Foundation is at the epicenter of web3 and culture. We fundamentally believe in the power of the blockchain, and how it will shape the future of the internet. More importantly, we believe in rewarding the creators who are at the frontier of internet culture.

Our team isn’t just into crypto and art; we’re in tune with the ever-changing, effervescent world wide web. Our latest collab with Petra Voice on her new collection, Babes, is a perfect example of how Foundation is committed to blending cutting-edge tech, art, and internet culture.

Let’s face it, we all have a love-hate relationship with the internet. But for our team, it’s just made us even more fired up about reimagining its future. We thought it was high time you got to know some of the team behind Foundation—they’re seriously cool, imo.

Don’t take it from us - take it from them ⬇️

When you were younger, what was your favorite memory of the internet?

Slime Volleyball. Easy. Next question.

From Dancing Baby, Pepe to The Dress, life online is like the wild west; provocative, boundary pushing and mostly fun. Do you have a favorite meme, or moment in internet’s zeitgeist?

My favorite moment of the internet was when YouTube came out. Tears of joy for days! To expose the extensive library of local news bloopers from all of the country, from Leprechaun sightings in Alabama to the whistle tips controversy in my native Bay Area, early YouTube was the most fun era of social media. You remember YouTube parties being a thing? I can’t think of a product since that’s been more effective at bringing people together.

How did your relationship with the internet influence your desire to work in tech?

I’ve always found the term “tech” funny. Tech is “the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes,” which basically means everyone from doctors to farmers work in “tech.” I’ve never thought about it as working in tech; it’s always just been “What kinds of products are meaningful to the lives of people I care about?” And it turns out the people I care about spend a good amount of time on the internet :)

What about Foundation drew you to work here?

I had previously worked in most of my core passion areas — music, travel, and shopping. But a big one for me was missing — art. So Foundation made a ton of sense. My mom is an artist, and she’s had a tremendous influence on me. Ultimately, I joined to help the most creative people on the internet make a living.

The internet is a fast moving place; as is web3. Why do you believe web3 is important for the internet’s future?

Web3 has a shot a being the easiest way for creators to distribute and sell digitally native content.

Right now, distribution is clearly superior in web2. But distribution pipes in web3, due to their decentralized nature, are designed for ultimately superior distribution. And the monetization pipes of web3, where users literally log in with a wallet and creators receive instantaneous and transparent payouts, are already significantly better than web2. If the superior monetization pipes in web3 attract enough creators, and those creators in turn pull in enough of their fans, things could change on the distribution advantage. And then things could get very interesting.

Why do you love building Foundation?

I think creativity has been undervalued by society for my entire life. How much joy has your favorite song brought you over the years? How much did you pay for it? How much did the artist make? It’s crazy!

For the last several decades, we’ve been trained to think creative output on the internet should be free, prioritizing distribution for the sake of indirect (ads-based) monetization. I’m hoping to play a small but important role in helping people un-learn that and instead feel the joy of supporting creators directly, similar to buying a work of art in the traditional art world but at the scale of the internet.

When you were younger, what was your favorite memory of the internet?

My favorite internet memory was using Myspace after school!

Having a song automatically play when people visit your profile was fire. I also liked searching for and discovering new music on blogs and downloading music for my computer and iPod, so I always took my profile song kind of seriously. Ranking my friends in my top 8 was also hilarious.

I also did things like, customized my layouts and hid things with code. People would always wonder how you got your page to look a certain way. Myspace pages were totally a form of online self-expression for everyone.

From Dancing Baby, Pepe to The Dress, life online is like the wild west; provocative, boundary pushing and mostly fun. Do you have a favorite meme, or moment in internet’s zeitgeist?

Charlie the unicorn.

I just remember when I was younger watching it on YouTube when I was bored. Watching it now, I’m thinking, “What even is this?” But that era of early YouTube was iconic. It just reminds me of the other unhinged videos from early YouTube.

How did your relationship with the internet influence your desire to work in tech?

Since I was young, I’ve been good at using computers and navigating the online world, so I’ve been getting cozy with the internet and computers for a while now.

Growing up, I also had a tad bit of a rebellious nature and was super into the arts (theatre, acting, photography, etc.). So I enjoy working at interesting companies that do good for a community and try to do things that are challenging or against the norm. I like to be involved in those purposes.

What about Foundation drew you to work here?

At first glance, it was the design of Foundation. I also loved the confetti. I’ve been passionate about the arts and humanities, so working with art, new Web3 technology, and beautiful design is nice.

Besides that, I knew Foundation was very future-forward thinking because they are always shipping and have proof of always doing new cool things over and over again, so I wanted to be involved. I also liked that Foundation had a great community of artists and collectors, and I wanted to help support them in selling their art; that was important to me as a Support person.

The internet is a fast moving place; as is web3. Why do you believe web3 is important for the internet’s future?

