{
  "schema": "ab5d-dossier/1",
  "slug": "phaust",
  "name": "Phaust",
  "subtitle": "Landscapes assembled at the threshold of dot and pixel",
  "lede": "Phaust is a British generative art collective whose coded systems connect visual perception, natural forms, and scientific inquiry. Pointila, its 200-edition Art Blocks debut, turns fields of discrete dots into mutable landscapes.",
  "url": "https://ab5d.xyz/artists/phaust/",
  "bibliography_url": "https://ab5d.xyz/artists/phaust/links/",
  "content_url": "https://ab5d.xyz/api/artists/phaust.json",
  "updated": "2026-07-11",
  "tier": "compact",
  "editions": 200,
  "collections": 1,
  "otdh": {
    "rank": 233,
    "score": 9562,
    "collector_identities": 110,
    "holder_addresses": 112,
    "projects": 1,
    "current_works": 199,
    "raw_collector_days": 235711,
    "median_project_hold_days": 1407,
    "snapshot_at": "2026-09-14T00:00:00.000Z",
    "methodology_url": "https://ab5d.xyz/artists/otdh/",
    "api_url": "https://ab5d.xyz/api/otdh/phaust"
  },
  "identity": {
    "artist": "Phaust",
    "website": "https://www.phaust.art/pointila",
    "based": "Based in London and Brighton",
    "practice": "Generative art joining code, scientific concepts, natural systems, colour, and collaboration",
    "now": null,
    "raster": "https://www.raster.art/artist/phaust",
    "otdh": "[9,562 · rank 233 of 308](/artists/otdh/#artist-phaust)",
    "holding signal": "110 collector identities · 112 holder addresses · 235,711 raw collector-days · 14 Sep 2026",
    "collector tdh": "[phaustTDH](/artists/phaust/phausttdh/) · dashboard"
  },
  "socials": {
    "website": "https://www.phaust.art/pointila",
    "x": "@phaust_art",
    "instagram": null
  },
  "profile_image_url": "https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1552939340099198977/v01VIq0d_400x400.jpg",
  "profile_image_source": "https://x.com/phaust_art",
  "works": [
    {
      "name": "Pointila",
      "editions": 200,
      "supply": 200,
      "artblocks_slug": "pointila-by-phaust",
      "url": "https://www.artblocks.io/collection/pointila-by-phaust"
    }
  ],
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": null,
      "paragraphs": [
        "Phaust identifies itself as a generative art collective based in London and Brighton, with backgrounds in computer science and neuroscience. Its stated practice considers art and science together, treating randomness as both a creative force and a means of examining complex systems. This collective structure matters: authorship is framed not as a solitary gesture, but as collaboration among people, machines, natural processes, and inherited visual languages.",
        "*Pointila* brought that approach to Art Blocks Factory on 9 September 2022. The official collection record identifies **200 unique artworks**, establishing the exact scale of this long-form release. Across the series, landscape is less a depicted place than an emergent effect. Accumulated marks gather into ridges, plains, canyons, and atmospheric horizons, while occasional block-like interruptions disclose the screen as the work’s native support."
      ]
    },
    {
      "heading": "From pointillism to pixels",
      "paragraphs": [
        "The project begins with a precise historical analogy. Pointillist painters used separate touches of colour that blend optically when viewed at a distance. *Pointila* translates that perceptual structure into computation, linking painted dots to the discrete pixels of a digital display. Its algorithm divides the canvas into columns, traverses those columns while placing dots, and builds landscapes from a small number of layered operations. Randomness determines the ultimate placement of millions of marks, but the resulting field remains directed by a carefully delimited system.",
        "This balance between control and contingency produces five named styles: Grainy, Flowing, Dense, Hazy, and Sparse. They arise through changes to density, distortion, and horizontal or vertical displacement. The distinctions are not cosmetic presets. Each style reorganises the relation between individual marks and the larger scene, making the same basic apparatus capable of producing clarity, haze, banding, turbulence, or graphic compression.",
        "The project’s thirty palettes extend this inquiry. Monotone, duotone, multicolour, layer-based, point-based, and gradient treatments test how colour can bind dispersed elements into depth. Some palette names refer to works by Georges Seurat, making art history an operational component of the system rather than a decorative citation."
