44 Dumpster Fires
44 Dumpster Fires is a collection of forty-four 1/1 NFTs by Flux Research minted in June, 2022 on Tezos via objkt.
44 Dumpster Fires is what I consider a creative curation project. The original photos were appropriated from online media sources and then altered by an off-the-shelf GAN. The output surprised me. I had been planning to make my entrance into the #TrashArt scene with these images. However, a Twitter discussion made me realize they were just too beautiful to call #TrashArt.
I spent a long time choosing the GANified photos I curated for 44 Dumpster Fires. I spent hours going through images, picking the ones I liked and then reconsidering the ones that caused me to hesitate. The final selection is a compromise between what I like and what I imagine the AI likes. I kept looking because I realized my eye was being taught to see and appreciate new things I would not have created on my own.
I am releasing 44 Dumpster Fires on Tezos because of the strong artist community and the openness to valuing low-priced works. I’m pricing them at 1 XTZ because I want to see them in as many different collections as possible.
I also initially offered my small circle of collectors one free Dumpster Fire for each of my NFTs they hold from my Early Days Collection on Ethereum via OpenSea. That collection happens to have two NFTs still available!
If you pick one up before all the Dumpster Fires are gone, you can get a free one too.
Numbering
The numbering of the images may seem to imply coded rarity or the like. However, the reality is much more prosaic.
In the process of working with the GAN output, the images were displayed in a grid and then went through a series of iterations as a group. So the first number for an image identifies which initial image seeded the process and the second number specifies the iteration.
Why So Slow?
This project has also been delayed for over a year, in part, due to biz dev reps at two different NFT platforms that were planning to launch on Flow. Being an artist on Flow seemed like a potentially good idea a year and a half ago. Now it seems irrelevant.
But the reason I didn’t end up on Flow is that the biz dev guys strung me along and then ghosted. Maybe I should have learned the first time but I finally learned. Now I’m on Tezos and part of a vibrant art community that reminds me, in some way of 2019 to 2020. Those were the days!
