sgt_slaughtermelon is a project in creating digital art with glitch aesthetics and wild collage techniques – sometimes using Processing scripts that are altered or coded from scratch – and almost always using some kind of geometric composition. The themes range from cyberpunk to mysticism, low-brow kitsch and absolute pretentious neo-suprematism (as pretentious as you can get with a name like slaughtermelon). Posts are almost always 6500x6500px at 300 dpi, occasionally with deliberately pixellated textures.
The ongoing project includes creating fun lore and silly stories to go with some of the art – with references like Lisa Frank, episodes of Black Mirror or goofy alternate versions of artists and visionaries that only exist in the feverish imagination of the internet.
sgt_slaughtermelon recently taken the NFT community by storm with a number of immersive new creative endeavors such as the “autoRAD” Artblocks Factory project — a computer-aid RAD design project inspired by the Memphis/Neo-Memphis style of the 1980s and 90s which accumulated a gross total of 180 ETH in sales.
Yet, this project provides a mere glimpse into the ever evolving style of sgt_slaughtermelon. In fact, in this instance one would argue that classification is impossible and that sgt_slaughtermelon’s style is exactly just that: sgt_slaughtmelon style. Obvious influences and stylistic references from geometry, glitch art, abstract expressionism, suprematism are present within his work – yet this collision of styles, palettes and presentations has resulted in a body of work that is undeniably unique, yet somehow simultaneously instantly recognizable.
Check out sgt_slaughtermelon’s website for a deeper look into their artwork, philosophy and more.
needs
“What do I really need?” A deep contemplation following the success of sgt_slaughtermelon’s autoRAD project inspired a crucial question of human necessity: What do we as humans need in order to not only survive, but thrive? In the needs collection, glitch abstractionist sgt_slaughtermelon delves into a geometric exploration of needs- stripping down to basic forms as a means of differentiating the necessary from the extraneous.
Through this investigative series, sgt_slaughtermelon identifies and examines three crucial needs: a place to be, just to be alone and something transcendent. Where do these needs stem from? What happens when they are achieved or neglected? How do they manifest themselves in creative or expressionistic forms? sgt_slaughtermelon answers these questions and more through a personal, yet highly relatable, exploration of his needs.
something_transcendent_01
Editions: One
Pricing: Accepting Offers only
*A 24 hour auction will ensue once reserve price is met
something_transcendent_02
Editions: One
Pricing: Accepting Offers only
*A 24 hour auction will ensue once reserve price is met
a_place_to_be_01
Editions: One
Pricing: Accepting Offers only
*A 24 hour auction will ensue once reserve price is met
a_place_to_be_02
Editions: One
Pricing: Accepting Offers only
*A 24 hour auction will ensue once reserve price is met
just_left_alone_01
Editions: One
Pricing: Accepting Offers only
*A 24 hour auction will ensue once reserve price is met
just_left_alone_02
Editions: One
Pricing: Accepting Offers only
*A 24 hour auction will ensue once reserve price is met
Artist Statement from sgt_slaughtermelon
After the success of autoRAD – it became a decently real question to ask myself: “well, what do I really need?” Sometimes questions like that get pushed to the back of your mind, because dwelling too much on what you need or want means you don’t have pressing things that present themselves as your real needs in the meantime. You know what I mean – Maslow’s hierarchy or something. I think we’ve kind of forgotten that the hierarchy of needs was meant to illustrate something: that the higher-order needs are still needs, not that they’re irrelevant compared to more basic needs like food and water and shelter. We get caught up (and justifiably so) in remembering that not everyone has the base layers attended to – and we start to consider the upper levels something like “first world problems.” The thing is – once I have some shelter and food and water, and I do have those things, if I don’t move to higher order needs I just end up rearranging these bottom layers in more or less pleasing arrangements and wonder why it feels empty.
I haven’t really been making art this whole time for some other reason than that I needed to make the art. There’s probably a nice edgy Bukowski quote about that somewhere. So after autoRAD I kept at it. After doing less glitch art for a while, I returned to experimenting with that again and hiding some early glitch work in opensea collections and stuff like that – just kind of comforting to go back and remember what went by so fast at the time. When I found a new look that I really wanted to pursue – it was a look that came about when exploring how ASDF (the classic Kim Asendorf pixel sorting script) creates gradients on accident sometimes rather than just dripping pixels. Maybe gradients are the intention? I don’t know – but if you set the parameters right and choose your images and colors carefully and don’t mind using some scaling tricks to make things unreasonably huge – you can use ASDF just to make gradients. You can use ASDF to explore.
“Surely, though – you can just make gradients? Isn’t that kind of a roundabout way to get a simple gradient?” This is the thing I often need: I need a collaborator via machine or found object or algorithm to surprise me – to surprise me in exploration when I know I didn’t just make the thing myself.
I was always fascinated that in The Republic (which I believe is mean to be a meditation on statecraft AND how we govern ourselves) Plato’s Socrates begins by saying that it’s only when we go beyond necessity that we find destruction. The longing for luxuries, giving into feverish unsatisfiable desires – this is where war, pain, and suffering ultimately comes from. So maybe it’s a good thing to figure out what it is that you actually need, to cast an eye forwards and try to avoid that destruction. When you start to strip away all the things you don’t really need, or maybe you have some of the basic things you want – at some point you have to ask “what do I really need?” I was thinking on this subject and making compositions around concepts of what I need: a place to be, just left alone, and something transcendent. Those are needs in the most true and basic sense. Uncluttered by all the detail of getting from A to B, the reality of dealing with cleaning and eating and all the paperwork it takes to exist – not those things.
These are what I need, I think – at the very core of it. A place, some time, and something to pursue into infinity.
These are explorations of geometric compositions with glitched textures being used mostly for their colors and for their gradients rather than for texture. I needed the colors, mostly. The idea is that by scaling and reducing what are actually very complex glitch patterns – mostly using ASDF by Kim Asendorf – these are taking the very most basic elements of it and making them the focus. Taking the very most basic elements of life, and trying to focus on those.
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