MOTV Experiential Launches Library Of “Code-Painted” Floral Landscapes For Big Digital Displays
February 19, 2025 by Dave Haynes
Industry veteran Jim Nista has been playing for the last few years with the idea of painting with code, using computer scripting to develop set it and forget it digital artwork for large canvases like big LCD, OLED or LED video wall displays. He and another industry vet, Mike Arnett, last year set up a boutique agency called MOTV Experiential to develop and market that work, and have now released a library of looping, full-motion art pieces.
The proposition is that these are reimagined oil paintings that are rooted in nature, but can be tweaked and reactive to data sources like weather, using more coding. The series is called Flora, and the works vary in size and orientation, as well as length. Some are two minute loops while others can be up to an hour.
Nista is a deeply knowledgeable coder who used to have his own digital agency called Insteo, which was acquired by Almo several years ago. But he’s also a hobbyist painter, and from what I have seen of his work, pretty good at that, too.
I did a podcast with him back in July 2023, and at that time he explained his ideas around painting with code.
I have been trying to make a painting through either JavaScript or other coding techniques. I started with a more simple approach, and the goal truly was to create something that you’re watching a painting come to life, and my own brief to myself was this needs to look good at every stage of the process. Sometimes a time-lapse at the beginning is. what are we looking at here? And so it’s been a fun process for me to figure out a way to make something, not just paint itself through code, but to be interesting to look at through the entire process, however long it takes, but 30 seconds to a minute is what I’m usually trying to come towards.
But it is truly just code. There are no images, videos, AI, machine learning, or anything else. It’s just a scripted process of creating a unique painting while you watch.
This is a sampler on Linkedin …
The pieces are positioned as being ideal for large format and distinctive fine art displays. These sorts of things can be quite powerful as visuals because they’re a bit hypnotic and you want to keep watching the steady changes. The other thing that sets them apart from much of shape-shifting generative art – with oozing and whirling visuals on big canvases – is that viewers recognize the visuals. I can’t recognize a Refik Anadol piece from real-life experiences, but fields of poppies or daisies, I know.
The other proposition with MOTV’s library is that the pieces likely come in and considerably lower costs than original art, and we’ve seen some other studios like Barcelona’s Instronic start to license dormant material from its archive for use on things like video walls.
I just realized I have been pronouncing this in my head as M O TV, when I supposed the point is to refer to it as sounding the same as “motive.”
It’s tough being stupid …
Thanks for this! Just a clarification – past work focused on 100% code driven visuals. These newer pieces do use AI image prompting techniques. It’s still mostly code, but with AI tools to help.