MASTER MIND

by Rutger van der Tas and Pr1mal Cypher

It was towards the end of March when Rutger van der Tas contacted me and offered me a collaboration for an Async.art project. At that time I had only been in the scene for about a month and was still a newcomer in a way. As someone who was just about to get more involved and especially had Async in mind, I was of course quite pleased about this invitation. I really wanted to play with Async’s revolutionary platform at that time.

“Working in layers, and building an image in this way, online, using code, smartcontracts and blockchain really adds to my offline work.” Rutger van der Tas

From the very beginning, working with Rutger was uncomplicated, easy and characterized by an atmosphere in which absolute artistic freedom without restriction and mutual respect balanced each other. I am still happy that I was able to work with Rutger, in whom I see a gifted painter who can give form to chaos in a wild way.

Chaos — that was our big starting point, because there was no special idea… until a small spark of light flew out of the black cloud and the idea of stacking heads arose. I started working on a rough draft and only knew that Vitalik Buterin should be in there. At that time I was simply attracted by this striking face of this well-known personality. Somehow a religious component crept in… a person praying formed the basis, followed by Vitalik’s portrait, another unknown head (partially depicted), a skull and finally a figure looking up, borrowed from Peter Paul Rubens, which strongly resembled a caricature of Jesus. What was all this about? I had no idea. It was chaotic, didn’t really have a deeper meaning, but we kind of liked it, so we built on it.

“I’ve tried to find a balance between the clear images of Pr1mal and my own fluid use of a variety of technics.”* Rutger van der Tas

After some thoughts about how we wanted to finally process the piece on Async, we decided to keep it simple. The strength of this piece lay in its colors, which is why we decided to use exactly this huge spectrum. With Async it should now be possible to playfully dip the picture into a new blaze of colors, which creates an endless palette of possible end results.

Rutger finally gave the artwork the title “Master Mind”, which I felt was the right choice because of its conciseness, simplicity and connection to the person who, through his founding of Ethereum, gave art a new basis.

“I really like the outcome of the work. It’s different to my solo work, and it differs from Cypher’s solo pieces too. But the core of both our handwritings is there.”* Rutger van der Tas

I can only agree with the above quote. I like the fusion of both handwrittings, the design born out of chaos and the open end of the work very much. Personally, I still don’t know what it should be in the end … maybe you don’t always have to know. Maybe it is just a meaningless work of art that seeks to target the ever-recurring propagandistic crypto art… a work that provokes… a work whose only value lies in its beauty; a work that wants to create colourfulness and has no profound statement? The answer to this we let you give yourselves.

But what I do know is that this work of art was created by two people who live on the same continent but have a long distance between them. It is a work of art and a testimony to a time when people — all over the world — even if they have never met before, can connect to each other through the Internet. It was like this with Rutger and me. We had never before made contact, never before talked, never before looked each other in the eye. Basically we were strangers to each other, who simply met in the digital realm. This encounter was creative.*

MASTER MIND — available on ASYNC.ART

The auction will take place on Friday (14th of august 2020 :: 11:30 a.m until 3:00 p.m PST)

EVERY BIDDER with valid bids will have the chance to win an animated version of possible compilations, which is just a small summary of many many possible end results!

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