Scribbled Daydreams
Pre-launch Conversation
Below is the transcript of the March 23, 2023 conversation between Plottables founder Matt Jacobson (numbersinmotion) and minimizer, and a few others, in the Plottables Discord, prior to the launch of Scribbled Daydreams. Minor edits have been made for clarity.
numbersinmotionHello hello hello! Super excited for the release of Scribbled Daydreams today!! https://www.plottables.io/flow9minimizerI'm here and also very excited πnumbersinmotionSpecial thanks to @minimizer for the amazing artwork and for being here to answer a few questions before the release!Let's start off by telling us a bit about yourself and your artistic practice.minimizerOf course πI got started with gen art waaayyy back in 2021, as soon as I started to learn more it drew me right in, since it let me use both my coding skills and my desire to create and express myself.I like to experiment a lot and learn new things, and so for each project I've done it's been slightly different tech.Scribbled Daydreams is my 4th project, the first time I'm doing pure JS + svgs.I had done p5, or pure js + canvas, or solidity + SVGs for my previous projects.numbersinmotionAwesome π can you tell us a bit more about your previous projects?minimizerFor sure, I'd say one common theme across all of them is that I like to have constraints and make things hard for myself πWaves, my first one was animated exploration of motion and dynamic palettes. This is first and only time (so far) I used p5js.Flow, was also an animated piece, but I switched over to pure JS to learn more about how things worked at a lower level.Having done two animated works, I decided to go in a completely different direction and focus on fully on chain, pure SVG, and so that led me to Infinite Scribble, which is free to mint and infinite supply, as long as someone mints within two weeks. If not, it closes minting.numbersinmotionAll of your projects are on your website right? https://minimizer.art/minimizerYes, they're all there πAlso been fun to build that website, it lets me have my own way to showcase my work.numbersinmotion
minimizerYes that's Waves on the left and Infinite Scribble on the right.numbersinmotionIt's an awesome website - I can tell you've put a lot of work into it.minimizerAppreciate it π there's a few bonus features on there I will let people find on their own.numbersinmotionCan you talk a bit about what motivates you to create?minimizerA lot of it comes down to personal challenge.. I'm usually just curious to see if I can do something.I really like the idea of creating algos that are both diverse and look good on average.Also I think the mechanics of minting are a sort of art of their own, so I'm curious to do more interesting mechanics over time.numbersinmotion100% - excited to see where you take that in the future πHow did you get into pen plotters?minimizerThere's something really appealing about being about to create a physical output, so it had been on my mind for a while.But I hadn't found a good idea I wanted to try.Then after Infinite Scribble, I realized that scribbling concept really lends well to plotting.And so I wanted to go for it!I have to acknowledge that both you and @Stephen/Generative Artworks helped a ton along the way here.numbersinmotionAre there any plotter artists that you look up to or that inspire you?minimizerHaha well honestly you and @Stephen/Generative Artworks π.numbersinmotionπminimizerAlso, there's been some fun projects on plottables too that made me want to work with you.I really like that you have "Endless", its similar in concept to my Infinite Scribble, lets people have fun and get started with plotting.numbersinmotionYeah endless was super fun to work on. Shout out to @MODNARWOLF!minimizerI really like Shattered by greweb.Also I like the personal touch of @0xPhiiil's Beginnings, that he plots each piece and sends to the minter.numbersinmotion@greweb is amazing - check out their twitch streams sometime if you are into that sort of thing https://www.twitch.tv/greweb.minimizerHaha honestly I could keep going but then I'd be listing all of plottables.numbersinmotionHaha no worries that was a great answer πI know you have worked with SVGs before but how did you find the process of adapting your style for plotter work? Some artist can find it frustrating to only be able to work with lines.minimizerFortunately my previous project was somewhat similar in that way, using just lines except they were much bigger to fill up the page and stay under gas limits. because I could implement in JS this time, I let there be lots of lines that each drew with their own instructions, and let them get very tight to create "fills".Then there are some specific things for making the SVGs structured in a plotter friendly way, those are more straightforward, and again, shoutout to you and Stephen π0xPhiiilThat's cool. I saw some plots of the fist mints and depending on the pen size you get these halftones going and texture. Nice touch.grewebWow scribbled daydreams looks amazing. all of that in how much kb of JS?minimizerIt's about 7kb of js code, I am nothing if not minimizing π then the "thoughts" are another ~3k.numbersinmotionThat sounds like a good intro to Scribbled Daydreams π can you tell us a bit about this project specifically? What was the inspiration? What's going on underneath the hood?minimizerGreat question, it really comes down to unconscious drawing, like when your hand repeats a pattern without you paying attention.Each piece is 5 colors, each