Natural Static at Public Works Administration

Join us for the preview of Jonathan Chomko's new generative series Natural Static at Public Works Administration in Times Square, NYC, on Thursday September 21st. The exhibition will be open Friday through Sunday, from 2pm to 7pm. The Natural Static NFT release will take place the following week on Wednesday Sept 27, in the gift shop for Beyond the Algorithm, an online exhibition curated by Brian Droitcour and presented by JPG. About the Series Simulation of motion in digital worlds has long been an obsession for animators and artists alike. In Natural Static, Jonathan Chomko questions this desire, asserting that natural motion contains more detail and complexity than any synthetic simulation. Natural Static is a generative NFT series that feeds video of natural motion into a pixel-based water simulation, creating representations of physical motion that are both highly digital and deeply analog. As in a standard generative series, parameters such as colour, mode, and cycle speed are derived from a hash created on mint. The visual dynamism of the work comes from videos of complex natural motion, taken outside, in nature. About the People Jonathan Chomko is an artist working with and against technology. His works often examine the seam between physical and digital worlds, exploring how digital forces translate into and act upon the physical world, and how physical phenomena and expression are modulated as they enter the digital. Brian Droitcour is a critic, editor, and curator. He has contributed to publications including 4columns, Artforum, and Rhizome, and catalogues for exhibitions at the Whitney Museum, the New Museum, and the Art Gallery of Ontario, among others. From 2014 to 2021 he worked at Art in America magazine, where he organized special issues on topics including the digitized museum, generative art, and immersive art. He is now the editor in chief of the digital art platform Outland. JPG builds cultural infrastructure for crypto’s cultural objects, NFTs. At JPG we believe that NFTs are networked, social and versatile cultural objects. There’s a great ecosystem of prolific artists experimenting with NFTs and the unique possibilities of smart contracts and blockchain technologies as an artistic medium. We focus on building context around these cultural objects, in order to help contribute to a healthier scene. Public Works Administration is a project space inside the 50th Street Downtown 1 train station that spotlights leading digital artists who are shaping contemporary culture.