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This is Part 3 of our series that explains why blockchain matters for art and how it creates a strong foundation for art provenance (Part 1) and provides a simple framework to understand the landscape of on-chain generative art (Part 2).

In this article, we explore the REFLECTIONS Collection, the ecosystem around Dream Lab and it’s historical significance as the first on-chain generative photography project on the Ethereum blockchain.

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1. 2022: The year of NFT Photography
2. NFT Evolution: Introducing On-chain Generative Photography
3. The Pioneer Collection: REFLECTIONS by Dream Lab
4. This is not A.I.
5. Building an ecosystem to elevate NFT Photography

— 2022: the year of nft photography

As Gary Vaynerchuk put it, 2022 is ‘gonna be that year’ for NFT photography.

Whilst it’s still a small market compared to Profile Pictures (PFPs), NFT photography is a growing genre of blockchain art that is starting to build in profile and value thanks to the hard work of leaders like Justin Aversano from Quantum Art and Twin Flames fame.

Over the last year, we have seen some amazing contemporary photographers build their own communities and fanbases based on their incredible stories and work such as Drift and his ‘Where My Vans Go’ collection and our personal favourite and partner Jacob Riglin.

We’re also starting to see some amazing OG artists and their estates bring their collections to the blockchain like August Sanders from Fellowship and Alberto Rizzo by Quantum Art who all benefit from on-chain provenance as described in Part 1 of our series.

However NFT photography has been stuck in the lowest level of “On-Chain Purity” introduced in Part 2, and the interaction and interplay with the blockchain has been largely resigned to minting the individual pieces and that’s where it’s stopped.

— nft evolution: introducing on-chain generative photography

The introduction of Art Blocks in 2020 changed the game. The on-chain generative art space had now entered a renaissance phase, inspiring many artists including 27-year-old SuperRare artist Jacob Riglin to take their art to the next level.

Taking an existing photo that he took 8 years ago at Rakotzbrücke bridge in East Germany, Jacob started to experiment beyond the original concept he had building 4 different scenes based on the changing seasons — his vision became bolder. Bigger.

What if he could do on-chain generative photography?

Months later, Jacob has poured well over 1000 hours of devotion into curating, layering and enhancing photographs to build scenes that look uniquely different but feel pleasantly familiar. Each piece is a combination of 6 different layers sourced from nearly 40 scenes, which draw from a lifetime of travels across more than 70 countries that he’s explored over his career.

Each of these scenes, built from scratch from separate photographic layers, are a work of art in and of itself. The reason being that Jacob could only only draw from those photos which are captured from the same angle, share the correct perspective and have the same lighting. Which makes his achievement even more impressive.

However it would not be enough to craft and manually create and curate hundreds of different combinations himself manually. The next step in the journey would be to build an algorithm and minting experience like the original inspiration, Art Blocks.

— the pioneer collection: reflections by dream lab

REFLECTIONS is the first on-chain generative photography project.

Launching in April 2022, all pieces will be minted on-chain, completely randomly, with a live reveal so we will be as excited as you are on what the final output of the collection is, embracing all the surprise and wonder that comes with it.

As with Art Blocks, the contract and unique identifiers will all be published on-chain and you will be able to not only re-create the final outputs of the collection but also create your own unique one. There will be some surprises in the collection with some special layers and unique rarities inbuilt into the final collection which you’ll have to wait to reveal. 😜

It will be a collection of 1,111 pieces and the genesis collection for the Dream Lab brand — a partnership between Jacob Riglin x RLXYZ. There will be in-built utility and benefits for REFLECTIONS holders for future Dream Lab projects, derivative mints -- e.g. the Avid Lines equivalent based on the Autoglyphs -- and events which are planned for the next year including a special event in NFT.nyc with many more exciting things in the pipeline.

If you own a Jacob Riglin piece from any of his collections you could be eligible for a Dream List spot or a free claim -- see below for more details on Discord.

— this is not a.i.

The major distinction between on-chain generative photography and AI photography is that the final outputs from the REFLECTIONS project is composed of actual photos and minted live on the blockchain. The process to arrive at the final layers come from using the tools used by all photographers when creating their artworks by adjusting the colours, layers and lighting only.

General Adversarial Network (GAN) AI is a popular method of creating AI art that works by feeding the AI a large dataset of inputs to ‘learn’ what is in the picture which it then uses to create its own art.

The final output of the AI’s art is not composed of any original photographs because they are an interpretation of the data (photographs) it is using to learn from much like impressionist paintings are interpretations of a photo-realistic scene.

An example of AI photography projects is the Metascapes collection which is 2,555 hand-picked AI landscape images between Cath Simard, Ryan Newburn, Iurie Belegurschi and Artificial Intelligence.

— building an ecosystem to elevate nft photography

REFLECTIONS is a groundbreaking new collection pioneering on-chain generative photography and in doing so we are elevating On-Chain Purity of photography as an art form.

Together we are working with some of the most influential blockchain art collectors to continue to break new ground and ensure the art is truly remarkable. We are truly excited to be able to share this first project with you and we look forward to having you join us and show off your pieces as you reveal them!

You can learn more and join us in the Dream Lab Discord which opens on the Dream Lab Twitter.

You can see art from the artist Jacob Riglin on SuperRare, OpenSea and Nifty Gateway.

Appendix I – Exploring the Framework

In Part 1 we go back to the basics and explain some of the major challenges that Traditional Art suffers from and how blockchain offers a strong foundational solution to those problems.

In Part 2 we provide a framework for understanding On-Chain Generative Art, why it is valuable, who is innovating in this space, and where projects can level up to secure their place in the pantheon of blockchain art.