color represent a different pattern that repeats.And what makes it interesting is that each line style has a set of simple instructions which together emerge to make more interesting larger shapes.For example one instruction is for lines to "trace" themselves, meaning when they run into each other they'll hug the previous line and keep going.Another is "stop" so if it runs into another line it ends.Other examples of instructions include, does the line go straight, or curl, or bend.numbersinmotionIt's so amazing that such simple rules can combine to create such beautiful outputs.Can you tell us a bit about the features? Or I guess I should say the singular feature πminimizerHaha two things before that.numbersinmotionSure sure - sorry take your time πminimizerHaha no worries just those thoughts came to mind.Regarding the simple rules creating these outputs, I really felt more like a conductor and less like an engineer for this project, like I had much less control over the final outputs.The other thing, touching on what 0xPhiiil mentioned earlier, is that there are textures in the background which is something interesting you can do with plottable SVGs, because some elements of the SVG are ignored by the plotter software, that was fun to put together.In terms of the singular "feature", as I was building this it wasn't clear to me what attributes would make sense to include. I could have had pen colors or background color but I really think the pieces can be plotted with a variety of colors and don't need to match the original output, so I decided to have no attributes related to the visuals.And this seems okay for a smaller collection size.But then to have some fun with it, I created completely unrelated code to generate random "thoughts".Such as "I forgot to order dinner again"And this fits really well into the concept since usually when you're doodling your hand is doing the work and your brain is elsewhere.And so to answer your question, the only feature, looks like this.
numbersinmotionI think that is really poetic and evokes the idea of daydreaming perfectly β€οΈDid you run into any bugs while working on the project? Or any happy accidents?minimizerYes so many π I think my favorite one was when the lines just would not draw.https://twitter.com/minimizer_art/status/1621231692118736902
It took me a while to figure out what it was and I felt like an unsatisfied manager for a while πThere's more, but that was probably my favorite.numbersinmotionHaha that is amazing - I'm actually really into that minimal look.minimizerIt would certainly plot very fast.numbersinmotionDid you ever consider leaving it in?minimizerThere are some cases where the outputs would be less dense but overall I opted for much denser outputs.Something to consider for futures projects π.numbersinmotionFor sure π and speaking of... what's next for you? Are you working on anything else for the future?minimizerI do have some things planned but I often find a little break after a project is helpful and also changes my thoughts about what to do next.I can say I love this space and want to keep going.Mechanics is something I want to explore more too, feels like another aspect of creativity and a way to interact with others in interesting ways.numbersinmotion100%Where can we follow your progress? Can you drop some links to your socials/discord/etc?minimizerYep, twitter (https://twitter.com/minimizer_art) and discord (https://discord.gg/zsYkNqG93c) are the two best places.numbersinmotionAwesome - well I'll let you go get ready to unpause in a few minutes.Thanks so much for hanging out! πI'll post in β announcements once the project goes live.minimizerYes, very happy to do this π will get that unpause ready.0xPhiiilπnumbersinmotionEveryone feel free to stick around and chat. Excited to see the mints come in!
minimizerYes that's Waves on the left and Infinite Scribble on the right.numbersinmotionIt's an awesome website - I can tell you've put a lot of work into it.minimizerAppreciate it π there's a few bonus features on there I will let people find on their own.numbersinmotionCan you talk a bit about what motivates you to create?minimizerA lot of it comes down to personal challenge.. I'm usually just curious to see if I can do something.I really like the idea of creating algos that are both diverse and look good on average.Also I think the mechanics of minting are a sort of art of their own, so I'm curious to do more interesting mechanics over time.numbersinmotion100% - excited to see where you take that in the future πHow did you get into pen plotters?minimizerThere's something really appealing about being about to create a physical output, so it had been on my mind for a while.But I hadn't found a good idea I wanted to try.Then after Infinite Scribble, I realized that scribbling concept really lends well to plotting.And so I wanted to go for it!I have to acknowledge that both you and @Stephen/Generative Artworks helped a ton along the way here.numbersinmotionAre there any plotter artists that you look up to or that inspire you?minimizerHaha well honestly you and @Stephen/Generative Artworks π.numbersinmotionπminimizerAlso, there's been some fun projects on plottables too that made me want to work with you.I really like that you have "Endless", its similar in concept to my Infinite Scribble, lets people have fun and get started with plotting.numbersinmotionYeah endless was super fun to work on. Shout out to @MODNARWOLF!minimizerI really like Shattered by greweb.Also I like the personal