The experience of appreciating generative art on a digital display is different than a desktop or laptop computer. The computer is likely located in a less communal room such as an office and usually requires the act of sitting down at a desk. A digital display can be placed in a living room or dining room and allows for a more frequent and varied viewing experience (e.g., sitting near, standing in front of, walking by, etc.) These communal rooms allow for more people (visitors and habitants) to appreciate the art on a more regular basis.&#x20;

The Google Nest Hub Max does not reach out to IPFS for the artwork. Rather, it requires images to be uploaded to a dedicated album within the Google Photos cloud service \[[1↗](https://photos.google.com/)]. The setting for Personal Photo Curation in the Photo Frame needs to be set to Live Albums Only to ensure that none of the images in the selected albums will be omitted from the slideshow. One drawback is that the Photo Frame will display the images randomly and thus some may appear more frequently than others. Still images are the only option for a slideshow within the Photo Frame. Animated images can be viewed manually in the device’s native web browser, but some pieces do not render and a few pieces will cause the unit to spontaneously restart. The unit has energy-saving display options: the minimum brightness can be set to dark, dim, bright or brighter, and the display can be set to turn off when a room is either dim or dark. \[[2↗](https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9137130)]

The device has a display resolution of 1280 x 800 px \[[3↗](https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7072284?hl=en-GB#zippy=%2Cgoogle-nest-hub-max)]. For displaying still images in the Photo Frame, each iteration is manually setup on a canvas to match the display resolution. Artwork benefited from 50 px spacing at the top and bottom. I selected a background color of Skimming Stone by Farrow & Ball Ltd.—the paint company used at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City \[[4↗](https://www.farrow-ball.com/en-us/moma)].

![Preparation for digital display: a canvas of 1280 x 800 px, a background color of Skimming Stone by Farrow & Ball and the placement of Attachment #27 by Jeres.](ipfs://QmYX12PJYLnHNAS9t6Pz6iEXSdzJdGEjDAvEjwvTLQfUrf)

![Preparation for digital display: 10 canvases of 1280 x 800 px with Attachment #27, #43, #215, #282, #283, #217, #87, #154, #175 and #137 by Jeres.](ipfs://QmYbCJgq1Nx2RUjQX9VG1ukN2SLvtRDXwkdN9RK8kpLUPo)

The Photo Frame shows screen slider bars at the right and bottom edges by default. These obstruct the artwork and can be switched off by toggling the Ultrasound Sensing setting to the off position \[[5↗](https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9509981?hl=en)]. For the Slideshow Speed \[[6↗](https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9136992?hl=en)], the 5s and 10s settings seem too short while 30s and 1m seem more suitable to appreciate the art. Attempts were made at creating pairs of both square-based iterations and portrait-based iterations, but this resulted in having to resize pieces to smaller dimensions and there seemed to be some loss of fidelity.&#x20;

Due to glare, clarity and color fidelity, it was challenging to make a video of a sample slideshow. Here is one attempt at a video. Trust me when I say—it looks better in person. Imagine someone at a dinner party, uninitiated to generative art, and they come upon this digital display. Conversations will surely ensue!

::video[]{src="ipfs://QmZHik5AepskJPtUMouDWLDnLUzWx5juifN1jXF8bwDZgr"}

Visit the *Attachment* project link below to view more iterations.

::tezos-storage-pointer[]{contract="KT1BJC12dG17CVvPKJ1VYaNnaT5mzfnUTwXv" path="ledger::12944" data_spec="FX-GEN-DATA-002"}

```js
Sources

[1] “Google Photos.” Google, https://photos.google.com/. 
[2] “Ambient EQ of your Google Nest display.” Google, https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9137130. 
[3] “Google Nest and Home Device Specifications.” Google, https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7072284?hl=en-GB#zippy=%2Cgoogle-nest-hub-max. 
[4] “Museum of Modern Art Sponsorship.” Farrow & Ball, https://www.farrow-ball.com/en-us/moma. 
[5] “Turn on Ultrasound sensing.” Google, https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9509981?hl=en. 
[6] “Photo frame on your Google Nest display.” Google, https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9136992?hl=en.

```


A digital display or digital frame allows one to spend more time appreciating cherished generative artworks. While a large wall display would be ideal, as a starting point, this author experimented with Google Nest Hub Max’s "Photo Frame" to display art from fx(hash). 

📰 https://www.fxhash.xyz/u/Seán/articles
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Digital Displays: Spending More Time with Generative Art

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