Walled Garden, 2025
The generative long form NFT collections introduced a highly succesful format in showing the range of coded art as a series of instances. Yet, in its novelty also housed the centuries old model of the edition, a (limited) series of isolated outputs.
The Internet exists as a network of content which is built to be seen. And as Web2.0 emerged, each observer within this network also became content.
In Walled Garden all collectors share the experience of the same central procedural artwork. Perspective creates the unique output rather than variation. And as perspective forces attendance, the observers are all present within the work, and they too become a part of the installation.
The architecture of the garden recalls herman de vries' Sanctuary, in which the GUI becomes the wall to an online peep show. This aspect also brings in Marcel Duchamp's Étant donnés, peeping at an online wild garden in all its beauty, only to be come aware of all the others looking back.
Walled Garden is a place we can look at and be looked at, but not touch. A sanctuary we own, but cannot enter.
Jan Robert Leegte - www.leegte.org
Walled Garden, 2025 (NFT example)
About the NFT collection Walled Garden
Walled Garden is a 20-meter-diameter garden. A lush, natural scene with trees, grasses, and overgrowth, encircled by a high wall. Wind animates the foliage. The sun moves through the day, the moon at night and at the garden's center in the grass lies a sculptural scrollbar, equal parts modern relic and digital readymade.
Surrounding this secluded world are 150 openings punctured randomly into the wall at varying heights. Each NFT in the collection corresponds to one of these vantage points, each a fixed framed view into the interior garden. These windows are not only visual compositions but also social interfaces: when hovering with the mouse, the collector's name or wallet address appears in the windows on the opposite side, turning the experience into a subtle network of presence and observation.
When, price and collection size
Walled Garden is an independant drop by Jan Robert Leegte presented by FakeWhale Curation and will go live on this subdomain.
The collection will consist of 150 NFTs minted on Ethereum mainnet.
Walled Garden will go public on June 5, 2025 at 6:00 PM CEST / 12:00 PM ET / 9:00 AM PT.
The minting price will be 0.2 ETH.
On June 4th at the same time there will be an allowlist presale with a 10% discount. Contact me or Fakewhale to be on the allowlist.
A total of 5 NFTs will be preminted by the artist.
How the minting works
On the mint page you see a top view of Walled Garden.
When you click the mint button, and confirm in metamask, you will start the process of minting your NFT. You will be able to select 1-10 mints at once, and after minting you will be sent to your first mint. A collection menu item will be present, though which you can select your other mints.
Walled Garden, 2025 (NFT detail)
How the work is made
The work has been generated within Houdini. Via a pipepine of Houdini and Babylon.js, the work is a JavaScript app running in the browser. Wind, sun and moon are changing in a shared online global time.
Where to meet with other collectors and stay informed Walled Garden and my other (NFT) projects
Leegte discord server.
About me
Since the late nineties I have been making art on the Internet in the form of websites and digital-related work ever since, resulting in websites, apps, installations, videos, prints, sculptures, audio works and even drawings. The networked computer is the central muse in my work, exploring all its wonders and peculiarities.
My work has been exhibited at The Whitechapel Gallery, Centre Pompidou, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, van Gogh Museum, ZKM Karlsruhe and the Ludwig Museum and acquired by various private and institutional collections. This is my eleventh NFT drop.
Check out my work at www.leegte.org.
My work is represented by Upstream Gallery (Amsterdam) and Office Impart (Berlin).
Shout out
Thank you Eusebi Jucglà for creating incredible tools in Houdini and JavaScript, making it possible to translate the idea of a garden into reality. Thanks to Jake Allen for the blockchain development and thanks to Fakewhale for supporting this project! And of course Fleur Lamers for helping out as studio manager!
Walled Garden, 2025 (NFT example)