pico_punks
Generative character/avatar systems exploring procedural generation, identity, and pareidolia.
What Are pico_punks?
pico_punks is a generative avatar project built entirely in Pico-8—no manual intervention, no pre-rendered components, just code running in a fantasy console creating infinite procedural characters.
Started as something inspired by DOS Punks and CryptoPunks, but fully generative and interactive. What began as bordering on satire evolved into genuine identity exploration. My profile picture across platforms is a pico_punk. It's not just a representation—it's constitutive of how I present myself online.
Core Themes
- Identity: How procedural systems create things that feel personal and representative
- Pareidolia: Your brain completes noise patterns into faces and characters
- Irreversibility: Layer-based accumulation where you can't undo, only start fresh
- Co-creation: The curator/user shapes outcomes through navigation and parameter choices
- Noise as material: Visual corruption as aesthetic feature, not bug
Series Evolution
The series progressed from isolated generators to interactive exploration systems:
- Early generators: One seed → one punk. Interactive but deterministic.
- Layer-based navigation: Move through generative space, each step adds a layer
- Effect systems: Probabilistic visual corruption (noise, glitches, memory manipulation)
- Generator generator: fxparams let you configure your own generator before exploring
The final piece—pico_punk_generator_generator.p8—is the terminus. It's as complete as I can make it.
On Making Identity
The parameter selection phase lets you tune the aesthetic: choose color palette, set effect frequencies, configure initial composition. Then you explore—arrow keys navigate, each step adds a layer, visual effects apply probabilistically.
You're not selecting from a gallery. You're building something through accumulated choices. The punk you create carries the trace of your path through possibility space. It couldn't have been made without you.
What started as a technical exercise in generative portraiture became a meditation on identity formation itself.
Finding the First Generator
The first pico_punk generator (2021) is preserved on hicetnunc/Teia. It's the origin point—simpler, less parametric, but containing the core concepts that would develop into the generator generator.