mpkoz “The diptych created between Metropolis #7 and #528 express one of the aesthetic directions I was trying to go when writing the NYC algorithm. My first time visiting New York was only two years ago for NFT NYC 2021. I arrived on a red eye flight and had a couple hours to kill in the early morning before I could check in to my hotel. After dropping off my luggage, I went for a walk. I looped around midtown, up to 106th Street, through the park, and down the west side of Manhattan until I got back to Chelsea. It was late autumn and super beautiful everywhere, especially romantic as it was my first time seeing the city.
One panorama in particular stood out to me though: emerging from the jungle of tall buildings at the southeastern corner of the park, near 59th St. and 5th Ave. The stark difference between the low elevation greenery of the park and the towering facades of midtown skyscrapers was shocking. It almost felt like coming out of a canyon or something after a long hike. The concise, straight edge between nature and civilization was impressive and something I will always remember. When I sat down to write every sub-algorithm of Metropolis, I wanted to capture some sense of my previous experience in each city, so this memory, that of tall buildings ending abruptly at vacant expanses, became my starting point for the NYC trait.
#7 and #528 represent this quite well, and even create a corner of sorts that could very well be the intersection I walked through when I first emerged from the city that day.”