Known as Mido in Taiwan’s Tezos Telegram group, he was a photographer and designer in reality. However, Mido’s interest in generative art emerged with the rise of cryptocurrency in early 2021. By using p5js to create chance variations, his Moonlight Impression and Mountains in Mind series are popular on the chain, featuring landscapes that incorporate the moon phase, mountain textures, and ocean waves in each piece. Despite being an NFT artist for just over a year, Mido has already experienced some unexpected challenges while developing his craft.
Mountains in Mind #11, Courtesy of the Artist.
SCREEN (hereinafter referred to as SCR): When did you start to want to use generative techniques to create? Why would you want to use p5js? Do you use this tool in your daily work?
Mido: At the beginning, I really didn’t think too much about it. It was really that the crypto was very hot last year. I read some articles and bought some coins. I didn’t make any money out of it but I kept paying attention. Because my undergraduate is design, I naturally pay more attention to the NFT part, but to be honest, I am not really interested in PFP avatars. I bought one, but then that project gradually became silent, just like most PFP NFT projects.
Until one day when I saw generative art, I thought it was quite special. I searched for courses on the Internet, so I came into contact with the tutor CheYu. I didn’t have any programming background at first, and I can use p5js purely because it is the programming language used in the course. Since the designer’s habits always require feedback from users, I found some platforms to post my own experiments. I used OurSong in the early days, and then I started to switch to AkaSwap when I heard Baobo’s(寶博) program.
SCR: Your first series Street View Composition was actually about urban landscapes. What parameters and aspects did this series explore?
Mido: I usually like to take pictures. For example, when I went abroad, I often took pictures of scenery and neighborhoods. I am used to processing photos into black and white, and then make some detailed adjustments by using Photoshop.
nature(mido) #10, Courtesy of the Artist.
So at the beginning, I randomly thought of what it would be like to use a program for image processing. Therefore, the first series is simply to use the skills learned in the class, use the program to capture the pixel information of the fixed distance of the picture, and then add some parameters for processing. And later in Street View Composition III, I used some parameters to make the picture move, creating an effect as if staring at the night scene lights makes your vision blurred in a trance.
Street View Composition III #5, Courtesy of the Artist.
SCR: Why are you particularly interested in natural landscapes? Made with memory and p5js. is specifically mentioned in the Moonlit Sea series, is this your humorness? And why did the last two series switch from static to animated?
Mido: When I was young, my family often went camping. I would keep looking at the scenery that fascinated me, and I wanted to remember this scenery. Later, I would bring a camera with me when I went out at home. In the era when film was still used, I often took continuous pictures of the same scene. My family thought it was a waste of film. The use of memory and p5js you mentioned is indeed very important in the creative process in my opinion. One is that my memory is the source, and p5js is the tool used.
The recent developments in the series are related to my technology, because my works are all generative, but my program was not refined enough before, and the performance was not good. If the generation process is also presented, the audience may wait too long and be bored. And the latest series Moonlit Sea just happened to be able to use dynamics to make the sea surface have a wave effect, so I modified the program in this series to release it dynamically.
Moonlit Sea #103, Courtesy of the Artist.
SCR: As a creator who has just started, how do you feel about creation now? It seems that there is a transition from concrete to abstract in the evolution of the series. Is this a deliberate attempt?
Mido: The support of the community in Tezos Telegram in Taiwan is very important. When I first started posting works on the chain, I really didn’t know any artists or collectors, but everyone’s discussions in the group were very lively, and we even had a small group dedicated to creators. In this group, I will put some of my own experiments, and everyone will give various feedbacks. For example, the movement of the waves just mentioned is the feedback of the group. No matter which part of the work is not good-looking, everyone will say it directly. I think there are a lot of people who really have creative enthusiasm gathered here, and they will not give up because of the current bear market of coins.
As for the transition to abstraction you mentioned, there is indeed this tendency. When I was a mere audience, I couldn’t understand abstraction either. But recently I heard a metaphor in a podcast. When you choose shoes among 50 pairs of shoes, there will always be a few pairs that you like very much. You can’t tell why, and you can’t know how the shoes are made, but you just like them. It’s the same when looking at abstract works. I like them in my own way of creation, but for the audience, it’s another kind of interpretation for the audience.
SCR: Your works are also published on different platforms. How do you position the relationship between these platforms and your own publishing series? Can you share with us the community characteristics of these different platforms?
Mido: The community function of AkaSwap is quite powerful. It has a fun capsule toy like mechanism. It can also issue bundles, and set up artist clubs. So creators have a lot of freedom to operate the community. For example, in my club, I issued four passes. The first three are for people who have a lot of collections of a certain series, and the fourth is for sale. You can get different ones by using the capsule toy mechanism. Therefore, I will put works in AkaSwap if they are more social and gamified.
Midsummer Night 27, Courtesy of the Artist.
Objekt is currently the largest NFT exchange center in the world. Sometimes I will secretly post it there in the middle of the night to see everyone’s reactions, but I often received complaints in the morning for why I posted it secretly. Moreover, Objekt has a series of functions, which can manage works very well, and I hope that AkaSwap can also have it in the future. Objekt’s lead in audience base makes it a good place to test the reception of your work.
Fx(hash) is relatively the most difficult. It only accepts codes, and the basic requirement is that more than 100 versions can be minted without duplication. So the program needs more time to test, but it also means a certain quality assurance and eye-catching degree.
SCR: Your works are so popular with collectors that they are printed and placed in a physical space. How do you view the relationship between the presentation of your works on the screen and their transformation into physical objects?
Mido: That’s great, I don’t mind the collector printing it out and putting it in the room. NFT is still a very new technology, and I think everyone’s attitude is very open. It seems that I have heard that other collectors want to print, and asked the artist for a file with better resolution, and the artist readily agreed.
NFT is native to the digital interface, and its technology itself will speed up many things that were slow before. In the past, it took a long time to send works and exhibit them, but now we just send a file. I submitted a call a while ago, and my work will be exhibited in Chicago, which was something I never thought of a year ago.
Mido:
＠akaSwap. https://www.akaswap.com/tz/mido
＠fx(hash). https://www.fxhash.xyz/u/mido
＠objkt.com. https://objkt.com/profile/mido/created
＠Twitter. https://twitter.com/midori19882046
