Endless Nameless by Rafaël Rozendaal

Endless Nameless is a set of 1,000 abstract compositions by Rafaël Rozendaal. Each starts from a square that the code cuts into rectangles, as few as one and as many as 72. Every rectangle takes a pair of colors and fills with soft bands that shade from one to the other. The palette is short: eight saturated colors plus black and white. Some outputs use all ten, and five use black and white alone, among them #751. In a browser the bands drift slowly through each section, and the picture stretches to fill the window.

Rozendaal had long made art as websites, each work living at its own domain name. He told Art Blocks that his generative code had always gone into single works, and that this was his first edition of 1,000. He hoped collectors would see "why small decisions make a big difference," and called the pull of one output over another "the biggest mystery" to him. The series came out on Art Blocks Curated on July 30, 2021. The price fell in steps, and the public sale was over in under two hours. The script is stored on Ethereum and draws each output from its token's hash.

Part of the sale went to Rhizome, the born-digital art organization affiliated with the New Museum, through a donation feature built into Art Blocks. It was the largest gift in Rhizome's 25-year history and later helped pay for a new website. Rozendaal named Rhizome again in 2022 for Polychrome Music, made with the musician Danny Wolfers. In 2023 Sotheby's offered two outputs in New York sales, #765, a single section, and #327, cut into 72 panels.