Artists face the world in a new light under social media and new emerging technologies, yet the formula for creating art has not changed. A constant cycle of creation, destruction, and recreation is what drives the creation of something considered worthy of being art. This key principle can also be seen in the generative artist Alida Sun. Through algorithms and coding, Sun has amassed over 1000 artworks through daily creation and experimentation. She is pushing the boundaries of generative art to compose dynamic exploration into fluid motion, lighting, and the transformation of structures in unanticipated ways. In doing so she is able to identify and apply invisible forces that interact through nature and our environment.
随着社交媒体和各种科技的兴起，艺术家看待世界的眼光也在不断更新。但艺术创作的底层公式是没有改变的。创造、破坏和再创造的不断循环是一种动力，将创造推动成艺术。这一关键的原则也在生成艺术家 Alida Sun的作品中得以体现。通过算法和编码，Sun通过日常的创作和实验积累了 1000 多件艺术品。她正在突破生成艺术的界限，以意想不到的方式对流体运动、照明和结构转换进行动态探索。通过这些尝试，她得以识别出自然界与我们生存环境里存在的那些相互作用的无形力量，并将这种力量予以运用。
“I often suspect I’m going about it all wrong, and truth be told I’m totally at peace with that. It’s the unexpected errors and happy accidents that keep the process exciting and rewarding for me.”
“我经常怀疑自己所做的这一切是不是都是错的，但诚心而论，我对此又是十分平静的。正是意外的错误和愉快的偶然让我在这个过程中感到兴奋和收获。”
– Alida Sun
About the artist
关于艺术家
Alida Sun is an interdisciplinary artist and designer based in Berlin and New York. With a strong interest in generative art, her works focus on assemblage, extended realities, experimental humanities, and more. Sun has been featured in publications such as Kadenze, BBC, and has exhibited in SOMA Berlin, Lightbox NYC Times Square, transmediale, the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, The Future Blockchain Creative Center, and more. She is the first artist in history to integrate generative art, large-scale installation, blockchain, and live performance.
Alida Sun 是一位居住在柏林和纽约的跨学科艺术家和设计师。凭借对生成艺术的浓厚兴趣，她的作品专注于组合、扩展现实、实验人文学科等。Sun 曾在 Kadenze、BBC 等出版物上发表过作品，并在 SOMA Berlin、Lightbox NYC Times Square、transmediale、UCCA 当代艺术中心、未来区块链创意中心等地展出。她是历史上第一位将生成艺术、大型装置、区块链和现场表演相结合的艺术家。
From a young age, Alida has always been experimenting with technology and began coding when she was 10 years old. As a self-taught coder, Alida eventually got into generative art through projection mapping after graduating from university. Using free and open source toolkits such as Processing, OpenFrameworks, and Pure Data, she began creating installations that focused on found objects. Inspired by artists such as Toyin Odutola, Koji Morimoto, Do Ho Sun, Robert Irwin, and many more, Alida believes that her style encompasses the techniques and artistic sense that she has built up working in traditional media.
从很小的时候开始，Alida就开始了对技术的探索，她从10 岁开始编程。作为一名自学成才的程序员，Alida 在大学毕业后通过光雕投影进入了生成艺术领域。她使用 Processing、OpenFrameworks 和 Pure Data 等免费的开源工具包，开始专注于在已存在的物体上进行装置艺术的创作。受到 Toyin Odutola、Koji Morimoto、Do Ho Sun、Robert Irwin 等艺术家的启发，Alida 认为她的风格受到了她在传统媒体中积累的那些技术和艺术审美的影响。
As an artist who spends a lot of time online, the internet also plays a key role in Sun’s creative development. When describing herself the Sun states, “I’m from the internet”. Having grown up in the age of the internet, she has discovered that moving images, namely, GIFs, have the profound effect of reflecting the experiences around her. To Alida, GIFs are a definitive art form.
