💖heartsleeves is a multifaceted generative video project, where code-based, abstract video art then becomes the basis for community portraits. In this layered generative process, the artists take advantage of the distributive nature of art on the blockchain to elevate the community to co-creators who can generate their own portraits within the environments LoVid has defined.

The work is both a culmination and a departure point for the celebrated artistic duo, LoVid, weaving together disparate shapes and symbols that evoke projects from their decades-long career as video and performance artists.

Who is LoVid?

LoVid is a generative art duo based in New York. Their interdisciplinary practice spans performances, participatory public art, handmade technologies, textiles, prints, App-art, experimental video, and immersive installation. They frequently juxtapose media and physical objects, handmade engineering and traditional art or craft.

Renowned for blending technology, craftsmanship, and diverse media, their art combines DIY electronics, video art, and live performances. Their projects explore the digital world's physical and emotional impacts, questioning how technology alters our perceptions and communication. The duo creates immersive and interactive art, utilizing self-built electronic devices, video, and sound. Their work is engaging and provokes thought about digital culture's influence on society.

Video Skins

Abstract icons are organized on grids that weave above and below each other, moving across the screen to form an abstract video fabric or video skins. The live generator will play forever without looping, suggesting an infinite abstract plane only visible in the square window of the art object, to be passively observed. The blockchain enables the ability to store code on-chain, allowing for the transmission of this never-ending generative video.

Video Portraits and the Portrait Studio

The second part of this work is only unlocked by blockchain ownership. Each video skin becomes an immersive environment in the portrait studio, but only the owner can access the specific skin. Opening the portrait studio shifts agency away from the artists, as the collector becomes the co-creator.

Through the portrait studio, the portrait sitter is pulled into the video environment created by the original code-based generative video. Faces slip inside it, get pulled in, and become defined by color woven amongst the shapes along the three-dimensional planes of the face. While the studio distorts color and projects shapes onto the face, the participant has their own agency in the portrait’s color, exposure, zoom, and more predetermined elements.

Explore the Portrait Studio with sample skins.

The portrait subject transforms from a passive participant into something much more integral. They are physically present, engaged, and able to directly influence the final product.

Each skin can create up to five video portraits for 0.05 ETH each in the month following the auction, and 0.1 ETH afterwards. The number of portraits remaining is stored in the metadata of each skin, maintaining the integrity of the portraits even as a skin changes ownership.

Canvas Portraits

With each video portrait created in the Portrait Studio, collectors can choose one still alongside their video. This enables the translation from digital to physical in Tonic's digital prints (12x12" size only) and the unique physical offering for this series.

The unique physical offering for 💖heartsleeves is a dye-sublimation print on poly canvas, stretched on a 12x12x1.5" stretcher. Each work is paired with LoVid-designed pattern added to the canvas edge to serve as a border when stretched. LoVid's signature is included on the back.

Commissioned works are also available. Contact our concierge for more details.

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💖heartsleeves by LoVid is available starting on February 9, 2024. Learn more about the series and purchase a video skin at tonic.xyz.