The Discovery of Math: A Sitdown with Daïm Aggot-Hönsch (Part 1)

CohentheWriter Chats with the Algorist, Apeirographer, and AI Artist

The following is the condensed and lightly-edited transcription of a conversation between Daïm Aggot-Hönsch (@DaimAlYad) and Max Cohen (@cohenthewriter) recorded in October 2022. This is part 1 of 2.

Solitude (2020), by Daïm Aggot-Hönsch, in collection of Museum of Crypto Art
Emanant Blossoms (2019), by Daïm Aggot-Hönsch, in collection of rfc_art

But when I started looking into them, I both liked and hated what I was seeing, because you had these incredible and — if you actually think through what’s going on — very intellectually-unlikely things happening on the screen, and yet the volume with which it was all being vomited onto the internet made it seem so unremarkable and plain and everyday.

But you had these incredible pieces of found art being treated as something very obviously not art. Because “Art” — and I’m speaking of Fine Art — is exhibited. It is collected. It is curated, it’s reviewed, it’s purchased. You can make it accessible to an ever-broader audience who gets to experience it. But with fractal art, as with a lot of digital art prior to the rise of web3 and crypto art and NFTs, basically all you had was that last part, right? Never going to be exhibited, never going to be purchased, never going to be curated, never going to be seriously, thoughtfully reviewed, but, hell, possibly millions of people are going to see it. But they’ll also see the million other images that look suspiciously like it because it was generated by the same exact program.

German Boxer, Esq. (2016) (2019), by Daïm Aggot-Hönsch, in collection of Flux Research. Precursor to Cryptoblots, an Artblocks Curated Series 1 Collection.

Obviously I, like all artists, very much crave approval and outside validation and all that — It’s probably not even an artistic thing, just a general human thing — but even when it’s not forthcoming, or not forthcoming to the degree I expected it would be, I don’t question myself anymore. I know my own self-worth as an artist. I know the value of my own work. And I know which works of mine are significant and unique and worth having a historical view of, and I’m delighted when my audience agrees with me, and I’m not too put off when it doesn’t, because I’m pretty sure I’ll be the one who’s right at the end.

Isles upon Deemed Rivers & Other Wonders 102 by Daïm Aggot-Hönsch, in collection of 3BF0F3

But at the same time, I gotta tell you, it’s awfully hard to be topical or on-theme or apply to an exhibition with mathematical work because it’s very difficult to make it do what I want since I’m mostly trying to let it do what it wants.

[title removed for trademark violation] (2014) (2019), by Daïm Aggot-Hönsch, in collection of Museum of Crypto Art

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Museum of Crypto Art (M○C△) is the premier destination for crypto art and innovative collaborations that ignite our collective imaginations