Get ready folks, ‘cause this is a wild one and I couldn’t be more excited!

TL;DR

15 ETH grant for Carlo Van de Roer—the creator of the first interactive photographic NFTs and the first generative photography NFTs—to create generative photographic-based works with hashes and PlateLight, his patented technology used in stunning scenes in Marvel's ‘Thor: Ragnarok’.

Overview

Embracing the collaborative potential of the web3 space, the following outlines a proposed grant structure between Hashes DAO and artist Carlo Van de Roer. Using hashes, collectors will be able to generate and collect generative photographic-based works.

About the Artist

Carlo Van de Roer is an artist working with photography and film-making. His work has been collected and exhibited by museums and galleries worldwide. Van de Roer co-founded Satellite Lab, a research and development lab in New York with a focus on new technology for photography and film-making. This has led to the invention of several new, patented technologies, including the first use of moving light within images arrested in time.

Carlo Van de Roer is one of the brains behind the patented film-making approaches and looks used in stunning scenes in ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ and ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’—ideas born from his art practice.

Van de Roer started working in the NFT space in early to mid 2021, creating several bodies of work and integrating photography with the new potential offered by the blockchain. His work includes the first interactive photographic NFTs and the first generative photography NFTs.

Project Spotlights

Carlo’s first NFT project, The Portrait Machine Project, investigates authorship within the portrait-making process. Here, Van de Roer connects familiar subjects directly to a polaroid Aura camera via sensors measuring electromagnetic biofeedback. TPMP is in multiple museum collections, has been exhibited globally at galleries and shown at festivals, has been published as a hardcover art book, and has been covered by major publications including The New York Times and Wired Magazine. (Website, OpenSea)

Modular One is the first generative photography project in which the images were generated online at the time of minting. This project was an early experiment in collaboratively authoring a past moment using the blockchain and smart contact, consisting of an interactive video work and multiple generative still images. Created in camera with the use of a new photographic technology he called PlateLight, Van de Roer enabled a moment to be recorded under multiple lighting conditions concurrently. Each image acts as a different recollection of the same moment under alternate conditions of lighting, and the still images are automatically generated by an algorithm upon being collected, using the wallet address as the DNA. Touching or clicking on the video work on his website will switch the lighting. (Feature Shoot article, Website, OpenSea)

More of Carlo’s work can be found on Foundation and SuperRare, including the piece that became the logo for RAW DAO, the largest DAO dedicated to photography.

Carlo’s work has been collected by some of the top photographers in web3 and in the world, including Justin Aversano, Reuben Wu, Alec Soth, Roe Ethridge, Matthew Porter, Alejandro Cartagena, Yatreda, Hannah Whitaker, Amy Elkins, and by top collectors such as our very own blockbird (10 DAO hashes), Freddie, pixelpete, Studio137, RAW and FlamingoDAO.

Proposed Project

Carlo recently developed and patented a photographic technology called PlateLight which enables the same moment in time to be captured under multiple lighting conditions, providing unique potential for generative work.

PlateLight is being used for the first time in cinema history on screen in movies featuring Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth. (Twitter thread, podcast)

Over the last several months, Carlo has also been developing a generative process for photographic work. Modulator One was an early experiment while developing these approaches. The next step in this process will involve embracing the creative and technical potential of this new approach.

The generative system and server Carlo has been creating has a rich library appropriate to photographic work. The project would work as follows:

• The collector acquires a hash
• The collector visits (newproject).com, connects their wallet, chooses their hash and collects a generative token.
• On minting, the generative script reads the collector’s hash and uses the hash to drive variables that decide things like color, how many plates of different lighting and which plates of lighting are used, where and how they are used, which images are used as sources, etc.
• Additionally, the generated image features unique traits if the hash used to mint is a DAO hash.
• This new image is uploaded to permanent storage and connected to the token.

The Grant

Hashes DAO would grant Carlo Van de Roer 15 ETH to create a body of generative work using hashes, including: developing the creative and conceptual underpinning of the project, developing the algorithm that generates a desired range within a quality-controlled creative box, creating the website to mint, and linking the contracts and minting process to the infrastructure he specially developed for generative photography.

The resulting body of work will consist of 50 to 100 unique 1/1’s and will be available to purchase at an average price point around 1.5 ETH (depending on market trends at the time of launch). The project is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

In exchange for the grant, the Hashes DAO will receive:

• 10 pieces from the artist, to be raffled amongst the DAO
• 10 pieces available to be purchased at a reduced price to DAO hash holders Twitter Space/AMA with the artist
• Project write-up to be published on the Hashes blog, to be co-written by Carlo, Quimp and developers

The grant would be paid upfront to cover development costs given that this project will cost more than the grant. PlateLight is a technically-complicated process requiring equipment such as the world’s fastest media camera, very specific lighting equipment, and a lot of R&D. Carlo will cover the rest with his own funds.

In addition to the grant:

• 1 piece will be airdropped to Quimp for developing the grant and to co-author the project write-up (no cost to the DAO)
• Up to 1 ETH billed at $80/hour then translated to ETH (at price upon finish) to Hashes DAO developers for technical assistance, and to co-author the project write-up.

While dmath has mentioned that he's up for it, we both have a strong preference toward opening this opportunity up to other members of the DAO. Having developers as part of the project will be beneficial in creating a more generic documentation for other artists to build on hashes.

Closing Thoughts

I’m very excited to bring this unique opportunity to Hashes. In addition to being a fun guy and great artist, Carlo is an innovator at heart who has been inventing photographic technology for over 10 years.

Carlo has previously sold 1/1 artworks for 6 to 10 ETH, so this is a small grant in the grand scheme of things. This project will bring new eyes to Hashes, support the generative and photography space, and will push the limits of what is possible to build with hashes in unique ways.

The incentives to mint using a DAO hash (unique traits, discount) is an experiment I’m especially excited about.

Let’s build!

- Quimp

Thanks to Carlo for this opportunity, and to blockbird and dmath for providing feedback