monogrid 76

All digital art is made of pixels, but no artist treats the pixel as a material quite like Kim Asendorf. His 2021 series Monogrid features 256 generative works where abstract, geometric patterns of black and white pixels shift, sort, melt, and surge according to some inscrutable rhythm. Each work displays a pattern of gridded textures that morph and distort in rectangular chunks while other sections pause, in patterns that never repeat. The movements are a variant of a custom pixel sorting algorithm programmed by Asendorf. 

The artist built a custom website to display the project, monogrid.xyz, and navigating it can help the viewer understand the variations between individual works. The pieces are displayed on a 16-by-16 grid. A text explains that the starting pattern of each work is determined by its position on the grid. The works move from mostly white on the left to mostly black on the right. The density of the pixels increases diagonally toward the center, before reversing and becoming sparser again. Other axes delineate changes in complexity of the initial pattern and complexity of the animation. The result is that pieces near the center of the grid have the most complex patterns, but pieces at the edges feature the most energetic movements.

The collection includes three works from Monogrid that sample very different locations on the grid; 00 occupies the upper left corner, 76 is near the middle, while ff is on the far bottom right.