作为一个会将大量时间花费在网上的艺术家，网络对Sun的创作发展也起到了很关键大作用。当描述自己时，Sun说，“我来自互联网”。在互联网时代长大的她发现，动态图像，即 GIF图像，有一种能够反映她周围经历的神奇效果。对 Alida 来说，GIF 是一种决定性的艺术形式。
From Mathematics to Mythology
从算法到神话
Alida Sun is a prolific creator that creates new generative artworks daily. Her ideas arise from mundane tasks and deep thinking created with maths to produce mythological pulsating patterns and structures that daze the viewers into a spiritual trance. These structures flow and transform in the most unexpected paths and forms. In fact, her practice is an intricate visualization with distinct intent and endless curiosity. Each creation uses an array of alternating technologies such as Machine learning, AI, regenerative tools, and projection mapping. While her creations are initially scripted digitally, her work is in fact an interdisciplinary practice that combines innovative technologies with live performances.
Alida Sun 是一位多产的创作者，每天都能够产出新的生成艺术作品。她的想法来自于日常事务，也源自于她用数学创造的深刻思考。这些灵感产生出神话般的律动和结构，让观众沉醉于此。这些结构以最意想不到的路径和形式进行流动和转变。事实上，她的作品是一种错综复杂的视觉化，具有鲜明的意图和无尽的好奇心。每一次创作都使用一系列交替对技术，例如机器学习、人工智能、再生工具和光雕投影。虽然她的创作最初是以编程的方式编写的，但她的作品实际上是一种将创新技术与现场表演相结合的跨学科实践。
For Sun, projection mapping was a profound revelation that allowed her to discover the intricacies of the natural world around her. In her experience working with projection mapping, she states, “Projection mapping was for me a profound revelation about the natural world as much as technological wizardry. It gave me deep insights into how light itself is invisible and how what we think we see is something else entirely. Given this, light projection & mapping became ideal mediums for me to conjure the intangible, quasi-mythological algorithmic constructs that shape our digital worlds and collective cultural experience.”
对于Sun来说，光雕投影是一个深刻的启示，让她能够发现她周围自然世界的错综复杂。在谈到她从事光雕投影的经验时，她说：“对我来说，光雕投影是对自然世界和神奇技术的深刻展示。它让我深入了解光本身是如何难以侦测的，以及我们认为我们所看到的完全是另一回事。有鉴于此，光雕投影成为了一种最理想的媒介，我可以用它探索那些飘渺的，类似神话的算法。从而可以塑造出一个集合各种文化体验的数字世界。“
Glitch Crystal Monsters
故障水晶怪物
Available on Art Blocks, Glitch Crystal Monsters is an amalgam of over 777 days of generative art creation inspired by Ancient and emerging mythologies, minerals, art manifestos, light, and research into the implications for society and culture that decentralization carries. For Alida, it was important to merge the visual language of blockchain without the use of literal interpretations or familiar crypto-related imagery. The work highlights the transformative possibilities of structures she regards as unmalleable and includes key elements of fluid dynamics, solar energy, color science, and daily healing rituals.
《Glitch Crystal Monsters》（故障水晶怪物）如今在 Art Blocks（一个NFT平台）上线，这是一个超过 777 天的生成艺术创作的混合物，其灵感来自古代和新兴神话、矿物、艺术宣言、光线，还有去中心化对社会和文化影响的研究，对于 Alida 来说，不使用字面解释，不给出熟悉术语或图像，这对于区块链的视觉呈现来说非常重要。这件作品突出了她认为不可延展的结构的变革可能性，并包涵着流体力学、太阳能、色彩科学和日常治愈的关键要素。
“These elements are all important factors in developing more integrated perspectives on life. They assist me in better understanding the world and living in it. I’m not sure how I relate to healing, and I don’t identify as a healer; I simply see it as a necessary practice.”
