PXLKIM ASENDORF
07.11 - 09.13.2026PALO ALTO
Kim Asendorf makes art by building rule-based systems and setting them in motion in relation to each other, hoping to be surprised by what emerges. Many of his algorithms govern the position and movement of pixels: sorting them by luminosity, varying their speed, shifting them abruptly from one point on the screen to another. In a time when high-definition screens make it easy to take the pixel for granted, Asendorf's emergent systems create hypnotic, strikingly beautiful forms that draw attention to the fundamental element of computer graphics.
In 2025, Asendorf embarked on PXL, an ongoing series where his algorithmic thinking encompasses not only what happens on the screen but what happens in the networks around it. The connective tissue of this body of work is $PXL, a utility token that ties each coin to a pixel that appears in the artwork. Asendorf has set a cap of 1,024,000,000 $PXL, and several hundred million have been issued so far. Collectors who acquire $PXL can add pixels to smart contracts governing works in the PXL ecosystem that they own, altering the density and affecting how the systems interact to produce forms. These works are participatory and open-ended, responsive to market activity and collector decisions, even as they hold pixels and the forms they create as the primary object of attention.
Asendorf belongs to a generation that came of age as the internet did, drawn to its early promise of free and democratic exchange. He has released his original algorithms as open-source software for others to remix and build upon, believing that art becomes more meaningful as more people use it. PXL is his most ambitious experiment in that spirit of openness and participation. It elegantly maps computational visuality onto the social structures that form around it. On view here are the three works released so far in the PXL ecosystem: PXL DEX (2025), PXL POD (2026), and PXL NET (2026). You're invited to join the network, and be part of the art.
In 2025, Asendorf embarked on PXL, an ongoing series where his algorithmic thinking encompasses not only what happens on the screen but what happens in the networks around it. The connective tissue of this body of work is $PXL, a utility token that ties each coin to a pixel that appears in the artwork. Asendorf has set a cap of 1,024,000,000 $PXL, and several hundred million have been issued so far. Collectors who acquire $PXL can add pixels to smart contracts governing works in the PXL ecosystem that they own, altering the density and affecting how the systems interact to produce forms. These works are participatory and open-ended, responsive to market activity and collector decisions, even as they hold pixels and the forms they create as the primary object of attention.
Asendorf belongs to a generation that came of age as the internet did, drawn to its early promise of free and democratic exchange. He has released his original algorithms as open-source software for others to remix and build upon, believing that art becomes more meaningful as more people use it. PXL is his most ambitious experiment in that spirit of openness and participation. It elegantly maps computational visuality onto the social structures that form around it. On view here are the three works released so far in the PXL ecosystem: PXL DEX (2025), PXL POD (2026), and PXL NET (2026). You're invited to join the network, and be part of the art.
PXL NET
2026
PXL NET is built on a particle system, a simulation technique that has been used since the early 1980s to generate effects difficult to animate by hand: fire, smoke, water, crowds. Each particle is both an individual with its own position and velocity, and a member of a population whose overall form is not controlled by any one participant.
Asendorf uses the particle system not to imitate nature but to model the pixel as a computational and social object—a duality that precisely describes $PXL. As multiple layers of algorithms interact, a simulated camera pans and zooms through virtual space, moving toward sites where new forms are emerging. PXL NET creates images of a network that is always evolving, too vast to be seen from any one perspective.
Most of Asendorf's works are freely viewable online. PXL NET is different. With over one hundred million pixels to start, and more to be added over this exhibition's run, its scale exceeds what a home computer can render. Experiencing the work in its intended form requires specialized resources like the computers at NODE.
Read essay by Brian Droitcour
2026
PXL NET is built on a particle system, a simulation technique that has been used since the early 1980s to generate effects difficult to animate by hand: fire, smoke, water, crowds. Each particle is both an individual with its own position and velocity, and a member of a population whose overall form is not controlled by any one participant.
