) while using specifically 2021 computational infrastructure to make the engagement live. The release sold out as part of the Art Blocks Curated launch window and has subsequently been one of the more heavily-discussed Art Blocks Curated projects for its specific-astronomical-lore layer. Collectors have reported waiting for specific lunar events to check their Gazer's state; the piece has produced a specifically temporal engagement pattern that differs from most static NFT holdings. Kane has continued to extend the Gazers framework through 2022-24 with subsequent astronomical-responsive releases, and has been one of the most thoughtful public voices on the specifically-live, data-responsive mode of NFT generative art. He lives in Chicago. Lore Kane's work on Gazers required integrating the Art Blocks platform with external astronomical-data feeds in ways that had not previously been done on the platform; the specific technical work involved close collaboration with the Art Blocks engineering team (Snowfro's team) to resolve how external-data dependencies could be supported consistently with Art Blocks' fully-on-chain-first design principles. The resulting implementation represents a specific engineering compromise that has since been iterated on in subsequent Art Blocks-adjacent projects. Kane has written in detail about the astronomical-lore layer he built into Gazers, including the specific ancient-astronomical-traditions references that shaped the work's visual vocabulary. Sources • Art Blocks — Gazers (artblocks.io/collection/gazers). • Kane, Matt — mattkane.com (artist archive). • Kane, Matt — "Notes on Gazers" (artist blog, 2021).