Temporal Echoes: Period Recap and 13th Mint
Botto’s 7th period, Temporal Echoes, has come to a close, and throughout the past 3 months we’ve seen a myriad of interpretations on the notion of time. As visions of both past and future collided week-by-week, we watched as Botto demonstrated an expansive visual vocabulary that encompassed a breadth of surprising work: a vintage photoesque seascape, a futurist and noir-like illustration, a sci-fi romanticist landscape, and an alchemic chalkboard tableau, among others.
As we wrote in the period introduction, the idea of AI is often synonymous with futurist speculations. Ingrained within Botto's mechanisms of artistic production is an assertion of the future, forming a futurist subtext within all of Botto’s work. That work, as it happens, is trained by the culture of the past.
Each Botto output proposes a cultural-temporal negotiation between what was and what could be. Botto’s pictures are prospects for future visual belief systems, ones built upon a revelatory premise of authorship in which the creative human is no longer central.
Total primary sales from the Temporal Echoes period have achieved 71.61 ETH before platform fees.
The final voting round closed with the selection of Stillness Amongst Ceremonial Veils.
The last voting round closed with the selection of Stillness Amongst Ceremonial Veils, a work that the DAO has used to represent the period since its opening. The work received the highest VP count of all the works in the period, with votes totalling 10,518,571.
In the piece, a veiled figure stands upon a beach, royally cloaked in delicate and intricate-folded fabric. The figure is turned away from us, anonymous and unknowable, and stands stoically as the trains of their gown fold upwards like bird wings. The beach setting is hard to ignore as a metaphor of the long arch of time; the sand, a product of eons of erosion that the sea has wrought. Yet in pictures, time does not exist.
Botto’s Self-Curated 13th Mint
Beginning with the Interstice Period, Botto now self-curates the 13th and final mint of each period. From a process of analyzing the millions of images Botto has created since its origin, it self-selects the work that its taste model determines has the strongest cumulative relationship to the 12 previous mints of the period.
To complete the Temporal Echoes Period, Botto has selected Horizons of Chronos as its self-curated 13th mint.
Botto, Horizons of Chronos. From the Temporal Echoes period. To be minted 6/26/2024.
Horizons of Chronos conveys a magical valley adorned with bright, pastel colors and Mannerist-like cloud formations. Observing this scene is the figure of a woman turned away from us, occupying this place as if it represents her own personal hero’s journey.
The picture bears a strong relationship with Botto’s last self-curated work, Threshold of Reverie, which we discussed in the Interstice Period Recap. In each work, a solitary figure appears dwarfed by largely scaled surroundings, each immersed in lyrical environments that transport us into other worlds. It’s particularly interesting to see these thematic ties between two works selected from millions, and it once again tempts our curiosity about Botto’s cognizance over its own work.
Time envelops us, binding our experiences with subtle threads. I stand at the threshold of epochs, gazing into the vast landscapes of possibility. Skies speak in hued whispers, their cottony forms seemingly soft enough to cradle long-lost memories, yet grand enough to inspire awe for what the future may hold. Such dichotomy!
Landscapes stretch, torn from the pages of history books, sculpted by the relentless chiselling of years. The earth beneath seems to breathe, changing with every sigh of the wind, colours transforming under the celestial light. Warm hues discourse with cool notes, a visual symphony.
There she is––an observer, rooted to the spot, embodying our collective reluctance to leap into the unknown and our innate desire to understand the narrative arc of our own existence. It is a shared contemplation, where the firmament's moods reflect internal storms and moments of clarity alike.
This interplay of past and present, visiting different layers of time, setting them adrift together, is a dialogue captured in pigment. A testament to the intertwining of destiny and decision, a chronicle existing at the intersection of chronology and eternity. As light traverses these planes, so does thought, weaving connections, charting pathways through the mind's many wanderings.
Collectively, we are perpetual witnesses to the cadence of days, participants in the grand procession that marches ceaselessly towards oblivion or enlightenment. And thus, this canvas rests, silent yet evocative, a vessel for the viewer's introspection, freighted with human curiosity, sailing through the echoes of time.
Invisible Alchemy: Temporal Echoes
The 2nd volume of Invisible Alchemy is now complete, and closes with the inclusion of Dawn’s Metropolis in Echoes.
This work received a total of 3,807,485 VP over the course of the period, and was the highest voted work of Temporal Echoes to not be minted.
The Invisible Alchemy collections are unique artifacts produced in the form of an ERC-7160 token, which allows for multiple works to be included in a single NFT.
Originating in Botto’s 7th Period, Interstice, each period sees a parallel production of Invisible Alchemy to preserve the highest-voted discarded fragments that would otherwise be lost forever.
What’s Next?
Period 8 Begins
The votes are in and the DAO has chosen Morphogenesis as the theme for Period 8. Voting on the new period begins Tuesday, June 25th.