Web3 offers a decentralized and more secure way of doing online transactions and interactions. It’s important to advance something that gives users more control over their data and digital identities and increases online privacy and security. That statement alone would be enough for me to consider getting involved in Web3.

Why do you love building Foundation?

Foundation is known and trusted by the Web3 community, and the team who builds it is committed to supporting its community and continuing to give Web3 hot new things. Knowing that I’m here contributing and pushing Web3 forward in a very hands-on way feels fulfilling.

Work-wise, it’s a great place to express my creativity. It’s fast-paced, so there’s never a dull moment, and it never gets boring.

When you were younger, what was your favorite memory of the internet?

I was on AIM (AOL Instant Messenger for the uninitiated) wayyy before I ever had a cell phone. I was likely too young if I’m being honest, but I was a curious kid with an overprotective mother who got scared whenever I left the house — the computer it was. I became quickly enthralled with the eccentric, shapeshifting culture of online interaction. It’s a different language that had emerged from constraints in technologies, like SMS, breeding memetic morsels of online written language. Like, how long have we been saying ‘lol’ now? But yea, I just had a great time chatting on AIM with my friends as well as internet strangers, doing things like discovering Taking Back Sunday on my dial-up connection.

From Dancing Baby, Pepe to The Dress, life online is like the wild west; provocative, boundary pushing and mostly fun. Do you have a favorite meme, or moment in internet’s zeitgeist?

Pepe…it was always Pepe. No other meme has anything comparable to the bizarre, long-lasting history of Pepe the Frog. Pepe is ubiquitous across the internet. Pepe is the Mickey Mouse of the internet. Pepe is a medium of art and expression. Gosh, I feel like such a geek typing this stuff out

How did your relationship with the internet influence your desire to work in tech?

Until I went to university to learn how a computer works, the internet and the aforementioned computer was just straight-up magic to me. I’m the type of person that likes to dig deeper and deeper to understand how something works (until my head hurts), so that’s what ultimately led me to study computer science and pursue a career in the tech industry.

It was web3 though that got me thinking more deeply about memetics — not just funny pictures — but this idea that memes are the genes of the internet, in constant battle for attention. And how from anywhere in the world — either subconsciously or consciously — we look to internet memes to inform our interests, opinions, and beyond. I believe everyone is a “child“ of the internet in that sense.

What about Foundation drew you to work here?

Foundation is the intersection of many interests of mine: technology, art, finance. I had friends that had shared their art on Foundation, and since entering web3 in 2021, I’d always perceived Foundation as a mainstay for web3 artists. It’s an honor to contribute to Foundation and push the company forward into its next era.

The internet is a fast moving place; as is web3. Why do you believe web3 is important for the internet’s future?

The internet is broken in a lot of ways. Centralization breeds censorship and single points of failure. A primary internet monetization model is data farming — data that lives with the company instead of you, the user. We have hundreds, if not thousands, of passwords scattered around the web, when we really just need a cryptographic key pair fam. And lot of trust is placed on opaque code sitting on a server that you’ll never be able to see or understand — smart contracts give transparency to the internet. In equal parts ironic and unironic: “Blockchain fixes this”.

Why do you love building Foundation?

Foundation is a cultural hub of a web3. I just have a lot of fun building that hub with really cool people, so other really cool people can express themselves through art, perhaps inadvertently creating the next great meme.

When you were younger, what was your favorite memory of the internet?

One of my favorite core childhood memories is the legendary virtual pet game Neopets. After school, my friends and I would fight over the “good” computers. My favorite species was Lupe, and my favorite place to visit was the Healing Springs. I was probably better at managing my Neopoints as a kid than my own finances today. This article by BuzzFeed (rip) sums it up pretty well.

From Dancing Baby, Pepe to The Dress, life online is like the wild west; provocative, boundary pushing and mostly fun. Do you have a favorite meme, or moment in internet’s zeitgeist?

There are so many it’s hard to choose one! Just off the top of my head, I’m not sure if Charm School was filmed pre-internet, but someone posted it on YouTube and it’s become a part of pop culture history: *see when you do clownery, the clown comes back to bite.* Another one would be when Michelle Phan, who pioneered online beauty content on YouTube, first started posting videos. I’ll never forget watching her videos when she started her channel, and seeing the growth of the massive industry that she helped start has been insane.

How did your relationship with the internet influence your desire to work in tech?

It didn’t. Although the beginning of my relationship with the internet started in an experimental, authentic and goofy place, in my adult life its impact on me has been confusing. For a while, I couldn’t tell whether it was making my life better, or it had become so pervasive in my day-to-day that I was dependent on it. What made me want to work in tech, and therefore reopened my mind to the possibilities of the internet, was art and the digital art community.

What about Foundation drew you to work here?

I wanted to work for a place that had a clear mission and in a creative field. But it was really the people. Every single person at Foundation is exceptional at what they do, dedicated to doing it well and curious. Curiosity is an underrated quality!

