Mech-Alien – Geometric Abstract Art on Bitcoin

Mech-Alien is a series of geometric abstract works inscribed to Bitcoin as Ordinal Inscription digital artifacts from numbers 53,825 to 34,828,474, and is one of the earliest abstract art series on Bitcoin.

The series forms the basis for an intensifying view of a proposed 5th dimensional world, as seen through the eyes of an unknown entity observing architectural-technological constructs in that dimensional region. 

The Origin-Concept

For this series, I wanted to create an abstract series that made use of intersecting lines/form/color cells and void spaces that can alter the viewers perception of what they are seeing, dependant on how each individual views dimension and space, and at what point/where they are looking at in the image at the time.

Perhaps the easiest way to describe this is by looking at Necker’s Cube…

In the cube on the left, the grey area shows the face pulled to the front, but however, in the cube to the right if you shift your eyeline up and to the right and then diagonally back down to the left again, the grey area comes to the front. Nothing of the structure has changed, only your focus that created the dimensional shift of perception.

Try it a few times if you don’t first see it.

Mech-Alien pieces are to be viewed and looked at in much the same way, but with multiple points of interest that function in the same manner as Necker’s cube.

The Structuring

One of the structural rules that I adhered to was that of only making use of horizontal, vertical and 45 degree lines throughout the works.

Layers of dimensions within the pieces were then created via the multiple creation and destruction of what came before the eye until particular areas began to form depth, and dimensional anomalies – dimensional constructs that can’t exist in the 3 Dimensional world.

Color combinations came from circa late 80’s 8-bit game palettes, with some tweaking of the hexadecimals here and there, and some additions of other colors when I felt it would benefit the palette. The use of the colors is as a cohesive visual language that provides contrasting depth to the solid-color cells position in their relation to each other.

Viewing Mech-Alien

The void spaces give the human eye the potential to view the intersecting structures in varying ways, with seemingly disconnected lines and areas of color forming different patterns/connections as the eye move around the artwork.

The potential 5th Dimensional vistas that emerge as viewed by some unknown 5th Dimensional entity, are in fact you, the viewer, becoming that entity as you perceive the dimensional contradictions that can’t exist in our three-dimensional world. (relax the eyes a bit, avoid logical conjecture, and parts of the pieces will reveal themselves).

Series Development

After it was begun, this series developed of it’s own accord, although I hadn’t really expected that. If you read my Artist’s Statement, you’ll know that I generally follow one of two paths, a style is either set in stone, or a style develops in its own way – even though when I’ve begun it I’ve already got to what I’d considered to be its final form/style.

Mech-Alien pulled me along it’s own path, and the only decision was if I would allow it to develop or not. It’s generally a bad idea for an artist not to let a series of works grow. This, of course, depends on whether the artist has developed their own critical faculty in view of their own work, and that generally just comes from experience.

Mech-Alien became more and more layered as the series went on, with certain elements rising, while others fell away. Other elements stayed the course, though. There was also a particular emergence of ‘elements of three’ of the same structuring in the same region. If you ask me ‘why?’, I could only tell you that intuitively it felt/looked right. Art is an art, not a science 🙂

Mech-Alien is comprised of 25 pieces. 15 of the russet-orange palette, 6 russet-blue-grey palette, a set of three yellow-blue-grey, and one singular mint palette piece. Mech-Alien is available as an Ordinal Inscription/digital artifact on Bitcoin via Magic Eden (Click & view them all)