Bootleg (algorithm)

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

rudxane

2024

Algorithm/Software

Description

There’s an unanswerable question that always hangs around generative art: Is the real art in the code or the output? Does it have to be one or the other, or can it be both? The debates go on. Blockchain provenance further complicates the issue because precise ownership is recorded in a smart contract that treats the output as a collectible object.

Rudxane added new dimensions to this debate with his 2024 work Bootleg. Inscribed on the Bitcoin blockchain using the Ordinals protocol, the work is not merely the output of an algorithm, as is the case with most generative art NFTs. Instead, Bootleg is a way for the collector to own the algorithm itself, and therefore choose how many outputs to make and which to keep. The owner of the work becomes steward of the machine that makes images, not just the images themselves. These choices, thanks to the unique parent/child inscription process of Ordinals, become a permanent part of the work’s provenance. The collector becomes a collaborator.

The images are produced by an algorithm that Rudxane named “Tijd,” which is embedded in the work. They consist of fields of black, tan, green, off white, or other tones, overlaid with fine grids. On the grids are marks that vibrate and move, connected with arcing lines to other points or clusters of marks. The glitching points correspond to the calendar and are constantly updated, just like the perpetually updating Bitcoin blocks on which Bootleg is inscribed.