The internet is a fast moving place; as is web3. Why do you believe web3 is important for the internet’s future?

A lot of us thought the internet was going to make the world a better place. And it has in a big way. But then it got messy, and now it feels more like an opportunistic place rather than a cultivating environment. Web3 has the potential to make what we wanted the internet to be a reality—and more.

Why do you love building Foundation?

Our team and our community believe that culture, cultivated by creators, collectors, curators—everyone involved in the creative ecosystem—have the power to bring web3 to the mainstream. And that’s something I want to be a part of.

Foundation is constantly seeking talent that deeply resonates with our values and loves to build hot product.

Keep up to date with the new roles, product updates, and lots more below ⬇️

Meet Babes

Babes reflects Petra's personal experiences and cultural influences. Inspired by her experience living in several Asian countries and their hyper-cute anime world, Petra discovered the term “koakuma” - Japanese for "little evil spirit". These characters capture the playful, chaotic emotions we all harbor, wrapped in innocence and cuteness.

The 333 unique open-edition artworks invite you to explore a kaleidoscope of emotions through adorably edgy designs. Beyond artistic appeal, Babes is a digital identity project, allowing collectors to showcase individuality across platforms through avatar customization. Playful, rebellious, or introspective – there's a Babe to match every mood.

Blending Tradition and Technology

Petra's innovative use of AI has sparked discussions around creative applications of emergent tech. By leveraging AI’s creative possibilities, she’s been able to scale her distinct vision into an expansive, cultural project while maintaining an intimate artistic energy. This results in characters that feel oddly timeless yet immediately relatable.

To evoke this feeling, Petra combines pop culture and art influences, echoing the whimsical styling and emotive eyes of contemporary artists such as Crybaby Molly, as well as the figurines she loves to collect from creators like Xiong Miao and Fahfahs, among others. However, her Babes are internet natives, embodying a cheekiness and sophistication that transcends kitsch to deliver a fresh, compelling persona. These characters are not just digital artifacts; they are modern-day icons.

The Digital Frontier

We’re thrilled to collaborate with Petra, because we believe in the transformative potential of AI. Our commitment is not just to technology but also to the evolution of art.

We don’t believe in merely adapting to the digital age. We are at the cultural frontier and are committed to highlighting artists who are there alongside us.

But change can be uncomfortable. The mixed reactions within the community reflect a broader, ongoing artistic revolution. We recognize this discomfort as a sign of radical change—a shift we are excited to champion and amplify. Petra's work epitomizes this shift, pushing the boundaries of traditional art to explore and establish new paradigms. By showcasing her work, we celebrate the pioneering spirit that drives the future of artistic creativity.

The Future is Hot

As we gear up for Onchain Summer, we’re excited to share the stories behind each character in the Babes collection. Expect a blend of fun, nostalgia, and emotional resonance, all wrapped up in the uniquely captivating style that defines Babes.

Petra’s message is simple:

“Embrace your quirks. Feel all the feels authentically, without hiding behind seriousness. Let your true self shine through.”

We started Foundation with the vision of empowering digital creators with crypto. We were guided by the belief that tokens and smart contracts would become powerful tools in the hands of creative people on the internet. In our minds, the artists, musicians and storytellers of the world would realize crypto’s true potential.

It turns out we were right. Since our founding, Foundation has facilitated the sale of hundreds of millions of dollars of digital art across every medium and genre imaginable. Memes, music videos, animation, generative art, illustration, photography and AI-generated imagery have all found a vibrant home on Foundation.

In early 2020, when Foundation was first getting off the ground, our vision felt distant because there were very few artists seriously engaged with crypto as a medium. Crypto was an alien technology with little to no mainstream appeal. To make the technology more palatable, we attempted to abstract it away — to make it invisible.

In the process, we learned an important lesson: crypto wants to be seen. Abstraction led to poor user comprehension, and, in turn, poor engagement and retention. In an abrupt pivot, we opted to invite our early community to engage with the technology directly, and something marvelous happened: things started to click. One by one, artists and collectors started to see crypto’s true promise: immutable, eternal provenance, digital ownership, and global markets denominated in a currency native to the internet.

When compared with 2020, the space has made enormous progress but we also acknowledge that the space hasn’t grown tremendously since its big bang moment in 2021. We believe the space is ready for its next leap forward. And the next leap forward entails moving the digital art ecosystem to Ethereum L2.

Ethereum L2

Ethereum, the substrate from which NFTs are spawned, is itself changing. The Ethereum community isn’t settling for a world in which users need to pay $50 or $100 to transact. That was never the vision. Ethereum’s roadmap dictates that it will evolve beyond its origins as a single, all-purpose chain into a network of rollup chains.

These rollups create new layers for experimentation, exploration and discovery, unbridled from the prohibitive expense of mainnet while still inheriting its technical architecture, security and base currency.

