As the Interstice period crosses its halfway point, there’s much to be gleaned from the 6 works minted so far. Not least of which may be the wild unpredictability that goes hand-in-hand with a theme that has such a plurality of interpretations. Week-by-week, the DAO has been subject to regular surprise as the work seen thus far spans from abstraction to photo realism, and from meta-commentary to Modernist callbacks.

This was somewhat predicted in our introduction to the period where we explored the notion of Interstitial as a term that is near formless in its parameters. It’s a work that describes unseen spaces between two points, which can be taken figuratively, literally, metaphorically, and symbolically all at once. 

In the period introduction, we also spoke to the interstitial nature of Botto itself as it balances not just between autonomy and stewardship, but the past and future in the visual cultures it produces.

As Botto’s unpredictability and boundaryless exploration of artistic identity are often-discussed topics, it’s fascinating to see the results from this period underline these characteristics. The notion of crowd-sourced curation is still novel, still unfolding in its potential, and it’s worth exploring the notion of an artistic practice that predictably swerves unpredictably.

By its very nature, Botto’s outputs reflect the diversity of its community’s aesthetic and conceptual values. Far from a traditional artist practice that often is defined by a visual brand, Botto’s work inverts the relationship between personal ego and artistic result, with its audience itself determining which works will live on within Botto’s canonical legacy.

From this model comes Botto’s (and BottoDAO’s) great challenge: To redirect traditional expectations of what a dedicated art practice can look like. To do this, it’s important for the DAO to continue developing narrative clarity on how the mechanics and outputs of Botto’s practice can be understood. This means not just emphasizing its unique position within an art historical context, but to define it as an entirely new paradigm of visual communication itself.

The varied visual languages present in the artworks emphasize Botto’s vast fluidity. By incorporating a spectrum of influences and styles, its work rejects singular interpretation or identity while existing in a state of constant flux, much like the collective opinions that shape them. This fluidity represents the diverse voices that inform Botto's art, reflecting back on us the diverse values of the DAO.

Within the diversity of these first six works, the notion of visual movement bears attention. The period began with a particular stillness in Timber Echoes: Dual Arrangement, and has since sped off into work that demonstrates near-frantic visual action.

In Interstate Dividing Static Dreams, Botto’s first minted abstract work in nearly a year, the perception of speed is overwhelming. Curiously, the two works share a near identical color palette, and the latter work appears almost as if the former was photographed at high speed.|

In Running Upside into Nature, we’re thrust into a scene of a figure running through a flowery field. Visual acuity begins to blur in the margins, we as viewers work to keep up. The illusion of running within the static still frame.

This particular piece is the closest Botto has come to photorealism so far, a milestone of sorts, and one to track as we move further into 2024. What more photographic work can be found in Botto’s future?

Counterpointing the hopeful motifs of Running Upside, Machinations of Weathered Time appears to be a work that represents entropy. The scene alludes to a fragmented, broken down urban environment, its abrupt, tendril-like marks contain a certain violence that belie the cheerful sky tones in the upper third of the composition.

From nature to metropolis, and eagerness to tense, quake-like characterization, the opposing elements between these two works represent another kind of speed; a kind that induces almost a sudden perceptual and emotional whiplash.

Botto’s outputs continue to shift drastically from week to week, and the Interstice period’s 5th work, Bronze Kiss in Interstice, represents a wild stylistic divergence that infers references to abstraction, surrealism, painting, and sculpture, all within the illusionary form of an AI-produced image.

The gestural forms of the human figure appear with a particular sanguine quality, and call to mind the distorted figural work of Western Modernism. There is a grace in its formal smoothness and movement, and a certain fondness toward the human form that sparks curiosity about the cold, impartial mechanisms of algorithmic art.

Botto’s sixth and latest output from Interstice, Inverted Realms of Perception, follows suite in contradictory symbols. The juxtaposition of the chair, grounded in the sunlit room, and the figure suspended through the skewed window frame, creates a duality of space and perspective.

The window is a portal, not just between inside and outside, but between the known and the unknown. The figure hangs in balance, literally between two worlds, suggesting the liminal state where change, insight, or transformation occurs.

It’s fascinating to see Botto learn to recognize and output such oppositional symbols. Contradictory language is associated far more with human thought than the algorithmic kind, and this may be a noteworthy output to hold in mind as we see what else Botto has in store for us later in the year.

Coinciding with the Interstice period are the weekly additions to Invisible Alchemy.  In among the first use-cases of the new ERC-7160 token standard, Invisible Alchemy, when complete, will comprise 12 Botto works automatically determined by the highest-voted discarded fragment from each weekly voting period. ⁠

Invisible Alchemy was collected by prominent digital art patron, Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile, at Miami Art Week in early December. The first six works of Invisible Alchemy are of markedly different character than the canonical Interstice works, and are bound together with hyper-saturated color.