Okazaki, Sakamoto, van den Dorpel, Murayama

Screens and Skin

Enhanced 2023 remake of the [classic 2004 Flash version](https://harm.work/work/markovs-window).

Unlike its 2004 predecessor, this generative animation employs repetitions of components that maintain a reference to a single instance, creating synchronised patterns that mutate over time, and gradually get detached to mutate on their own, breaking the pattern.

Markov's Window 2023

This NFT is a fully on-chain spin-off of Markov's Dream: Orb. Its colours, amount of rings, rotation speed and curvature are determined on mint and remain fixed. The animated vector graphics that compose this artwork are entirely generated by the Solidity code that the smart contract was programmed in. It does not rely on any web server or off-chain storage solution like IPFS, which means that this artwork is indestructible and will live on as long as the Ethereum blockchain exists.

Holders of Mutant Garden Seeder were eligible for a free mint of Orb (lite). Holders of Markov's Dream received their tokens airdropped. Further minting schedule will be announced on Twitter.

A maximum of 512 tokens could be minted.

[View minting page](https://markovs-dream.harm.work/orb-lite)

Markov's Dream: Orb (lite)

"Markov’s Dream" is a series of 32 generative animations, composed by subdividing rounded squares and various transformations. This 2022 work is a remake of my 2004 work “Markov’s Window”.

Markov's Dream

Markov was a Russian mathematician (1856 - 1922) who is best known for his work on chance. He described the so called “Markov Chain”: a simple method to calculate the probability of something new happening, by looking only at the current situation, and ignoring events in the past. This is sometimes characterized as “memorylessness”.

The composition starts off as a single square, filling the whole screen. This square can split into multiple segments, it might change its colour, or it might rotate 45°. Each of these changes in appearance have a particular chance of happening, purely based on their current state.

A square can subdivide into sub-squares, which in turn can split into other segments, and so forth. This could potentially happen infinite times. The property of nested subdivision is called “recursivity”, and is commonly found in software development, architecture and linguistics.

By defining only a few simple probabilistic rules the artist created a system that can achieve a very complex composition. Whereas Mondriaan might have made many studies and versions to reach one single best possible composition, this work instead embraces perpetual change.


Markov's Window

Andrey Markov was a mathematician who was interested in randomness. In the jargon of probability theory, a mathematical object defined by a set of random variables is known as a ‘stochastic process’. Markov became interested in how much you could know about a stochastic process, and in his research he developed a model we now call the ‘Markov process’ – some people refer to it as a ‘Markov chain’. The Markov process examines the state of a system at a given time and attempts to project the next state of that system based on existing relationships.

[Read article about this series...](https://markovs-dream.harm.work/about)

Window and Dream

<p>"Markov’s Dream" is a series of 32 generative animations, composed by subdividing rounded squares and various transformations. This 2022 work is a remake of my 2004 work “Markov’s Window”.</p>