这些元素对发展更整体的生活观念来说非常重要，它们帮助我更好地了解世界，并让我更好地生活在其中。我不确定我与疗愈有何关系，我也不认为自己是治疗师；我只是认为这是一种必要的做法。”
Sentient Sun + Steel collection
Sentient Sun + Steel 系列
The Sentient Sun + Steel collection combines physical performance with coding. It is the exploration of natural phenomena that transcends imitation. The shifting contrasts of black and white gradient lines emphasize the importance of lighting to this collection. While the artist has worked with color in many of her works, viewers will often note that many of her works are also in black and white. Like in the Sentient Sun + Steel collection, the color palette aims to yield the highest contrast range, making it ideal for portraying her light projections. Light can be used to denote a particular moment in time, and convey a new expression of texture, space, and nature. However, Sun composes a dynamic interpretation that defies such expressions and creates a new atmosphere of living light forms.
《Sentient Sun + Steel》 系列”将物理性能与编码相结合。这是对自然现象超越极限的一次探索。黑白渐变线的变化对比强调了光线对这个系列的重要性。虽然艺术家在她的许多作品中都使用了色彩，但观众经常会注意到她的许多作品也是黑白的。与《Sentient Sun + Steel》系列一样，色彩范围旨在产生最高范围的对比度，使其在表现她的光雕投影时产生最好的效果。光可以用来表示一个特定的时刻，并传达一种对纹理、空间和自然的新表达。然而，Sun 创作了一种动态的诠释，挑战了这种表达方式，并创造了一种有动感的光线形式，形成了一种新的氛围。
Generating NFTs on Art Blocks
在Art Blocks上生成 NFT
Sun recalls that she was not so fond of NFTs nor did she have any interest in joining the NFT space. She was often targeted with invites from emerging platforms that were looking to recruit more artists onto their marketplaces. As time went on Sun noticed her artist friends creating magnificent NFTs. It changed her perspective and she would interact with people in the space when she began exhibiting works at related locations such as the Future Blockchain Creative Center. From then on she interacted with the founder of Art Blocks, Snowfro, and kicked off her journey and standing in the NFT generative art space.
Sun 回忆说，她不太喜欢 NFT，也没有任何兴趣加入 NFT 领域。她经常受到来自新兴平台的邀请，这些平台希望在他们的局域里招募更多的艺术家。随着时间的推移，Sun 注意到她的艺术家朋友们创造了出色的 NFT。这改变了她的观点，当她开始在未来区块链创意中心等相关地点展出作品时，她将与空间中的人互动。从此她开始与 Art Blocks 的创始人 Snowfro 互动，开启了新的尝试，并在NFT艺术空间里站住了脚。
While Alida Sun continues to endlessly create new works on and off of Art Blocks, she emphasizes: “I hope people pay special attention to the structural intricacy, color depth and subtlety, plus the range and duration of 3D motion — these are all elements I’m not able to share on mainstream social media. Big Tech platforms’ compression often decimates my art beyond recognition. What gets published on Twitter represents a tiny fraction of what generative art is and can be, and not just as far as my own work’s concerned. That’s why the common dismissal of collecting digital art, “well I can just screen-grab that” is so uninformed. There’s a ton of technical, practical reasons why that assumption isn’t true. Plus — this may sound uncanny — digital artworks really can have their own spirits, so I imbued “Glitch Crystal Monsters” with elusive ones that originate from and can move across different dimensions.”
虽然 Alida Sun 继续在 Art Blocks 内外不断创作新作品，但她强调：“我希望人们特别注意结构的复杂性、色彩深度和微妙性，以及 3D 运动的范围和持续时间——这些都是我无法在主流社交媒体上分享出来的。大型科技平台的压缩算法经常使我的艺术面目全非。在 Twitter 上发布的内容只代表了生成艺术的一小部分，而这不仅仅是就我自己的作品而言。这是大家为什么对收集数字艺术普遍不屑一顾的原因，“好吧，我也可以截屏”这这观点是如此无知。这个假设不成立存在很多技术层面和实际层面的原因。另外——这可能听起来很不可思议——数字艺术品真的可以有自己的灵魂，所以我在《Glitch Crystal Monsters》中注入了来自不同维度并且可以跨越不同维度的难以捉摸的东西。”
*All images and artworks belong to the artist & his representing galleries respectively
*所有图像和艺术品属于艺术家及其他们代表的画廊
Translation 翻译 Rona Xia
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