Botto is a decentralized autonomous artist, initially conceptualized by Mario Klingemann (a.k.a. Quasimondo), and governed by a collective of stakeholders through a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization). Its artistic capabilities are based on a custom art engine, a proprietary blend of algorithmic models that have synthesized millions of images. Running now for over a year, Botto produces 350 visuals per week. From these pieces, the artist's community members, BottoDAO, vote to select the images they deem most aesthetically pleasing. The most popular one then becomes a canonical Botto artwork, sold as an NFT. In addition, Botto learns from the results of each of these votes further evolving its artistic process and body of work.
To create “Cluster:#069,” a clustering algorithm was applied to the entirety of Botto’s body of work to organize it into common artistic themes. This revealed 128 themes within Botto’s works. For each of these themes, 64 were chosen from the categories and clustered by the algorithm based on common features. This process resulted in a sort of style swatch, creating a mosaic from the fragments. Style grids were created for each of these 128 themes, upon which Botto’s community voted to select the most popular piece. This process was the final step in the production of “Cluster: #069.” This particular cluster includes Botto’s 33rd minted artwork, “Attempt Deepen”, surrounded by other fragments discarded along the way.