Gysin Andreas
Crush #11
The two NFTs Crush #6 and Crush #11 by the Swiss artist Andreas Gysin are browser-based video works from 2023 and belong to an edition of 265 pieces that the artist launched via the NFT online platform OpenSea.
Against a black background, colorful, animated patterns and compositions emerge through the arrangement of numbers, letters, and special characters. These patterns form dynamic, constantly reshaped structures, moving faster or slower at times. In Crush #6, abstract, geometric shapes and patterns in various shades of blue, yellow, and magenta move from left to right across the screen. In Crush #11, on the other hand, the shapes vary between patterns and flickering words and letters, in bold shades of red, pink, and white. They abruptly change direction, overlap, or seemingly dissolve, only to reassemble themselves in the next moment. The elements are in constant motion, but their design approach evokes ASCII art, teletext, or source code.
Crush transforms its own source code into a visual composition and displays it in real-time on an ASCII grid. The artist borrows the typeface from the screen of an old computer, but translates it into a generative, digital format. The work reflects the moment of self-reflection of a system—code that reveals itself while simultaneously generating new structures.
The generative and interactive animation is based on a program developed by the artist that enables real-time rendering and display of text as bitmap graphics directly in the browser. Various predefined inputs allow the user to control visual parameters: shading and scaling can be adjusted, individual frames from the animation sequence can be saved as image files, or the character string can be exported as a text file. Information about the work and the legend for the commands can be accessed by pressing the "i" key.
At its core, Crush is a reflection on source code as aesthetic material—a poetic fusion of structure and movement, in which digital processes make themselves visible.
Text: Nina Liechti