      ]
    },
    {
      "heading": "A landscape that performs",
      "paragraphs": [
        "*Pointila* is designed to remain active after minting. In live view, a click initiates or pauses an animated transition between primary and secondary palettes. Number keys select progressively altered glitch states, and the still render can retain traces of the same blocky transformation. Interaction therefore does more than reveal optional features. It exposes the image as a running program whose appearance can occupy several related states.",
        "> The landscape in *Pointila* is not fixed behind the screen. It is continually negotiated between optical mixture, algorithmic variation, and viewer input.",
        "Phaust later described *Co(r)ral* as building upon *Pointila*, carrying its dot-based construction beneath the ocean and using dynamic colour changes to address coral bleaching. MuseumWeek’s project record confirms that this later work comprised 100 outputs from one algorithm and could cycle between colourful and bleached states. The connection clarifies *Pointila*’s position within the collective’s practice: its landscapes established a reusable visual grammar in which state changes can carry both formal and thematic meaning.",
        "Market and archival records preserve other views of the release. OpenSea identifies the collection as a 200-work Art Blocks project, while an October 2022 NFT market report lists *Pointila* among the period’s tracked Art Blocks collections. A later digital collection display on Deca also records *Pointila by Phaust*, indicating its continued circulation within collector-built archives. These records are secondary to the live code, yet they show how a generative artwork moves simultaneously through aesthetic, technical, and collecting systems.",
        "Within AB[500], *Pointila* is significant for the economy of its premise. Columns, dots, layers, palettes, and bounded variation are sufficient to construct a broad landscape vocabulary. The series makes computational procedure legible without reducing the output to a diagram of its rules. At a distance, dots cohere into terrain. Up close, terrain dissolves into data-like particles. In motion, both conditions yield to the glitch, a reminder that the apparent scene remains an event produced by code."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "body_markdown": "Phaust identifies itself as a generative art collective based in London and Brighton, with backgrounds in computer science and neuroscience. Its stated practice considers art and science together, treating randomness as both a creative force and a means of examining complex systems. This collective structure matters: authorship is framed not as a solitary gesture, but as collaboration among people, machines, natural processes, and inherited visual languages.\n\n*Pointila* brought that approach to Art Blocks Factory on 9 September 2022. The official collection record identifies **200 unique artworks**, establishing the exact scale of this long-form release. Across the series, landscape is less a depicted place than an emergent effect. Accumulated marks gather into ridges, plains, canyons, and atmospheric horizons, while occasional block-like interruptions disclose the screen as the work’s native support.\n\n## From pointillism to pixels\n\nThe project begins with a precise historical analogy. Pointillist painters used separate touches of colour that blend optically when viewed at a distance. *Pointila* translates that perceptual structure into computation, linking painted dots to the discrete pixels of a digital display. Its algorithm divides the canvas into columns, traverses those columns while placing dots, and builds landscapes from a small number of layered operations. Randomness determines the ultimate placement of millions of marks, but the resulting field remains directed by a carefully delimited system.\n\nThis balance between control and contingency produces five named styles: Grainy, Flowing, Dense, Hazy, and Sparse. They arise through changes to density, distortion, and horizontal or vertical displacement. The distinctions are not cosmetic presets. Each style reorganises the relation between individual marks and the larger scene, making the same basic apparatus capable of producing clarity, haze, banding, turbulence, or graphic compression.\n\nThe project’s thirty palettes extend this inquiry. Monotone, duotone, multicolour, layer-based, point-based, and gradient treatments test how colour can bind dispersed elements into depth. Some palette names refer to works by Georges Seurat, making art history an operational component of the system rather than a decorative citation.\n\n## A landscape that performs\n\n*Pointila* is designed to remain active after minting. In live view, a click initiates or pauses an animated transition between primary and secondary palettes. Number keys select progressively altered glitch states, and the still render can retain traces of the same blocky transformation. Interaction therefore does more than reveal optional features. It exposes the image as a running program whose appearance can occupy several related states.