Generative Artworks

Artist

Generative Artworks (Alex & Stephen) · site ↗

Based

New York City area, founded 2020

Raster

raster.art/artist/generative-artworks ↗

In the set

Enchiridion · 1,024 editions; Democracity · 1,024 editions; Empyrean · 500 editions; Coalition · 37 editions

Links

Full bibliography ↗

Generative Artworks is the collaborative practice of Alex and Stephen, an artist duo based in the New York City area who have been working together since 2020.¹ Their work sits at the intersection of computational aesthetics, architectural visualization, and procedural generation, distinguished by a shared fascination with built environments: cities, structures, and the atmospheric conditions that define how spaces are experienced. Operating under a name that boldly claims the medium itself, the pair have produced four major collections on Art Blocks, each investigating a different facet of generative space-making.

The partnership operates with clear complementary roles. Alex, who is red-green colorblind, focuses on structural and algorithmic development while Stephen handles color systems and palette design.² This division of labor has become a defining feature of their practice, ensuring that their outputs benefit from both technical rigor and chromatic sensitivity. Their collaborative process involves extensive research into real-world architectural precedents, urban planning systems, and the visual languages of specific historical moments.

The duo discovered Art Blocks in February 2021 and released their first NFT project, Empyrean, in March 2021 as one of the first artists on Art Blocks Factory, followed by Enchiridion and Democracity.³ Their work has been featured at the Art Blocks Exhibition #0: Genesis exhibit in Marfa, Texas, and they have spoken at NFT.NYC alongside Erick Calderon (Snowfro), founder of Art Blocks, and other notable figures in the generative art community.⁴

Enchiridion: The Manual of Geometry

Enchiridion (2021), the duo's first Art Blocks Curated release, takes its title from the ancient Greek word for manual or handbook, most famously associated with Epictetus's Stoic text.⁵ In this context, the title suggests a compact, self-contained system of geometric rules. The collection of 1,024 editions explores alchemical and esoteric visual traditions through rigid geometric constructions, presenting outputs that resemble diagrams from forgotten scientific or mystical treatises. The work establishes the duo's early interest in structured, rule-based composition where every element must earn its place within a larger compositional logic.

Enchiridion variety grid · 1,024 editions · live on Art Blocks ↗

Democracity: The Procedural Metropolis

Democracity (2021), their second Art Blocks collection, represents a significant expansion in both conceptual scope and technical complexity. The project generates unique urban environments inspired by the 1939 New York World's Fair Democracity model, which envisioned the city of the future as a harmonious integration of residential, industrial, and commercial zones.⁶ Each of the 1,024 editions presents a distinct cityscape complete with zoning districts, building typologies, weather systems, and ground coverage patterns.

The technical implementation reveals the duo's architectural preoccupations. The algorithm begins with block splitting: large parcels are recursively divided into smaller lots according to probabilistic rules, creating the street grid and parcel boundaries that define each city's morphology.⁷ Building structures are then generated on these parcels using a library of architectural forms drawn from real-world precedents. The artists have noted their interest in recreating elements from actual cities, studying how different cultures and eras organize their built environments.⁸

Democracity variety grid · 1,024 editions · live on Art Blocks ↗

Weather systems introduce atmospheric variability, with some cities appearing under clear skies while others emerge through fog, rain, or dramatic lighting conditions.⁹ Ground coverage parameters determine whether a city sits amid lush vegetation, arid desert, or snow-covered terrain. Camera rotation capabilities allow for multiple viewing angles, presenting each metropolis from perspectives that emphasize different aspects of its planning logic. The most sought-after combinations tend to feature unusual weather paired with dense architectural complexity or surprising juxtapositions of building styles.¹⁰

Empyrean: The Fifth Element

Empyrean (2021) shifts focus from terrestrial cities to celestial geometries. The title refers to the highest heaven of medieval cosmology, the sphere of pure light and fire beyond the terrestrial, lunar, mercurial, venereal, solar, martial, jovial, and saturnine spheres.¹¹ In this collection of 500 editions, the duo explores atmospheric and luminous phenomena through abstract compositions that suggest cosmic structures, light refraction patterns, and the geometry of heavenly bodies.

Empyrean variety grid · 500 editions · live on Art Blocks ↗

Where Democracity grounds its aesthetics in urban planning and architectural history, Empyrean operates in a more rarefied register, using similar procedural techniques to evoke the immaterial rather than the constructed. The outputs range from radiant mandala-like compositions to turbulent atmospheric fields, all unified by a preoccupation with light as both physical phenomenon and metaphysical symbol. The work demonstrates the duo's ability to transpose their technical framework across conceptual domains without losing visual coherence.

Coalition: The Gathering of Forms

Coalition (2022), their fourth Art Blocks release, brings the duo's architectural and atmospheric investigations into a new synthesis. The collection of 37 editions presents gatherings of geometric and architectural forms that suggest temporary assemblies, constructed pavilions, or aggregations of modular units.¹² The title implies both political alliance and physical assemblage, hinting at how individual elements come together to form coherent wholes.

Coalition variety grid · 37 editions · live on Art Blocks ↗

Beyond Art Blocks: Collaborations and Exhibitions

The duo's practice extends beyond their Art Blocks releases into notable collaborations. In January 2022, they partnered with renowned artist James Marshall, known as DALEK, and Doodle Labs to create NEOGEN Space Monkeys, a collection of 5,000 generative artworks that bridge street art aesthetics with algorithmic generation.¹³ The collaboration brought together DALEK's iconic Space Monkey character with Generative Artworks' code-based systems, creating what the partners described as a first-of-its-kind bridge between two distinct parts of the NFT ecosystem.

The NEOGEN Space Monkeys project, powered by Art Blocks Engine technology, demonstrates the duo's capacity to work with established visual artists and brands while maintaining their commitment to on-chain generative processes.¹⁴ The collection explores themes of freedom of movement through randomized combinations of character attributes, backgrounds, and accessories, all generated at the moment of mint.

The progression across their four Art Blocks collections and collaborative projects reveals a consistent methodology: research into spatial systems, decomposition of those systems into algorithmic rules, and recombination through controlled randomness to produce outputs that feel simultaneously architectural and emergent. The duo's work stands within the Art Blocks ecosystem as a sustained meditation on how code can capture the poetry of built and imagined environments.

Bibliography

For the complete bibliography see the Generative Artworks links page ↗.