Fernando Jerez

Artist

Fernando Jerez · project archive ↗

Based

Madrid, Spain and Perth, Western Australia

Raster

raster.art/artist/fernando-jerez ↗

In the set

Stations (900 editions) · Metropixeland (450 editions) · UMK (762 editions)

Links

Full bibliography ↗

Fernando Jerez occupies a distinctive position at the intersection of architecture and generative art. An award-winning practitioner and Associate Professor at the University of Western Australia, he brings decades of experience in procedural design, systems thinking, and constructed environments to his work on Art Blocks.¹ His projects do not merely generate images; they simulate worlds whose internal logics, economies, and temporal behaviors reward sustained attention. Across Stations, Metropixeland, and UMK he explores how code can host autonomous processes that echo, critique, or extend the built environment and our relationship to technology.⁵

Stations: Factional economies on-chain

Launched on Art Blocks in February 2022, Stations comprises 900 unique outputs. Each depicts a procedurally generated outpost in a fragmented virtual space. Nine factions compete and cooperate across primary and secondary blockchain layers. Utopians develop the main network while other groups build nodes, trade, and contend with persistent threats from scammers and hackers. Draft blueprints await acquisition and construction. The entire system is seeded by the mint transaction hash, ensuring true on-chain provenance and uniqueness.²

Visually, the works present intricate architectural assemblies, elevated platforms, connecting infrastructure, and layered signage that suggest both functional utility and speculative futures. The aesthetic sits between technical drawing and inhabited simulation. Collectors receive not only a static image but an interactive experience; the project site includes a playground for exploring parameters and behaviors before and after mint.

Stations outputs · live on Art Blocks ↗. Ten distinct renders from the 900-edition collection.

The conceptual strength of Stations lies in its embedding of economic and social systems within the generative substrate itself. The presence of adversarial actors (scammers, hackers) as integral rather than external threats mirrors real blockchain ecologies. Ownership of a Station therefore carries a sense of participation in an ongoing, collectively authored simulation rather than possession of a finished picture. This approach aligns Jerez with artists who treat the blockchain not merely as a distribution mechanism but as a live, rule-governed environment.

Metropixeland: Realtime urban simulation

Released in July 2022 with 450 editions, Metropixeland shifts from abstract infrastructure to a fully inhabited, animated pixel metropolis. The works adopt a vibrant isometric perspective reminiscent of classic city-building games and early online social spaces. Buildings, traffic systems, parks, transit networks, and atmospheric effects are generated through layered procedural algorithms executed in realtime via JavaScript and three.js. No external assets or pre-rendered loops are used; every frame is calculated live.³

Key systems include recursive subdivision for urban blocks, custom facade pattern generators, random-walk traffic with directional handedness, recursive-backtracker mazes for parks, and GLSL shaders for clouds, northern lights, and day-night gradients. A full diurnal cycle modulates lighting and activity. Rare elements (rainbow trains, specific bus types, pink or sakura trees, light columns) emerge according to mint-derived probabilities. Camera controls allow viewers to orbit, switch to orthographic side views, or toggle transparent backgrounds, turning each output into a small, explorable toy.

Metropixeland functions as both homage and critique of digital urbanism. It evokes the pleasure of simulated city life while foregrounding the algorithmic substrate that makes such simulation possible. The realtime animation and extensive parameter space invite repeated viewing; the work changes with time of day and viewing angle in ways that static generative images cannot. In doing so it expands the expressive range of on-chain art toward lived, temporal experience.

UMK: Machinic evolution and the Defrag Trilogy

UMK (Ultramechanika), released May 1 2023 on Art Blocks Presents, contains 762 long-form outputs. It marks a decisive turn toward abstract, high-detail renderings of imaginary technological forms. Developed over nearly a year of iterative coding, the project orchestrates multiple independent algorithms whose interactions produce surprising compositions, rarities, and morphologies. All geometry and surface detail are generated in pure JavaScript without imported textures or models.⁴

Conceptually, UMK forms the core of Jerez's Defrag Trilogy, which examines the toxic yet intimate relationship between humans and machines. The outputs suggest autonomous technical organisms or evolving infrastructures whose internal logics have begun to diverge from human intention. Diversity of composition, unexpected symmetries or asymmetries, and a wide range of densities and color behaviors reward close inspection across the edition. The work positions generative art as a medium for speculative fiction about technological agency.

Subsequent evolution of the project into UBK (Ultrabionika) incorporated AI image generation to extend the narrative into symbiotic machine environments. While UBK itself lives off-chain, its conceptual dependence on the UMK corpus demonstrates Jerez's interest in hybrid pipelines that connect pure generative systems with contemporary AI tools. This trajectory situates his AB[500] works within broader conversations about the future of procedural authorship.

Continuities and contribution

Across the three projects a consistent set of concerns emerges: the construction of rule-based worlds, the autonomy of generated processes, and the aesthetic and conceptual potential of algorithmic complexity. Jerez's architectural background supplies both technical fluency in procedural methods (recursive subdivision, agent-based movement, shader logic) and a thematic interest in how environments shape behavior and meaning. The blockchain adds immutability, collective minting as world-building participation, and a native economic layer that Stations in particular makes explicit.

His presence in the AB[500] therefore strengthens the collection's representation of sophisticated simulation practices. Where some generative projects emphasize single visual signatures or rapid iteration, Jerez invests in deep, multi-layered systems whose internal narratives unfold over time and across viewings. The works reward both casual encounter and sustained study, a quality that aligns them with the most durable contributions to on-chain art. As his practice continues to evolve, bridging physical architecture, pure code, and AI-augmented processes, Fernando Jerez remains a vital figure for understanding how generative art can sustain architectural speculation at the scale of entire simulated worlds.

Bibliography

For the complete bibliography see the Fernando Jerez links page ↗.