nullMachines #60

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Kerim Safa Loïc Schwaller

2024

NFT/Digital

Description

The whimsical _nullMachines _project, the first collaboration between Kerim Safa and Loïc Schwaller (aka loackme), expresses remarkable personality through its generative creation process. Algorithmically constructed Rube Goldberg contraptions without purpose, _nullMachines _are as mesmerizing as they are pointless.

Each iteration of the project is stitched together from scientific-seeming machine parts in constant motion. Safa and Schwaller linked hand-drawn pixel animations using an algorithm called “wave function collapse,” where the randomized placement of a single cube on the frame’s edge influences its surroundings. Adjacent developments are determined according to preset stylistic and spatial limitations. The algorithm examines neighboring “cells,” or blank areas of the frame, and repeats the selecting process until the entire machine obeys the overarching rules for cohesion.

In effect, that sometimes yields relatively simple outputs like _#11, where flashing screens book-end a slow-moving assembly line. Meanwhile, #19 and #60 are flush with screens, pipes, and waveforms, appearing almost like medical devices. They, too, contain screens celebrating their lack of function, flashing slogans like “Think Useless” and “Productivity is a Myth.” But the most complex and mystifying output is ++#29_. Dwarfing these other _nullMachines _in its size and its number of moving parts, it recalls a labyrinthine circuit board, stultifyingly intricate, but for intricacy’s sake alone.