The world of NFTs is composed mainly of chaos. It’s an absurdist, explosive flow of hope, pixels, and wild, multi-chain financial speculation. And, just occasionally–flashing past as you were laying down some tokens on a chunk of virtual land at the edge of a yet-to-be-sculpted new metaverse–something elusive and worthwhile: some art, whatever that means.

Loaded with care on to the Cardano blockchain is one such project–a light-filled, artistic one, I mean–that goes by the name of Pandorea. All done, it will consist of 5,000 unique, procedurally generated NFTs.

1,000 of these, the Pioneer edition, dropped earlier this month, and sold out rapidly. The next drop, the Discovery Edition, will go ahead 29th October at 9pm UTC, and will see the remaining 4,000 pieces minted.

To get a better idea of what the project is, what generative art means, and where CNFTs are headed, I fired a few questions into the Pandorea vicinity, and was generously graced with some insights.

Can you give us some information about who you are?

Pandorea is a tight team of three: myself, my brother and my housemate. My brother and  I come from creative backgrounds, we both work as practicing artists in the media arts space and are particularly interested in generative art. I’ve also worked for many years in tangible computing and interactive installation.

My brother has his own media art studio called Ature that specializes in generative media.

My housemate is the illustrious developer. We’re super close friends so it’s really nice living and working in the same environment.

Is this your first NFT project?

Yep, first one, but it was a long time in the making. We had a series of artworks for several months prior and were looking for the right place to launch. I’ve dabbled in a few NFT spaces previously, but was particularly drawn to the Cardano ecosystem. It seemed so exciting and fresh (not to mention the ludicrously low gas fees).

Why Cardano, rather than the alternatives?

I’ve been very interested in Cardano for some time. I had seen how strong the community was, but was uncertain about the CNFT community. We were instantly overwhelmed by how welcoming and supportive the space was, right off the bat.

There is also something exciting about being involved in something so early on. It’s like the wild west of NFTs. We definitely feel we made the right call.

Some CNFT drops have had technical problems. How was yours, did the first drop go smoothly?

Silky smooth. It was a bit stressful leading into it but we were super pleased with how the first drop went. Fingers crossed the second drop of 4k goes just as well!

The Pandorea pieces are visually stunning, have you ever printed one and and hung it on the wall?

Funny, that’s actually how Pandorea started. My brother was selling physical prints before they became CNFTs.

After doing a few giveaways, we realized that there was quite an interest in having an accompanying physical print, so we continued to develop them and utilize different mediums, including framed prints and aluminium.

The community has been super creative too, it’s so wholesome to see people printing their Pandoreas on silk and glass (and even a T-shirt or two).

For people who don’t know, what’s generative art?

Great question, I’m sure it can be defined in many different ways but for me, generative art is a process. The term generative simply refers to the way in which it’s produced.

It’s a beautiful way to make art because although it’s being created by a set of predetermined rules and limitations, the outcome can be greater than the sum of its parts.

This is a slippery concept known as emergence: simple rules creating incredibly complex visual forms and images.

Pandorea is about nature, but on a high tech medium. Is there a conflict between nature and technology?

Having grown up on the Australian coast we were all privileged to have been immersed in nature from a young age. Diving into the ocean, playing in rockpools, and going for bushwalks was all pretty standard. Pandorea is inspired by textures and colours found in nature.

I think too often people create a binary distinction between nature and technology. I hope with Pandorea that line becomes blurred, and people see that the two can actually exist in symbiosis.

Which is your favourite Pandorea piece?

I think the Radiant pieces are hypnotising, I love seeing the rippling effects and how closely they mimic a gentle breeze over the ocean, or wind over sand dunes. It’s quite meditative.

What do you hope for the project after it finishes minting?

It’s hard to predict what will happen after minting, but we hope that the community will continue to vibe the artworks!

Our roadmap into the future consists of minting our utility token–Pandorea Token–that will be dropped to long-term holders. This token is redeemable for a physical print on paper or aluminium, which is pretty awesome.

Have you got any plans for other future projects?

After minting we’re straight into our next project, Pandorea Emergence, which will be an entirely different, limited series of generative artworks inspired by nature.

We’ll also be collaborating with established artists, and integrating changes into our Explorer over at pandorea.art.

Which other NFT projects or artists are you a fan of?

Of course we’re big fans of unsigs, the OG gen-art project in the CNFT space. I’m also particularly keen on Aeoniumsky. I find his work super captivating and so meticulously detailed.

How do you imagine NFTs in general, or CNFTs in particular, developing in the future?

I envision that we’re in a period where everyone is still figuring out what the CNFT space can actually be. There’s going to be a lot of weird projects and growing pains, but I hope that eventually it can further develop as a place to discover exciting new generative art projects that are a bit more than cartoon collectibles.

For more information on the Discovery Edition drop, taking place 29th October at 9pm UTC, visit pandorea.art, check the Discord, or follow the project on Twitter.

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