Not a picture but an event is a three-part series by Maya Man that explores the relationship between bodily movement, generative systems, and image-making. Using a custom-built program, Man’s dance gestures are translated in real time into four visual layers that were used to produce risograph prints, while the primary artwork and NFT remains the 14-second silent video documenting this live exchange between body and code.

Referencing Harold Rosenberg’s notion of “action painting,” where the act itself constitutes the artwork, the series extends this idea into a computational context in which performance becomes both input and outcome. Originally created for a 2019 Processing Foundation support campaign, the accompanying prints ground the digital event in physical form, marking an early example of Man’s ongoing exploration of dance, performance, and generative art.

Created for Bright Moments Paris, Notes is a generative collection that dives into the vivid online universe of user generated perfume descriptions. The artist was fascinated by consumers’ inability to sample scents through phones or computers, and therefore the perfumes’ retailers rely on detailed descriptions to communicate what a product smells like and persuade potential customers online. Notes requests its audience to use their scent imagination.

I’m Feeling Lucky focuses on the contemporary culture of astrology and how it prompts us to make sense of ourselves through its structures. Barthes calls astrology a “confirmation of the real.” There is comfort in the promise of realness over fantasy. Even if it’s influenced by randomness, confirmation bias gives way to some kind of feeling of faith. The title of the collection comes from Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button which initially embodied the energy of software and chance, but has evolved over the years in a way that parallels the fast-paced commercialization of the internet.