While the digital art market is still rooted on Ethereum mainnet, its future is inevitably on Ethereum L2 where orders of magnitude more collectors will be able to transact, participate and grow enamored with digital art. What’s clear from the exploits of xcopy, Zancan and Jack Butcher is that collector interest has never been higher. What’s been in the way has been transaction costs. Crypto doesn’t just want to be seen, it wants to be used, and high gas fees are at odds with such a clearly stated desire.

Crypto’s broadband era

People often look to the physical art world as a comparison to guide their thinking about what’s possible in digital art. There’s certainly credence to that approach. Digital art and physical art are both bound by provenance. But it’s not sufficient. NFTs are equally internet as much as they are art. And the internet has unique properties that set it apart from the physical world.

Crypto is undergoing a transition that has clear precedence in previous cycles of technological evolution. The mainframe preceded personal computing. Dial-up modems preceded broadband internet. L1 to L2 is a transformation on the same scale, which should invite enormous confidence in the future of web3 and digital art because on the other side is a step change increase in adoption, utility, and societal impact.

Very few early internet users could have predicted how ubiquitous and far-reaching the internet would become once we all had broadband internet connections. L2 will be similarly impactful.

L2-first

Foundation has always operated with the assumption that L2 would scale Ethereum and become the default user experience for the vast majority of users.

It’s why we elected to put our marketplace and creator tooling onchain despite the cost to both us and our community. We understood that onchain was the right long-term architecture and that gas costs would be addressed by innovation at the L2 layer. That’s precisely what happened with EIP-4844, which went live on March 14, enshrining rollups on L1 and dropping gas fees to pennies on L2.

It’s why we experimented with xDai early in our journey to understand the limitations of the technology at the time. What we learned in 2020 served us for years: artists and collectors first needed to appreciate the value prop of L1 before making the conceptual leap to L2. You can’t sell someone on a faster car if they don’t understand why they need a car in the first place.

All of which is to say, we’re all in. We have every reason to believe that the time to move to L2 is now. Rollups have made significant technical progress. They operate in production with billions of dollars at stake. And most importantly, the digital art community is hungry for a new frontier.

Inaction isn’t in our DNA

L2s aren’t perfect:

• It’ll take time for sequencers to fully decentralize

• Bridging presents new security risks

• There are UX challenges to overcome with wallets

But these are all solvable challenges. The risk of doing nothing is far graver. The number of people interested in collecting digital art on L1 is stagnant (and has been for years). Without embracing L2, we’d be forced to accept that the digital art market would remain confined to its current size, which feels like a failure of imagination when L2s exist and continue to evolve at a breakneck pace.

Inaction isn’t in our DNA. We’re committed to growing the space. The decision to expand beyond the restrictive confines of Ethereum L1 is imperative, which is why starting today, Foundation is committed to becoming L2-first.

A commitment to explore the medium fully

L2s challenge us to answer new and interesting questions:

• What were artists and collectors not doing because of high gas costs?

• What does a digital art ecosystem with millions of participants look and feel like? How does it diverge from what we’ve prototyped on L1?

• What sacred truths no longer apply?

We’re committed to answering each of these questions. We’re committed to exploring the medium fully.

Just as early internet pioneers fiddled with modems to log on to an early internet that any modern citizen would find unimaginably slow and limited, so too will future crypto citizens look back at our early days on L1 in a similar light.

L2s open the door to crypto’s broadband era. Today, we pass through it, never to look back. In 2021, crypto wanted to be seen. In 2024, crypto wants to be used.

Thank you to Nat Emodi of Highlight and Jacob Horne of Zora for their help in crafting some of the language laid out in this article. You both have been true pioneers of Ethereum L2.

The generative series dedicated to clouds, Clay’s largest project to date, marks an exciting new phase in his career. Each idyllic output is a unique combination of shapes, patterns and color palettes that depict the time of day, rendered through 3D generative techniques.

From Analog Roots to Digital Heights

Clay's artistic career began with analog photography, a medium that initially captured his interest. However, a pivotal moment in his artistic journey was the creation of a seminal piece in his World Underwater series. This artwork marked a significant transition from photography to digital art; he was able to portray objects that pushed the limits of what traditional media couldn’t, through hyper-realistic scenes that would be nearly impossible to create in reality.

This catalyzed Clay's passion for exploring beyond the tangible world. Algorithmic technology pushed the possibilities one step further, allowing Clay to generate 2,000 unique cloud compositions that displayed all of the traits he wanted to express.

The Generative Heart of Strange Clouds

By incorporating generative code into his art practice for Strange Clouds, Clay diverges from his usual perfectionist tendencies, perhaps subscribing to the idea of imperfect perfection. Clouds, after all, are formed by a complex and layered process that result in majestic shapes without seeking perfection.

Nature's raw beauty profoundly inspires Clay's digital artistry. "My biggest inspirations are simple elements of nature. Specifically, water, clouds, and grass," he reveals.

