By Nina Roehrs, August 2022

Kim Asendorf (1981, Germany) is creating abstract visual systems, conceptually set and realized in algorithms, that are open for a wide range of interpretations. Very often he works on a per pixel level when creating his works. And having his roots in net art, he wants to keep his work easily accessible, and the Internet is his favorite canvas.

All of this is true for one of his most important works to date – Mountain Tour. Mountain Tour is based on ten mountain images that Asendorf found on the Internet in 2010 and manipulated using software he developed called Pixel Sorting.

Pixel Sorting is a technique whereby each line of an image is analyzed and the individual pixels are sorted by brightness / color. Since Asendorf made the code open source in 2012, a whole new style has emerged. While the code has proliferated and changed, its visual effect has always remained instantly recognizable and has since been found in a wide variety of visual creations - from art to advertising to film. In the decade-plus since its inception, Pixel Sorting has entrenched itself in the culture of digital artmaking. And this early Mountain Tour series marks the beginning.

More than a decade later a new technological development – Blockchain and NFT – has entered the art world. And in context of a first collaboration with Roehrs & Boetsch, Kim Asendorf has decided to mint the works of this historic series as NFTs.

The works are available both in analog print and digitally as NFTs. Collectors who buy a print also receive the NFT of the same motif.

The reintroduction of the Mountain Tour will be accompanied by an exhibition in the Engadine village Ardez, which will run from August 7 to September 11, 2022.