A timeless bridge between 2 artists from the 16th Century and Jæn from the 21st. Frans Huys, a Belgian illustrator (1522-1562), made splendid illustrations of grotesque masks from Flemish sculptor Cornelis Floris de Vriendt (1514-1575), printed to provide stone carvers and others with interesting faces to adorn buildings. The tradition of mascarons date back to Ancient Greece, surviving until the Renaissance through the Roman Empire's vestige.
Through the printing press, and then digitisation, I could find and restore them carefully, to then add my surreal magic, encode the scans in the audio frequencies of the minimalistic melodies I composed, generate AI versions to be glimpsed during brief glitches.
The result was uploaded straight to contemporary cryptoart - here it stands, floating in the digital void, outside of time. This collaboration of 3 Artists over 5 centuries is an invitation to ponder about time, culture & tools.
Collectors become Patrons of the III Renaissances - the old one, the Digital and the future one for the next iteration of this legacy rooted thousands of years in the past.
A metaphorical blockchain made of time and art
Current Patrons of the III Renaissances
Kaprekar - CC - Rob Moir
Former patron: 1WokeUpDangerous
360° Immersive art show at NFC (Lisbon) - Times Square NYC with Artcrush
ART reborn
These works are not done,
they're never-ending time travellers.
All the historical research, processes of creation, technical details and exhibitions are inscribed permanently onchain within each digital artwork —
the pieces of art are their own museums and catalogues.
Click on a piece and explore its Creations & Inscriptions here
In May 2021, the release of the first 6 masks as tokens was done on SuperRare and fully sold out. The first iteration was done through restoration, colouring, and subtle animation.
Yet, something was missing - sovereignty and complexity.
echoes of the past
The release of masks 7 to 12 in 2022 saw the addition of AI appearing through glitches, digital hallucinations reminiscent of the ancient Greek masks used by comedians, lost to time as well.
Along came echoes of the past:
Aphex Twin-inspired audio encoding of the scans for each piece, combined with Philip Glass-inspired micromelodies composed for the Mellotron, a relevant oddity as it was the first instrument using tapes for each note, pushing further the idea of translating art data with ensuing entropy. A sound-based pentimento or palimpsest.
To ensure a long-lasting digital object, original NFTs were burned and replaced with an artist-owned sovereign contract (ERC-7160), that allows for multiple version of the art to exist within the canvas, and add history, exhibitions, conceptual frameworks, WIPs and other musings onchain, forever.
Spectrograms of the soundtracks
So far, each token includes 5 variations collectors can choose from at any time: still images, animated glitchy versions with their soundtrack, still AI hallucination of ancient masks, black & white animated GIFs of AI hallucinations of stone versions, and minimalist onchain pixel art (see below).
exhibiting in
the digital renaissance
In May 2021, the first release was celebrated with 3 virtual solo shows with Sarah Moosvi (Tara Digital Collective): on Artsy, in Decentraland, and in Voxels, thanks to Giannis Sourdis' Museum 0f NFT Art (M0NA). The design of the virtual exhibition spaces was the result of a reflection on the current skeuomorphism in virtual architecture.
With the second release in 2022, the exhibitions shifted to people's faces, as masks should do. Find AR filters on Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook Messenger by typing "timechain" or "cornaelhuys", and join the grotesque Renaissance carnival.
Grotesque being somehow the opposite of going back to platonic ideals during the Renaissance, this more feral, fun and punk energy makes also a lot of sense as being exhibited in the very vernacular contemporary medium that is GIFs through Giphy, compatible with social media and the latest smartphone keyboards. From the Flemish Renaissance grotesque to today's memes, the grotesque spirit changes shape yet surely prevails.
The Last mask
and the onchain adventure
In 2023, the last 6 mascarons were completed. The original prints have one missing folio, which turned out to be only text. Nevertheless, I honoured the tradition by adding my own mascaron design as the 18th and last one, drawing by hand and staying close to Huys' technique.
It became a necessary rite of passage to earn my place in the Timechain. As De Vriendt added elements of his contemporary medieval European architecture to the designs, I added the first widespread historical avatar oh humans in the digital space - the pixelated mouse pointer - and the Moon, both as a sort of personal signature and as one of the biggest achievements of humankind today.
In 2024, another personal milestone was reached for this project — carving a version of each mask in the blockchain, forever.
As of today, the most reliable storage options for large art files are Arweave and IPFS, both used in these tokens. However, there exists an alternative that some purists consider the ultimate solution: 100% onchain art. This approach encodes all art and NFT data directly into the blockchain itself, ensuring that as long as the blockchain exists, so does the art—eliminating the need for external systems like Arweave or IPFS. The resilience of this approach speaks for itself.
With this series’ emphasis on digital art preservation, it felt essential to pursue the onchain route as well. The main drawback is the high cost of storing data onchain, which necessitates making every byte count. This constraint has given rise to an art movement known as compressionism. Pixel art, being one of the earliest unapologetically digital aesthetics, was a natural choice for these minimalist incarnations. It also serves as an unplanned homage to CryptoPunks, arguably the most influential NFT collectibles to date, with which these pieces share the PFP (profile picture) aspect. Fitting within a 42x42 pixel frame and using approximately 12 colours each (save for the multicolour "Bouquet Final", which required 20 shades to capture its complexity), these artworks are stored as stripped-down GIFs, each weighing between 400 and 800 bytes.
The full process is explained in detail in the onchain inscription of each token (see the introduction to "Art Reborn" above).
The future
Future plans:
- Gather Patrons of the III Renaissances
- Exhibiting Cornælhuys next to the originals in museums
on the route from Greece to the Netherlands
- Develop new iterations of the designs (3D, more AI, street art?)
- Push digital art conservation forward
To create a long-lasting lineage of artists, working together over centuries, and embrace a meaningful part of the decentralisation ethos of the cryptoart movement, Cornælhuys pieces are released under a permissionless license CC-BY SA 4.0, which is like CC0 (public domain) with 3 conditions:
- you have to credit all the artists:
Cornelis Floris de Vriendt,
Frans Huys,
Jæn
- you must do it in a way that doesn't suggest the licensor endorses you or your use
- resulting works must be released with a CC-BY SA license as well
Under these simple conditions, you are free to use the art even commercially, and modify it as you please, while protecting the Timechain and provenance.
Create your own fork/sidechain/branch and see
what grows from it.
The scans of Frans huys provided by
the rijks museum
are in the public domain
To you, artist of the future, you will know the time has come
for another block on this time chain, when something as groundbreaking as blockchains has emerged. If I am still alive, come forth and claim the mantle. If I am dead, take this torch, light it again with your own fire.
Own it.
And pave the way for those who will come after you.
Cornelis Floris de Vriendt, Frans Huys and Jæn salute you.