\n\n> The landscape in *Pointila* is not fixed behind the screen. It is continually negotiated between optical mixture, algorithmic variation, and viewer input.\n\nPhaust later described *Co(r)ral* as building upon *Pointila*, carrying its dot-based construction beneath the ocean and using dynamic colour changes to address coral bleaching. MuseumWeek’s project record confirms that this later work comprised 100 outputs from one algorithm and could cycle between colourful and bleached states. The connection clarifies *Pointila*’s position within the collective’s practice: its landscapes established a reusable visual grammar in which state changes can carry both formal and thematic meaning.\n\nMarket and archival records preserve other views of the release. OpenSea identifies the collection as a 200-work Art Blocks project, while an October 2022 NFT market report lists *Pointila* among the period’s tracked Art Blocks collections. A later digital collection display on Deca also records *Pointila by Phaust*, indicating its continued circulation within collector-built archives. These records are secondary to the live code, yet they show how a generative artwork moves simultaneously through aesthetic, technical, and collecting systems.\n\nWithin AB[500], *Pointila* is significant for the economy of its premise. Columns, dots, layers, palettes, and bounded variation are sufficient to construct a broad landscape vocabulary. The series makes computational procedure legible without reducing the output to a diagram of its rules. At a distance, dots cohere into terrain. Up close, terrain dissolves into data-like particles. In motion, both conditions yield to the glitch, a reminder that the apparent scene remains an event produced by code.",
  "images": [
    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/353000000.png",
      "title": "Pointila",
      "caption": "2022, Pointila",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/353000040.png",
      "title": "Pointila",
      "caption": "2022, Pointila",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/353000080.png",
      "title": "Pointila",
      "caption": "2022, Pointila",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/353000119.png",
      "title": "Pointila",
      "caption": "2022, Pointila",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/353000159.png",
      "title": "Pointila",
      "caption": "2022, Pointila",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/353000199.png",
      "title": "Pointila",
      "caption": "2022, Pointila",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    }
  ],
  "references": [
    {
      "n": 1,
      "note": "Phaust’s biographical statement identifies the collective’s locations, disciplinary backgrounds, and interest in art, science, randomness, and collaboration.",
      "url": "https://www.phaust.art/about",
      "label": "Phaust biography"
    },
    {
      "n": 2,
      "note": "Art Blocks records Pointila as a 200-artwork Factory collection released on 9 September 2022.",
      "url": "https://www.artblocks.io/marketplace/collections/pointila-by-phaust",
      "label": "Art Blocks collection"
    },
    {
      "n": 3,
      "note": "Phaust’s project essay documents Pointila’s algorithm, styles, palettes, optical references, animation, and keyboard interaction.",
      "url": "https://www.phaust.art/pointila",
      "label": "Pointila project essay"
    },
    {
      "n": 4,
      "note": "Phaust’s Co(r)ral project page explicitly describes that work as building upon Pointila’s generative landscapes.",
      "url": "https://www.phaust.art/co-r-ral",
      "label": "Co(r)ral project"
    },
    {
      "n": 5,
      "note": "MuseumWeek documents Co(r)ral’s algorithmic edition, ecological theme, dot construction, and changing visual states.",
      "url": "https://www.museum-week.org/artworks/co%28r%29ral",
      "label": "MuseumWeek artwork"
    },
    {
      "n": 6,
      "note": "OpenSea’s collection record identifies Pointila by Phaust as a 200-work Art Blocks collection.",
      "url": "https://opensea.io/collection/pointila-by-phaust/offers?search%5BsortAscending%5D=true&search%5BsortBy%5D=UNIT_PRICE&search%5BstringTraits%5D%5B0%5D%5Bname%5D=Luminary&search%5BstringTraits%5D%5B0%5D%5Bvalues%5D%5B0%5D=None",
      "label": "OpenSea record"
    },
    {
      "n": 7,
      "note": "NFT Valuations’ October 2022 market report includes Pointila by Phaust in its survey of contemporary NFT collections.",
      "url": "https://static.nftvaluations.com/reports/20221005%20-%20NFT%20Market%20Report%20Teaser.pdf",
      "label": "Market report"
    },
    {
      "n": 8,
      "note": "Deca’s collector-built museum page includes an archival listing for Pointila by Phaust.",
      "url": "https://deca.art/lemonde2d/the-museum",
      "label": "Deca archive"
    }
  ],
  "bibliography": [
    {
