Pale, male, and biggest in sales. It\u2019s a strapline applicable to the kings of today\u2019s generative art scene: Tyler Hobbs, Dmitri Cherniak, Larva Labs<\/a>, Jack Butcher<\/a>. Regrettably, the leading creators of perhaps the original and most lucrative of NFT genres largely mirror the homogeneity of their analog forefathers\u2014shout out to Bridget Riley<\/a>.<\/p>\n New York-based generative artist Emily Xie is very much aware of this imbalance<\/a>. In fact, it\u2019s one she extends to the world of software engineering in which she was employed until a little over a year ago when the success of her teasing, textured generative NFTs allowed her code and mint full-time.<\/p>\n In Xie\u2019s latest series, \u201cInterwoven,\u201d the Harvard-educated artist is doubling down on disrupting what has so far been a man\u2019s game. She\u2019s created 100 generative quilt-inspired NFTs, which dropped June 7<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cInterwoven\u201d is the latest installment<\/a> of Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Cactoid Labs\u2019s joint blockchain initiative, Remembrance of Things Future<\/a>, which prompts digital creatives to riff off works in its collection. Xie was instantly drawn to LACMA\u2019s<\/a> old textiles, but honed in on a late-19th century quilt that was stashed away in the archives: Martha Lou Jones\u2019s \u201cBullseye,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0a kaleidoscope of tawny-colored vortexes that from afar appears bordered by rope and rusty leather.<\/p>\n Martha Lou Jones, Bullseye Quilt<\/em> (1896). Courtesy of LACMA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cOn a visual level, it embodies generative art as it captures a strong tension between the human and the computational,\u201d Xie told Artnet News. \u201cQuilting and generative art entail algorithmic processes and I wanted to explore these parallels.\u201d<\/p>\n Jones\u2019s quilt wasn\u2019t programmed by computer, but its precise regime of squares and circles certainly seems suggestive. Lean (or zoom) a little closer, however, and the imperfections and variations become apparent, an effect that captured Xie\u2019s imagination and fed into her design process.<\/p>\n Indeed, there\u2019s a sweet historical interplay between textiles and computers. Textile design stands as a precursor to early computers through the invention of the jacquard loom<\/a>, which used punch cards to produce weaving patters and would inspire English polymath Ada Lovelace to write an algorithm for a mechanical computer system called the Analytical Engine. Loom inspires computer\u2014and vice versa.<\/p>\n Sample from Emily Xie\u2019s \u201cInterwoven\u201d NFT series. Courtesy of the artist and Cactoid Labs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Xie is also keen to stress the social component. In North America, and indeed far beyond, quilting was one of few artistic pathways available to women, oftentimes passed down generation to generation and used to tell stories. Xie plays with this historical marginalization by crafting works<\/a> in their likeness using tools (predominantly JavaScript and p5.js) that have largely been the domain of men.<\/p>\n \u201cQuilting and computing have deeply gendered histories. Women have contributed significantly yet still face a troubling sense of invisibility or erasure,\u201d Xie said. \u201cI hoped to spark some thought about this by weaving both fields together.\u201d<\/p>\n Xie\u2019s quilts don\u2019t appear like generative NFTs\u2014at least not as we\u2019ve come to know them in the blunt pixelation of CryptoPunks, the harsh Sol LeWitt-isms of Autoglyphs<\/a>, or the surging rectangular fields of Hobbs\u2019s Fidenzas<\/a>. Sure, there\u2019s a pattern (read: algorithm) at work: a warm background color layered with a large, irregular shape, and a constellation of bead-like circles.<\/p>\n But they appear singular as a person\u2019s cherished blanket, each sown with a figurative animal (a skinny elephant, a prancing horse, a tie-wearing duck), and small markings, stains of coffee and mud not yet removed. They don\u2019t quite smell like an old blanket, but nearly.<\/p>\n Sample from Emily Xie\u2019s \u201cInterwoven\u201d NFT series. Courtesy of the artist and Cactoid Labs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Here, Xie\u2019s ability to give generative art life, to break its often-rigid formulism, predates \u201cInterwoven,\u201d but may have something to do with the research that preceded the coding. Xie binged video tutorials on common patterns, took in local textile shops, and read widely on its history and evolution.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were excited to see Emily gravitate towards quilts in the museum\u2019s collection,\u201d Lady Cactoid of Cactoid Labs told Artnet News. \u201cI\u2019m struck by the textures, the organic forms and sense of movement she\u2019s able to bring through via her algorithms.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n More Trending Stories:\u00a0<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Researchers Find a Megalodon Tooth Necklace in the Titanic Wreckage\u2014But the Rare Object Will Probably Have to Stay at the Bottom of the Sea<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Archaeologists in Peru Used A.I. to Discover Ancient Geoglyphs of Killer Whales, Two-Headed Snakes, and Other Creatures Carved Into Land<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Is Time Travel Real? Here Are 6 Tantalizing Pieces of Evidence From Art History<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Nicolas Party Honors Rosalba Carriera, the Rococo Queen of Pastels, in a New Installation at the Frick<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Is TikTok Trying to Cancel Salvador Dal\u00ed? Why Art Historians on the Platform Are Denouncing the \u2018Problematic\u2019 Surrealist Icon<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/news.artnet.com\/app\/news-upload\/2023\/06\/emily_xie_generative_art_interwoven_sample_2-768x1024.jpg\")
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