Asendorf uses the particle system not to imitate nature but to model the pixel as a computational and social object—a duality that precisely describes $PXL. As multiple layers of algorithms interact, a simulated camera pans and zooms through virtual space, moving toward sites where new forms are emerging. PXL NET creates images of a network that is always evolving, too vast to be seen from any one perspective.
Most of Asendorf's works are freely viewable online. PXL NET is different. With over one hundred million pixels to start, and more to be added over this exhibition's run, its scale exceeds what a home computer can render. Experiencing the work in its intended form requires specialized resources like the computers at NODE.
Read essay by Brian Droitcour
PXL POD
2026
Where PXL NET is constantly shapeshifting, PXL POD organizes pixels into form. Each POD is a simulated cylindrical volume that collectors can infuse with additional $PXL. Feedback loops track the movement of pixels through the cylinder's vertices, accumulating a record of past states so that a POD's current configuration is a function of its entire history. As a POD acquires a distinctive trajectory, it evolves in directions that Asendorf himself didn't anticipate.
Each POD can be viewed in multiple orientations, at varying pixel densities, rotating at different speeds. You're invited to use the MIDI controller to turn these virtual objects over, shift your perspective, and explore the systems Asendorf has set in motion.
“It is curious that the pixel, that most rigid and geometric of visual units, should become, in Asendorf's hands, the material for something so close to painting. Every point of light remains visible, distinct, irreducible. And yet in aggregate, these points produce forms that pulse, breathe, interact, and suggest a volume that exists except in the viewer's perception. The pixel, tokenized and multiplied, becomes something more than itself.”
—Mimi Nguyen, gallerist
2026
Where PXL NET is constantly shapeshifting, PXL POD organizes pixels into form. Each POD is a simulated cylindrical volume that collectors can infuse with additional $PXL. Feedback loops track the movement of pixels through the cylinder's vertices, accumulating a record of past states so that a POD's current configuration is a function of its entire history. As a POD acquires a distinctive trajectory, it evolves in directions that Asendorf himself didn't anticipate.
Each POD can be viewed in multiple orientations, at varying pixel densities, rotating at different speeds. You're invited to use the MIDI controller to turn these virtual objects over, shift your perspective, and explore the systems Asendorf has set in motion.
“It is curious that the pixel, that most rigid and geometric of visual units, should become, in Asendorf's hands, the material for something so close to painting. Every point of light remains visible, distinct, irreducible. And yet in aggregate, these points produce forms that pulse, breathe, interact, and suggest a volume that exists except in the viewer's perception. The pixel, tokenized and multiplied, becomes something more than itself.”
—Mimi Nguyen, gallerist
PXL DEX
2025
The first work in the PXL cycle began when Asendorf experimented with translating algorithms he wrote for an earlier work from 2D to 3D. That dimensional shift introduced a new variable, and with it, new behavior, as Asendorf explored the textures pixels could create in isometric space.
PXL DEX is also the foundation of the broader PXL ecosystem's conceptual premise: the pixel not merely as a unit of display, but as a token. This dual identity makes it a material with properties that can be manipulated and shared. What began here sets the terms for everything that follows.
“To watch these pieces unfold is to understand what a screen is capable of... This is a series that probes the borders of what screen-based work can be, which also involves the viewer/collector in a way that pushes beyond perception into collaboration.”
—Kevin Buist, art critic
2025
The first work in the PXL cycle began when Asendorf experimented with translating algorithms he wrote for an earlier work from 2D to 3D. That dimensional shift introduced a new variable, and with it, new behavior, as Asendorf explored the textures pixels could create in isometric space.
PXL DEX is also the foundation of the broader PXL ecosystem's conceptual premise: the pixel not merely as a unit of display, but as a token. This dual identity makes it a material with properties that can be manipulated and shared. What began here sets the terms for everything that follows.
“To watch these pieces unfold is to understand what a screen is capable of... This is a series that probes the borders of what screen-based work can be, which also involves the viewer/collector in a way that pushes beyond perception into collaboration.”
—Kevin Buist, art critic
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