A generative open edition on Bitcoin, made with FAR: rock-like forms in coloured frames, released in a single timed window.
Brutal Edge is a generative collection made by Harto together with the artist FAR, inscribed on Bitcoin in August 2024. Each piece is a tall, framed panel: one to three rough, stone-like forms sit inside ovals or circles, set over a busy, glitched ground of stripes, checks and noise.
It was released as a timed open edition, so the number of pieces was set by the collectors who took part, up to a maximum of 5,000.
The title points at the contrast the work plays with: soft, glowing light on hard, unfinished matter, and a clean frame against a restless background. The forms look cut or broken rather than modelled, and their coloured edges flash against the dark.
Brutal Edge was also built to connect with other collections. Through Swarming, a mechanism from the same circle of artists, holders of Brutal Edge, Flora Forms and Buzz Buzz Buzz could exchange items for new, rarer pieces instead of burning them.
Every piece is generated from its own inscription id, so the combination of frame, background, number of forms and colour is fixed by the inscription itself and cannot be rerolled. The pieces are rendered in the browser with WebGL, which gives the forms their moving highlights.
The work was made as a collaboration between Harto and FAR, two artists who have both worked with Ordinals since its early period.
Each piece is an HTML inscription with no content of its own: it delegates to a shared inscription that holds the artwork, and a small loader script reads its seed from the piece’s own id. Code and artwork therefore live on Bitcoin and are assembled when the piece is viewed.
The first pieces were inscribed on 21 August 2024. The release ran as a time-limited open edition, announced for 4 hours and 20 minutes starting at 4:20 pm Eastern time on that day.
2024
Bitcoin Ordinals, generative HTML + WebGL
Open edition, up to 5,000
Harto × FAR