Technologist and Artist who specializes in algorithmic image making, Joshua Davis – otherwise known as Praystation – is the second Crypto Artist featured on CryptoArt Monograph.
This new monograph, carefully curated by art collector, curator and appraiser Ronnie K. Pirovino, is a unexpected beautiful trip inside one of the last generative art project by Joshua Davis: V01D.
The V01D is a custom, written-from-scratch code base consisting of 9825 lines of code that Joshua Davis has been working on for the past eight years.
Davis is a recognised OG of Generative Art, an award-winning artist with the Prix Ars Electronica 2001 Golden Nica in the category “Net Vision/Net Excellence, the highest honor in international Net Art and Design.
He is renowned for pioneering an original method of computational, generative-art known as dynamic abstraction.
Joshua Davis, also known as Praystation, was born in San Diego in 1971. He is a New York-based artist, technologist, author and designer in algorithmic image making and animation since 1990, best known as the creator of praystation.com which he used to exhibit new design work and experiments using code, was one of the first to offer open source files for download.
For his project Praystation, Davis won the Prix Ars Electronica 2001 Golden Nica in the category “Net Vision/Net Excellence, the highest honor in international net art and design.
Joshua is also acclaimed for his role in designing the visualization of IBM’s Watson, the intelligent computer program capable of answering questions, for the quiz show Jeopardy.
He is renowned for pioneering an original method of computational, generative-art known as dynamic abstraction.
Joshua’s work has been exhibited at the Tate Modern (London), the Ars Electronica (Austria), the Design Museum (London), le Centre Pompidou (France), the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), PS.1 MoMA (New York), the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, the ICA London, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and more.
Joshua Davis is often referred to as a ‘legend’ in the digital art space.
His history of pushing the boundaries of generative, programmatic art is unquestionable. His code symphonies are operatic. The V01D codebase is one of his masterpieces that has yielded a body of artwork that is vital, arresting and gorgeous. The artwork is a glorious fusion of creativity, both human and machine. As a painter, turned programmer, computation became a way to amplify his vision. Animation and interaction presented yet another frontier. NFTs have become the ultimate way to encapsulate and archive his work, having been extremely prolific in the evolution of largely temporal interactive media on the Internet when he became famous as Praystation and won a Golden Nica from the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria.
An influence for generations of digital artists and designers, Davis has a lasting legacy. The V01D codebase is a project that’s grown and mutated over nearly a decade. The onset of NFTs unlocked the potential for The V01D to reach the public in an entirely new way. Artwork powered by this code is a concoction of controlled, algorithmic chaos. Some of the works have been paired with original audio so the audience can experience the work in the most engrossing manner possible.
A prominent icon in generative art, Davis has started to focus on his own history, aiming towards a career retrospective. This monograph is a step into creating a comprehensive catalog raisonné of his career. A book is essential to adequately cement his place in the pantheon of iconic artists. The V01D is the main subject, as this series is properly celebrated and commemorated.