This fascination is vividly portrayed in this series, transforming these elements into surreal digital masterpieces. Clay reimagines uncontrollable forces of nature into contained bite-size shapes, then reintroduces unpredictability with code.

One of the most daunting challenges in creating Strange Clouds, Clay reveals, was the rendering of realistic clouds in 3D. Although he invited randomness with code, his vision still required computational intensity, meticulous attention to detail and perseverance, which are inherent to his process. Yet, it's these challenges that play into Clay’s perfectionism, culminating in a series that not only showcases his technical expertise but also his dedication to pushing the boundaries of digital art.

View the entire series in Strange Clouds, an exhibition by Hayden Clay.

Rozwell made his mark with his initial release of ROONS by resisting the formulaic nature of PFPs that became so frequent and overused in the on-chain space. His latest endeavor, ROONS*® Season 4*, is not just a collection of art pieces; it's a journey through iconography, technology, and human narratives.

nft://1/0x75d121D0401b167c21A88324Cc4c2F83BE3495fE/?showBuying=true&showMeta=true

Rozwell's artistic journey began in his childhood, inspired by a creative family environment. His early passion for illustration laid the foundation for his venture into the digital art space. Today, Rozwell's work is a blend of his deep-rooted love for art and a keen interest in exploring new media.

ROONS: Beyond Avatars

ROONS started as an alternative to generative PFPs, envisioned as unique, "designer avatars." PFPs are forms of art that serve as identifiers; they signal belonging to a community. Similarly, Rozwell uses iconography, in place of portraiture, to create a series of work that explores intriguing themes.

“ROONS is a play on RUNES. Viking runes were an alphabet. These symbols are supposed to be succinct enough to communicate things as you collect them.”

Each season of ROONS is a reflection of Rozwell's state of mind during its creation, making each one a time capsule of his artistic journey. The themes are selected through a meditative process of auto-writing and sketching, helping him distill the essence of the plurality of his thoughts into digital art.

Season 4: A Personal and Stylistic Evolution

The fourth season marks a milestone in Rozwell's creative process: the final season of ROONS. This season follows the emotional complexity of previous seasons created during a time of deep, personal strife. Seasons 2 and 3 were created at the height of his father’s battle with cancer, creating a much darker undertone and visual language. This latest series, however, reflects a more lighthearted approach to the overall project’s visual language. With a tongue-in-cheek, almost ironic approach to serious societal topics, masked in dopamine-clad, vibrant coloring, you get characters that range from St. Peter to an iconographic representation of a Cult, all the way to a personification of consumerism, as well as other iconic characters such as Doom Scrollers, Chocolate Milk and Broccoli.

Influenced by figures like Paul Rand and William Blake, and the indigenous art of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas, ROONS is a testament to Rozwell's ability to weave varied imagery and aesthetics into his work.

ROONS*® Season 4 launches with Forever Projects on Dec. 19 at 1p ET. View the series here.*

In the dynamic realm of generative art, Willard emerges as an artist who skillfully marries traditional motifs with groundbreaking techniques. His latest endeavor, Cul-de-Sacs, redefines suburban landscapes through the nostalgic lens of American folk art, presenting an intriguing blend of the past and the present.

Ordinary, With a Twist

Cul-de-Sacs is anchored in Willard's captivation with everyday sceneries, which he reimagines into minimalist territories rich with poetic nuances.

“I’ve always had a fascination with ordinary places and ordinary structures because they have this way of being familiar, even when you see them for the first time.”

Drawing inspiration from early 20th-century American folk art, particularly in its distinctive flattened representation of space, he infuses these elements into the contemporary suburban milieu.

“By focusing on the cul-de-sac, which is a quintessential emblem of sprawl, the algorithm generates scenes that are immediately recognizable and even familiar, especially for those who grew up in the suburbs. However, when these suburban landscapes are reframed through the simplified, flattened language of folk art, they suddenly become uncanny and surreal.”

The result is a fusion of the known and the unknown, striking a nostalgic chord with anyone familiar with suburban life.

The Artistic Process: A Journey of Exploration

Willard’s approach to Cul-de-Sacs balances spontaneous gestures with precise refinement. His process begins with rudimentary sketches, exploring geometric relationships and mathematical principles, before progressing to digital code. His travels have also contributed to pivotal breakthroughs, underscoring the unpredictability of his artistic journey.

Diverging from the norm, Willard’s process is rooted in art and design more than technology. In Cul-de-Sacs, this translates into developing algorithms that emphasize repetition and conceptual depth, steering generative art towards uncharted creative realms.

“Unlike code purists, who may be interested in the visualization of algorithmic relationships and the beauty of mathematics, I’m more interested in using code as a new medium for storytelling and world-building.”