touch of @0xPhiiil's Beginnings, that he plots each piece and sends to the minter.numbersinmotion@greweb is amazing - check out their twitch streams sometime if you are into that sort of thing https://www.twitch.tv/greweb.minimizerHaha honestly I could keep going but then I'd be listing all of plottables.numbersinmotionHaha no worries that was a great answer πI know you have worked with SVGs before but how did you find the process of adapting your style for plotter work? Some artist can find it frustrating to only be able to work with lines.minimizerFortunately my previous project was somewhat similar in that way, using just lines except they were much bigger to fill up the page and stay under gas limits. because I could implement in JS this time, I let there be lots of lines that each drew with their own instructions, and let them get very tight to create "fills".Then there are some specific things for making the SVGs structured in a plotter friendly way, those are more straightforward, and again, shoutout to you and Stephen π0xPhiiilThat's cool. I saw some plots of the fist mints and depending on the pen size you get these halftones going and texture. Nice touch.grewebWow scribbled daydreams looks amazing. all of that in how much kb of JS?minimizerIt's about 7kb of js code, I am nothing if not minimizing π then the "thoughts" are another ~3k.numbersinmotionThat sounds like a good intro to Scribbled Daydreams π can you tell us a bit about this project specifically? What was the inspiration? What's going on underneath the hood?minimizerGreat question, it really comes down to unconscious drawing, like when your hand repeats a pattern without you paying attention.Each piece is 5 colors, each color represent a different pattern that repeats.And what makes it interesting is that each line style has a set of simple instructions which together emerge to make more interesting larger shapes.For example one instruction is for lines to "trace" themselves, meaning when they run into each other they'll hug the previous line and keep going.Another is "stop" so if it runs into another line it ends.Other examples of instructions include, does the line go straight, or curl, or bend.numbersinmotionIt's so amazing that such simple rules can combine to create such beautiful outputs.Can you tell us a bit about the features? Or I guess I should say the singular feature πminimizerHaha two things before that.numbersinmotionSure sure - sorry take your time πminimizerHaha no worries just those thoughts came to mind.Regarding the simple rules creating these outputs, I really felt more like a conductor and less like an engineer for this project, like I had much less control over the final outputs.The other thing, touching on what 0xPhiiil mentioned earlier, is that there are textures in the background which is something interesting you can do with plottable SVGs, because some elements of the SVG are ignored by the plotter software, that was fun to put together.In terms of the singular "feature", as I was building this it wasn't clear to me what attributes would make sense to include. I could have had pen colors or background color but I really think the pieces can be plotted with a variety of colors and don't need to match the original output, so I decided to have no attributes related to the visuals.And this seems okay for a smaller collection size.But then to have some fun with it, I created completely unrelated code to generate random "thoughts".Such as "I forgot to order dinner again"And this fits really well into the concept since usually when you're doodling your hand is doing the work and your brain is elsewhere.And so to answer your question, the only feature, looks like this.numbersinmotionI think that is really poetic and evokes the idea of daydreaming perfectly β€οΈDid you run into any bugs while working on the project? Or any happy accidents?minimizerYes so many π I think my favorite one was when the lines just would not draw.https://twitter.com/minimizer_art/status/1621231692118736902It took me a while to figure out what it was and I felt like an unsatisfied manager for a while πThere's more, but that was probably my favorite.numbersinmotionHaha that is amazing - I'm actually really into that minimal look.minimizerIt would certainly plot very fast.numbersinmotionDid you ever consider leaving it in?minimizerThere are some cases where the outputs would be less dense but overall I opted for much denser outputs.Something to consider for futures projects π.numbersinmotionFor sure π and speaking of... what's next for you? Are you working on anything else for the future?minimizerI do have some things planned but I often find a little break after a project is helpful and also changes my thoughts about what to do next.I can say I love this space and want to keep going.Mechanics is something I want to explore more too, feels like another aspect of creativity and a way to interact with others in interesting ways.numbersinmotion100%Where can we follow your progress? Can you drop some links to your socials/discord/etc?minimizerYep, twitter (https://twitter.com/minimizer_art) and discord (https://discord.gg/zsYkNqG93c) are the two best places.numbersinmotionAwesome - well I'll let you go get ready to unpause in a few minutes.Thanks so much for hanging out! πI'll post in β announcements once the project goes live.minimizerYes, very happy to do this π will get that unpause ready.0xPhiiilπnumbersinmotionEveryone feel free to stick around and chat. Excited to see the mints come in!