      "category": "In the AB[500]: Art Blocks",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "Art Blocks records Pointila as a 200-work Factory project released on 9 September 2022.",
          "url": "https://www.artblocks.io/marketplace/collections/pointila-by-phaust",
          "label": "Art Blocks",
          "meta": "collection · 2022"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "category": "Press and criticism",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "An October 2022 NFT market report lists Pointila by Phaust within its period survey.",
          "url": "https://static.nftvaluations.com/reports/20221005%20-%20NFT%20Market%20Report%20Teaser.pdf",
          "label": "NFT Valuations",
          "meta": "report · 2022"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "category": "Museums and institutions",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "MuseumWeek documents Phaust’s Co(r)ral and its generative treatment of coral bleaching.",
          "url": "https://www.museum-week.org/artworks/co%28r%29ral",
          "label": "MuseumWeek",
          "meta": "artwork record · 2022"
        },
        {
          "note": "MuseumWeek’s artist directory includes Phaust among participating creators.",
          "url": "https://www.museum-week.org/es/artists",
          "label": "MuseumWeek artists",
          "meta": "institutional directory · current"
        },
        {
          "note": "MuseumWeek describes its partnership with Verse for the Reconciliation with the Living exhibition.",
          "url": "https://www.museum-week.org/pt/partners",
          "label": "MuseumWeek partners",
          "meta": "institutional record · 2023"
        },
        {
          "note": "UNESCO describes MuseumWeek as a global initiative supported by the organisation since 2016.",
          "url": "https://www.unesco.org/en/node/250319",
          "label": "UNESCO MuseumWeek",
          "meta": "institutional overview · 2026"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "category": "Essays, talks and podcasts",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "Phaust’s extended Pointila essay explains the work’s pointillist sources, algorithmic construction, palettes, and interaction.",
          "url": "https://www.phaust.art/pointila",
          "label": "Pointila essay",
          "meta": "project essay · 2022"
        },
        {
          "note": "Phaust’s Co(r)ral essay explains how the later project builds upon Pointila’s dot-based landscape system.",
          "url": "https://www.phaust.art/co-r-ral",
          "label": "Co(r)ral essay",
          "meta": "project essay · 2022"
        },
        {
          "note": "Phaust’s Interference essay discusses a generative system derived from Chladni-pattern equations and its translation into risograph printing.",
          "url": "https://www.phaust.art/interference",
          "label": "Interference essay",
          "meta": "project essay · current"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "category": "Profiles and archives",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "Raster aggregates Phaust's tokenized works across platforms.",
          "url": "https://www.raster.art/artist/phaust",
          "label": "Raster",
          "meta": "profile · ongoing"
        },
        {
          "note": "Phaust’s biographical page identifies the collective’s London and Brighton bases and its backgrounds in computer science and neuroscience.",
          "url": "https://www.phaust.art/about",
          "label": "Phaust biography",
          "meta": "profile · current"
        },
        {
          "note": "Deca’s collector-built museum includes Pointila by Phaust in a digital collection display.",
          "url": "https://deca.art/lemonde2d/the-museum",
          "label": "Deca museum",
          "meta": "archive · 2026"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "category": "Auctions and catalogues",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "OpenSea catalogues Pointila by Phaust as a 200-work Art Blocks collection.",
          "url": "https://opensea.io/collection/pointila-by-phaust/offers?search%5BsortAscending%5D=true&search%5BsortBy%5D=UNIT_PRICE&search%5BstringTraits%5D%5B0%5D%5Bname%5D=Luminary&search%5BstringTraits%5D%5B0%5D%5Bvalues%5D%5B0%5D=None",
          "label": "OpenSea",
          "meta": "marketplace catalogue · 2022"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
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    "date": "2026-07-11",
    "note": "Structured return rendered by scripts/render_dossier.py; token counts are measured API usage."
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  "license": "https://ab5d.xyz/license/",
  "license_note": "Dossier prose is CC0. Embedded Art Blocks renders are not: they remain the property of their respective artists and holders.",
  "attribution": {
    "name": "AB[500]",
    "url": "https://ab5d.xyz/artists/phaust/",
    "cite": "AB5D, \"Phaust\", AB[500] artist dossier, ab5d.xyz, 2026",
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  "generated": "2026-09-14T12:58:26"
}