Redefining the Mundane: Willard's Tapestry of Everyday Narratives

Willard is set to continue his exploration of ordinary landscapes, drawing motivation from the ubiquity of everyday environments. Influenced by artists like Bernd and Hilla Becher and Ed Ruscha, and writers like Sherwood Anderson, his ambition is to transform commonplace settings into a new perceptual experience for the audience.

Cul-de-Sacs transcends being merely a generative art project; it's a narrative woven from the fabric of daily life, intersecting generative art, traditional aesthetics, and contemporary storytelling.

See more pieces from the collection here.

Generative art isn’t a trend. It's a profound expression of the intersection between art and technology. It’s deeply embedded in the history and evolution of digital creativity, offering us a medium that is dynamic, interactive, and inherently digital.

The method of creating art using autonomous systems has existed before the advent of computers. It’s taken shape in different forms: text, music, architecture, all of which have informed what we experience as code-based art today. With the rise of blockchain innovation, generative systems have rapidly evolved into an art market category with new economic models. Blockchain technology adds digital scarcity and provenance to complex systems, allowing outputs to be as verifiably scarce or prolific as the creator desires.

In navigating these nascent market structures, generative artists face a crucial choice:

• Partner with a platform and relinquish control.

  Existing platforms often charge steep fees, have strict technical guidelines and require the artist to give up control over their work.

• Independently manage and market their release.

  Self-releasing can be more rewarding but often leads to a significant gap in effective promotion and visibility.

It’s clear that artists need more choices. Our partnership with Highlight allows artists to retain control over their work while participating in a more diverse, decentralized curatorial ecosystem through Worlds.

Enter the curator

With Worlds, artists and curators can work hand-in-hand, leveraging each other's strengths, networks and visions. This collaboration isn't just transactional; it's about building trust, understanding, and a shared vision to bring compelling art to a wider audience. It's a partnership in the truest sense, where both parties are invested in the success and impact of the art.

How the integration works

Once artists have formed relationships with curators and are ready to release their work together, they can start using the integration.

After the artist’s generative series is listed in a world, it can be scheduled as a dutch or fixed-price auction and tracked via the world’s dashboard. When a collector mints the series, the code runs in real-time to create the buyer’s unique artwork.

Fee breakdown

We’re committed to providing a fair fee model that puts more value into the hands of those who create and curate.

One tool, infinite possibilities

Highlight’s generative series tool allows artists to create generative art with dynamic data inputs, curated outputs, powerful testing and preview tools, draft mode, and the ability to use any assets or libraries you like.

Open-Access Platform

Highlight’s open-access nature allows artists unparalleled freedom in their creative process. Without the constraints of curation boards or strict technical requirements, artists are empowered to experiment and express themselves fully, breaking new ground in generative art.

Artist-owned Contracts

Artists can release their work on their own smart contracts. This grants them complete control and ownership, ensuring their creative output remains in their control. This autonomy is pivotal for artists who value independence and wish to retain the integrity of their work.

Dynamic Data Inputs

The ability to incorporate diverse blockchain data beyond the transaction hash into their artwork opens a new realm of creativity and conceptual exploration. Artists can craft interactive and innovative projects, making their art more engaging and interactive in new ways.

Generative art, although rooted in historic concepts, is still an emerging field. And we’ve only just recently discovered economic models to support its creation. By partnering with Highlight, we’re unlocking more curatorial perspectives to diversify what’s understood as valuable, compelling, and innovative within generative art.

Start using the integration today ↓

Create a generative series.

Create a world.

Import your generative series to a world.

In the realm of generative art, few artists harness technology's potential to express deeply personal narratives as poignantly as Rahul Iyer. His latest collection, Interpretations of the Sun, is a vivid exploration of his life experiences, rendered through the lens of algorithmic creativity. With sunlight as a central theme, Iyer invites the audience to contemplate their own interpretations, fostering introspection and connection with the outside world.

The Emotional Spectrum of the Sun

Iyer's inspiration flows directly from life's rich tapestry—the good, the bad, and the ugly. For Iyer, the sun isn't merely a celestial entity. Using colors from Hindu religious iconography, Iyer wields a historic palette to create a human sensory experience that permeates cultures, religions, and personal memories.

“While this is my interpretation of the sun…the sun is infinitely interpretable. It radiates light, warmth, and beauty, embodying diverse meanings throughout the history of human existence. For instance, ‘Shimmer of a Mermaid’ reminds me of the sun rays reflecting off of fish scales. This was nostalgic for me. As a kid, I used to run out to the lake (really a big pond) in our neighborhood just to go fishing with a friend.

My hope is this collection inspires you to consider your own experience and what makes your interpretations remarkable to you.”

Algorithm as Artistic Ally

Rahul's use of p5.js and WebGL in creating these pieces was a journey of exploration and surprise. He describes the algorithm as a collaborator, introducing elements of randomness that often led to unexpected and emotionally rich outputs.

