These last few weeks have felt good!

I think it’s because I finally got some good work out there, mainly a series where I’ll be making 29 data art pieces before I turn 29 in March.

The first piece I shared was a remake of an old doodle I did about a year and a half ago.

The idea is simple, create a landscape that changes from day to night based on input from a light sensor. When sensing light, it is daytime, otherwise it is night.

Took me maybe an hour to make this time around. Honestly, I thought it was too simple, dumb even. A fun little warm-up for this new series, sure, but nothing special.

Even when people in my office said they really liked it, I figured they were just being polite.

I shared it and, to my surprise, it blew up.

My first viral Instagram reel! People DM’ing me about buying the piece, new followers in the creative tech world, even a few artists I admire followed me.

What I saw as a half-assed, old doodle the world saw as a beautiful work of art.

Hell yea. Wild what a little video can do :D

A lot went into that short video. I finally learned a bit about lighting. Shot some clean b-roll and did a voiceover instead of awkwardly talking into a mic. Focused on showing the work front and center instead of showing me.

It sounds really simple, but these tiny shifts changed everything.

The only way to be seen is to show your damn work.

And it turns out I’d been burying good work under bad storytelling!

Silly old me 🤪

In the past, I’d make a video that:

• Didn’t have the art front and center

• Didn’t explain how it actually works (or explained it too quickly)

• Tried to inject too many jokes

• Tried to cram five ideas into one

I was always trying to be clever and cheeky instead of clear and concise.

I’m realizing that teaching people about interactive data art, a medium that barely exists, doesn’t mean making it more complex. It means making it simple and elegant enough for people to get it at first glance.

As a result of this traction, my older stuff got some eyeballs and my original site ngenart.com went nutso again.

Hundreds of thousands of visitors without even a peep from me about it!

And my hosting fees went through the roof because of some poorly optimized code LMAO.

I’ll take the bill, though. The first 9M+ users of n-gen mostly came from like May to December 2023, and now another 1M or so a few years later? It’s nice reminder that my old work can still stand on its own two legs.

(I also have no choice but to pay the bill)

The lesson here is to empty the drafts folder of the things you’ve finished but never shared with the world.

Even sharing with a friend or posting it somewhere anonymously just for people to see. Because it’s probably better than you think.

It doesn’t need to be more complex or impressive. It might just need some better lighting, a cleaner story, and nice voiceover.

But if I had to put money on it, I’d bet it’s pretty damn good!

Now go show your work :D

Posted part two of the series here with art you can twist.

I really liked how this one came out. It breaths life into a traditional pattern, and I played with a lot of different variations before settling on this one.

Every once in a while I’ll see Guy Billout’s work on the timeline and it’s always such a delight. He really mastered the art of turning the mundane into something unexpected.