The Traditional art market has long been associated with exclusivity and limited opportunities for emerging artists to gain recognition. Prohibition.Art challenges this status quo by providing a platform that welcomes creators from all backgrounds. By eliminating the need for gatekeepers and intermediaries, you can just start. No need to ask for permission before you begin. No matter where you were born, these digital primitives will be more and more programmable, composable and useful for creative self-expression for the next generation of artists.
What distinguishes the past from the present movements in Art is the openness and programmability of work published on public blockchains for all to see and know who created it. Using code to create art has been around since the 1960s and has seen various contributions, iterations and builds over the last half century ushering us towards the current movement around generative art.
The next wave of experimentation will be led by projects such as Prohibition, an open, on-chain generative art platform built on the Art Blocks Engine and deployed on Arbitrum, one of the leading Ethereum Layer 2s. This project is created out of the brilliant team at VenturePunk, a Mesh portfolio company building at the bleeding edge projects to harness the most timely developments in the space. Jordan Lyall, the Founder and CEO, has a knack for finding the path to work that resonates with so many in Web3.
Art Blocks Engine (ABE) was born in 2021 when the Art Blocks’ team saw an opportunity outside of their own platform that could serve both Web2 and Web3 communities. The tool offers two kinds of licensing for both fully on-chain art as well as off-chain libraries: Engine and Engine Flex. Using these libraries gives teams access to their tech, partnerships and direct support. In this way, ABE is offering a custom solution through a streamlined process. The technology provided includes generative scripts stored and secured on-chain through the Ethereum Blockchain. Creators are also able to use IPFS or Arweave to store their assets which opens up the capability to use off-chain assets like photography, AI, GAN, machine learning and many other tools. Other networks can be used like Aritrum and Palm for Engine projects as well as support for EVM-compatible solutions like Polygon, Base and Optimism.
Prohibition.Art stands at the intersection of art and technology, harnessing the potential of blockchain to build new creation and consumption mechanisms within the vibrant art world. By leveraging the transparency, security, and immutability blockchain offers, the platform can ensure the authenticity and provenance of digital artworks. The lines between artist, gallery collector, consumer can be blurred and because these things can be published on an immutable blockchain, a public record of all the changes, remixes, and editions is open for anyone to contribute.
Imagine a young child stumbling upon squiggle #9,999 at LACMA by the La Brea Tar Pits during a class field trip. As she finishes her pb&j by the dinosaurs with her friends she can’t stop thinking about the full spectrum of color animating through a seemingly random line on the wall in the museum. She decides to find it on-chain, download and remix it on the class Roblox server. She scales the piece to the size of a skyscraper that can slide up and down, creating a living sculpture that changes with each interaction! This is what we are on the precipice of, and artists like Snowfro, Claire Silver, Bryan Brinkman will be able to decide what and how people use their inspired work.
At the heart of Prohibition.Art's product lies the concept of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). These unique digital assets enable creators to tokenize their artwork, representing it as a digital certificate of ownership and creation on the blockchain. By minting their creations as NFTs, artists can establish their provenance, track the history of ownership, and even earn royalties on future sales. This newfound control and financial empowerment open up a world of possibilities for creators, encouraging them to explore innovative ways of monetizing their work.
Generative Artists are paving the way for even more remixing of work and allowing for pieces to be changed over time. Most art or content we consume has set time for when the creator says it is “finished.” However, with programmable art we are living through a period of time where the lines between creator and consumer are blurred. People don’t need to only be passive participants in the creative process but can now leave their own fingerprints and adjustments to pieces. One of the most celebrated and distinct examples of this is Terraforms but the Spacial Computing Studio, Mathcastles. This studio is comprised of a duo, @0x113d and @Xalgeist who have become known for pushing the boundaries of what is possible on chain like below.
If you’re making tools or gathering creators around this space, we would love to partner with you on what is being built next. We are happy to introduce generative artists to Prohibition.Art or share more about our investment programs like Tachyon.
Shawn Cheng, ConsenSys Mesh | DMs open @shacheng