This process was both a technical challenge and an artistic liberation, allowing Rahul to transcend traditional boundaries in his creative expression. As he came across elements that struck a chord, the algorithm was adjusted to embrace and amplify these characteristics. The curation of the ten outputs became a deeply personal process and an exercise in understanding his own emotional intuition.

Personal Reflection, A Universal Resonance

The sun has held various meanings across different cultures and moments in history; it’s been worshiped as a deity, symbolized the ego, and informed the world’s understanding of time and space. Each piece in Interpretations of the Sun, while deeply personal, offers a canvas for viewers to project their own interpretations, creating a dialogue between the artist's intention and the audience's imagination.

“When you interpret something, you’re bringing your own experiences, culture, and journey into the fold. Your interpretation is molded by what you already know. The pieces in this collection resonate with me in some way, reflecting my personal experiences and journey.”

Looking Ahead: The Continuum of Exploration

As Rahul reflects on this collection, he sees it as a stepping stone in his artistic journey. The interplay of algorithmic precision and emotional fluidity in this collection is something he intends to explore further, allowing his creative process to organically evolve and surprise, much like the unpredictable beauty of the sun itself.

‘Interpretations of the Sun’ goes live on December 12, 2023, 1pm ET. See more pieces from the collection and learn more here.

We're excited to announce that Foundation is teaming up with Highlight to provide generative artists with more expansive tools and flexible options for creating, selling and curating their work. This partnership, launching exclusively in Worlds in early December, is a step forward for artists and curators in the digital art space.

Create, Curate, Thrive

Generative art is one of the most digitally native forms of expression defining the NFT market. Appreciating this genre of art means looking beyond its visual appeal to the underlying code and context. That's where curation comes in—it's not only about displaying art but also telling its story and celebrating the artist behind it.

Until now, generative artists had two choices: work with a platform and give up control, or do it all on their own. Our collaboration with Highlight changes that.

The relationship between artists and curators has long been a force for shaping culture. By combining our forces with Highlight, we’re able to reshape these relationships, equipping them with collaborative tools to push forward one of the most powerful movements in web3.

The power of working together

Highlight stands out as the first open-access generative art platform on Ethereum, offering artists the freedom to innovate with dynamic tools that embrace the blockchain's unique potential for permanence, scarcity and interactivity. With Highlight, artists have access to dynamic data inputs, curated outputs and full ownership of the smart contracts that they create.

Worlds is the leading platform for decentralized curation, providing infrastructure for curators and artists to build their own art platforms, on their own terms. With Worlds, generative artists have the unique opportunity to etch their collaboration with curators directly onto the blockchain, creating enduring digital spaces that not only showcase their work but also immortalize their impact on the art world.

Highlight's expansive tools and Worlds' diverse curatorial options converge in our partnership to reshape generative art. We’re coming together to forge innovative infrastructure, grounded in shared values of creative independence, accessibility and collaboration.

Following successful collaborations with Manifold and Transient Labs, partnering with Highlight marks another milestone in the journey towards making Worlds a composable, decentralized curation platform for uplifting digital artists—a vision worth realizing, together.

Ready to create a generative art project? Go here.

Ready to create a world? Start here.

We’re excited to announce the beginning of an ongoing partnership with Transient Labs. With this new integration, creators can now index ERC-721TL contracts created on Transient to Foundation.

Transient Labs is creating new digital mediums for artists using web3 technology. These tools expand the creative possibilities for artists and help bring their visions to life. Artists can start listing their collections on Foundation and either sell independently, or work with curators through the Worlds ecosystem.

By tapping into new sources of creativity, this partnership will also expand opportunities for worldbuilders. Our vision is for creators and curators to be empowered with the most cutting-edge technology in web3. And on Foundation, that now includes smart contracts from Transient Labs.

Artwork featured: Rug too close to the TV by Bhare, created with The Lab and listed on the artist’s Foundation world, Building a Happier Home.

Want to create work in The Lab? Apply here

Ready to list your work created with The Lab to Foundation? Go here.

Learn more about Transient Labs’ ERC-721TL smart contract features here.

Launching a world is just the beginning. To take your world further, you might consider investing in artist relations, design, marketing or finance. And to do that, you need a team.

Before, worldbuilders were sharing wallet credentials to grant team members access to their dashboard. This requires implicit trust, and leaves the security of worlds vulnerable to human mistakes.

Worldbuilders need a way to grow their teams without compromising on security, which is why we’re excited to announce the introduction of Teams. Teams allows worldbuilders to securely add teammates to their world with the exact level of access they need to perform their role.

Team Roles

Owners have full control over the world. There are no limitations to what owners can do, including transferring and deleting the world.

Admins are empowered to do everything the owner can do, with the exception of transferring and deleting the world. This includes changing the payout address, and adding new team members.

Editors manage the world. They’re empowered to update the seller allowlist, update design elements and create new moments.

Need to create a world? Start here.

Already have a world? Add team members through the dashboard.

Learn more about this update here.

