The Artist: Dmitri Cherniak
If generative artists are the conductors of an orchestra of code, then Dmitri is placed at the very height of long form symphony. Having attained a sale price of 2,100 ETH for Ringers #109 and 1,800 ETH for Ringers #879 (aka The Goose), one could mistakenly overlook his art beyond the headline fame.
"Automation is my artistic medium. Hand coded goods."
The Collection: The Eternal Pump
The Eternal Pump is a collection of 50 artworks released during the height of JPEG mania in October 2021. The minting of The Eternal Pump came with a condition placed collectively on the holders. Don’t sell for a year and your tightly held collection of 50 stays at 50. If any of the holders sell, even just one, the collection will be diluted by a factor of 13x to 666. Vincent Van Dough held 8 of the 50… leaving another 42 to sweat the social contract out. Fortunately the social contract held.
The Wrapture collection of 50 became the reward for Eternal Pump holders. Each Wrapture airdropped to each Eternal Pump holder. Rodo has a good X thread on what happened with 3AC liquidation to avert breaking the no sale embargo. Since their creation, #9, #36 and #38 have been sold, the rest are showing as unsold, although some may have changed hands OTC via transfers.
A Specific Artwork: Dead Ringers
Dead Ringers were an Open Edition in Jan 2022, that raised a ton of Eth for meals to be distributed to those who needed them most. A total of 23,485 editions were minted of ‘Dead Ringers.’ The 14400px by 21600px resolution makes the Dead Ringers suitable for printing and framing.
The 31 individual generated pieces were sent to 31 random addresses. Odds are that no one will ever actually own one of these because the random wallet addresses they were sent to may or may not have even been active. One day however, someone may generate a new wallet address, and discover a 1/1 Dead Ringer comes alive again.
"Every day in January 2022 I generated a new output from an algorithm, generated a random wallet address, and sent the work to that address. On the final day, January 31st, all the previous Dead Ringers were placed in a 5 by 6 grid and minted to a generated address."
"Probably my favourite piece of work to come out of this space so far."