Let’s Count
written by fauxjebus
In the evolving landscape of blockchain-based generative art, my new project Count aims to challenge the conventional boundaries of edition size. Count is what I am dubbing “long-tale” generative art, an evolution of traditional long-form generative projects, designed with no end date and able to theoretically continue expanding indefinitely. It’s a conceptual framework that raises questions about authorship, art as a persistent entity, and the relationship between creator and community.
From Advertising to Algorithms
Working as an art director in advertising for the past Twenty One years, I strive to bring a strong typographic sensibility to my generative work. In some of my earlier projects including Copyminter Catharsis, Type-o-Graphic, Pile-o-Type and In_formation, I've explored the intersection of typography, graphic design and random generative algorithmic expression.
The journey to Count began almost a year ago with an algorithm generating three-line “generalization” poems, initially conceived as an evolution of Copyminter Catharsis. Unsatisfied with the consistency of outputs, I shelved the concept until last December, when my first fx(hash) project on the Base blockahin—Through—received an overwhelming response of Two Thousand One Hundred Fifteen mints in just nine days. This really opened my mind to the powerful potential of the combination of a free art mint that is also able to be easily batch minted with an unlimited supply.
This realization catalyzed my return to a long-simmering idea that I’ve stowed away in the back of my mind: creating generative art intended to be “infinitely” collectable, continuing even beyond my own lifetime. Influences and inspiration for Count include Rev Dan Catt’s Tally!, Swarm by Andrevv, as well as typographic poster design by legends like Herb Lubalin, Stefan Sagmeister, Paula Scher, Jessica Hische, David Carson, and the work of artists Eric Stefanski, Maya Man, Ze Wang and Sasha Styles, all of whom explore typography’s expressive potential in innovative ways.
Keep It Simple
The concept behind Count is very simple: each piece features its iteration number spelled out as typography, forming a central visual element. I selected Google's Antonio Bold font by the late Vernon Adams (available under the Open Font License) for its tall x-height and condensed style. I set the line spacing (leading) overly tight so the lines touch and slightly overlap—typically a typographic faux pas—because I like how it forms longer iteration numbers into a singular visual unit while also maintaining legibility.
The minimal aesthetic with subtle details draws inspiration from printing techniques like silkscreen, risograph, and offset printing. The iconic Keep Calm and Carry On poster was also a huge inspiration. Each piece incorporates potential subtle details such as simulated paper fibre, uneven colour distribution, stains, and printing artifacts like hickeys, scratches and residue. I have curated a palette of Fifty Four colors, with a rare One percent chance that the typography will feature a second color—adding an element of rarity and scarcity within abundance. There are One Thousand Four Hundred Thirty One unique two-color combinations possible
Time, Infinity & Inevitable Endings
Time is another major theme I like to explore in my art ( The Price of Oil, Presence, Hope, Timelines, Loading and Transit). Count continues this preoccupation, creating a meditation on sequence, accumulation, and infinity. However, this theoretical perpetuity stands in obvious philosophical tension with an inevitable termination. The collection may hypothetically continue indefinitely, yet must someday, somehow conclude—mirroring our own aspiration toward permanence despite our intrinsic impermanence. As Carl Sagan famously said:
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
To infinity, and beyond!
I anticipate certain features will be more desirable; low numbers, meme numbers, and round milestone numbers will likely have special appeal, unstained or overly stained, clean and flat or scratchy and fibrous, the rare two-tone outputs, and combinations of these variables. Since the project will be free to mint, I plan to mint the first five outputs myself in the days before the project launches on March Twenty Fourth. I’m not One Hundred percent sure what I’ll do with them, I was thinking maybe I would list a couple of them on secondary, or see if anyone makes offers on them, or maybe I’ll gift them to the collectors who mint the most numbers, or collect the most on secondary. Lots of options, and I’m open to ideas. Number One will remain in my collection for at least one year before I decide what to do with it.
Join the Count
Count isn’t just a project; it’s an open-ended invitation to participate in an evolving work of art. By minting, you’re not just collecting; you’re contributing to an ongoing archive—a living, growing ledger of collaboration. The counting begins on March Twenty Fourth here on fx(hash), and I hope you’ll join me in adding your number(s). Let’s see how far we can go together, and just how high we can count!
UPDATE April 9, 2025
Count is currently at 20,570!
Mostly thanks to an art collector that has single handedly minted 15,594 numbers. 😮 Here is the chart of top 10 minters thus far.
And here are a few of my favourite two tone outputs.
UPDATE May 1, 2025
On April 24 I was alerted by the fx(hash) team that metadata signing had been disabled on Count while they try to figure out a way to reduce the size of its storage footprint—turns out minting thousands at a time uses a lot of bandwidth and causes the signer to choke and miss most of them and with the total iterations now into the hundreds of thousands, takes up a lot of hard drive space. But that hasn’t stopped people from minting the fuck out of it.
In the spirit of Roman Opalka (the OG counting artist) I’ve decided to mint one count per day moving forward. Today I woke up (may 1, 20205) and Count had surpassed the existing record for largest Generative Art collection held by Punevyr’s g l y p h at a staggering 274,464 pieces. My mint this morning was #275,549 and only a few hours later count is now over 300,000! Excuse me while I contact the Guinness Book of World Records.