However, as we welcomed more and more creators, we missed the human connections that made us successful to begin with. Simultaneously, there was no way we could single-handedly parse through the entire catalog of digital art and determine the best works on our own. That’s what makes curation so powerful—intimate connections based on shared perspectives and trust. We needed to encode that level of intimacy into the software itself.

We set out to create a tool for curation and launched the first version of Worlds in January 2023. Since then, Worlds has evolved dramatically, now representing 40% of all sales on Foundation and generating $3.2 million in sales for over 2,000 artists.

Worlds has become something much more than we anticipated. In order to meet its full potential, worldbuilders need more ownership and control.

This is why we’re excited to share that Worlds is now its own smart contract, and in this new architecture, each world is represented as an NFT.

Worlds as a protocol

Worlds is now on a universal contract that houses all worlds, encompassing their history and functionality. This contract is designed to become a protocol, a shared resource that can be trusted across the ecosystem.

By changing the fundamental architecture of the Worlds smart contract, we’re giving more ownership to worldbuilders. Each world, minted on the contract as an NFT, now appears across web3: in your wallet, on OpenSea and Etherscan. As it accumulates transactions and events, your NFT becomes a record of your world’s curatorial history. This creates provenance, and provenance creates value.

Worlds as NFTs

This update unlocks more design space for new features, the first few of which we’re thrilled to share today.

What’s new today

• Your world now appears as an NFT across the web3 ecosystem.

• Specify a custom address to receive payments from your world, including a split contract address.

Coming soon

• Add team members with different permissions to help manage your world.

• Securely transfer your world to another wallet.

• Remove sellers from your world.

• Customize take rates and more.

Your World will always exist—with or without us

On centralized platforms, your work is bound to the state of the platform, making your contributions vulnerable to platform changes that are out of your control.

In web3, what you create should belong to you.

Ownership is not just a principle we care deeply about. It’s now built into the underlying technology of Worlds.

Since we launched Foundation in early 2021, most have come to know us as an NFT marketplace. But Foundation is not just a website, it’s the basis for an entire ecosystem. In reality, foundation.app is just the first web3 destination to be powered by Foundation Protocol. To date, Foundation Protocol has facilitated over 600K transactions and currently houses more than 100K onchain listings—the most of any NFT marketplace protocol.

Foundation Protocol is a key piece of infrastructure capable of supporting millions of destinations. This has always been the vision. A foundation, after all, is meant to be built on. 

Meet FoundationOS. The operating system for web3. 

With FoundationOS, we’re opening up our tools for developers to build on top of Foundation Protocol. All of the components, API endpoints, and smart contracts that power foundation.app will be available to you. Build your own gallery, record label, curated NFT marketplace, internet-native museum, multiplayer game, headless brand, or a web3 destination yet to be imagined.

What will you invent with FoundationOS?

What if we let you in on a secret? NFTs are only the beginning for us.

Within the emergent ecosystem of web3, you can think of foundation.app as a destination. Here, creativity is emerging, and people from all over the world are arriving daily.

The new world is yours.

Ownership is shifting from web2 platforms to you. Two decades of web2 have helped connect a majority of humans, but almost exclusively on private platforms. Nearly every web2 company offers a centralized service, where all data and value contributed to the network gets locked within it.

In web3, your creativity is valued, and all of your digital objects and currencies travel with you, wherever you want to go.

The new world will have infinite destinations.

It will become more clear over time: an entirely new way of experiencing the internet is upon us.

Foundation is not a platform—it’s the basis for an entire ecosystem. Our opening act is foundation.app, which is just one of a multitude of web3 destinations that will exist. In the post-platform internet, there is nothing limiting you from traveling freely with your objects from one destination to another.

Right now, there are only a handful of true web3 destinations for you to experience. The future that we are building will pave the way for infinite destinations to come into being.

The new world is yours to build.

With foundation.app as their entry point into web3, creators from around the globe used NFTs in groundbreaking ways. Visionary artists catalyzed movements and brought together communities to build the new world with.

Alejandro Cartagena began his journey by minting photographs, and is now a node within many web3 communities including ObscuraDAO and Fellowship Trust. Yatreda, an artist collective in Ethiopia, used the technology to tell powerful stories about their identity and history that resonated beyond their wildest dreams. Technology is art, and creators like Dom Hoffman have pushed the medium past its initial bounds into a territory that is even more expressive and expansive. All of these innovations began with ideas, and the motivation to continue to find connections with the world around us.

A foundation is meant to be built on. Soon, we will introduce a new dimension for even more creatives to develop web3 with us—FoundationOS. When creativity is applied to technology, the limits of what can be built are no longer confined to what is known.

The new world is ours.

Web3 is being imagined, built, and realized by all who understand its potential. Creativity is being unleashed in orders of magnitude, and it’s up to all of us to pave the way for the next evolution of the internet to emerge. Web3 is ours.

A new world is possible.