Cure³ Unites the Art World to Cure Parkinson’s

This year sees the return of Cure³’s digital section for the fifth edition of the landmark contemporary art exhibition in support of Parkinson’s research. Originally established by Artwise Curators back in 2017, at the most recent edition, sales of digital art by seven artists helped to raise over £240,000 for Cure Parkinson’s, contributing significantly to the event’s unprecedented £700,000 total. This year’s expanded digital art exhibition showcases works by 11 extraordinary generative artists using code as a creative medium, with sales once again taking place on generative art platform fx(hash).

This new model of charitable giving has been made possible through the power of Web3, the third iteration of the internet. Based on blockchain technology, Web3 has not only transformed how digital art is created and shared; it has also reshaped charitable initiatives like Cure3. By aligning generative art with a charitable purpose, fx(hash) demonstrates how its values of openness and accessibility can drive both artistic and social progress, creating a meaningful impact that extends beyond the digital realm. ‍

‍What has been striking in 2025 is just how many artists have wanted to pair their digital collections with a physical cube. This supports the view that we are now entering a world of hybrid practices that intersects traditional and digital media in an expanding art world. (Alex Estorick and Foteini Valeonti)‍

Cure³ digital is guest curated by Alex Estorick and Foteini Valeonti, co-founders of reGEN, an initiative that has now raised over half a million pounds for charities dedicated to fighting degenerative diseases around the world. The combination of reGEN and fx(hash) together with The Giving Block, which empowers charities to accept crypto donations, has helped to turn Cure³ into a fertile zone between art and technology that is impacting lives around the world. In the following conversation, the artists of Cure³ digital discuss how generative art can alter perceptions of Parkinson’s disease and support the search for a cure.

Alex Estorick & Foteini Valeonti: What does it mean to you to participate in Cure³? 

Emily Edelman: I feel lucky to be able to contribute my hard work to important research. Cure³ is a meaningful cause to me because it honors and elevates art as an asset powerful enough to create value toward good. I’m proud to participate!  ‍

Auriea Harvey & Michaël Samyn: For quite a while now, Michael has had a desire to create generative art based on historical ornamentation. While Auriea, despite having minted many NFT artworks and in spite of multiple invitations, has never gotten around to long-form generative art. 

Cure³ offered an opportunity which stimulated us to join forces once again after several years of solo activities. So this is a premiere on several levels. 

That Cure³ supports the search for a cure for a frustratingly debilitating disease only made it better for us. Participating in such a project gives us an opportunity to practice the love of our neighbor and care for the sick, for which we are very grateful as Christians. As a child, Michael witnessed the effects of Parkinson’s on an elderly colleague of his father’s. The periods of uncontrollable shaking interspersed with virtual paralysis made a deep impression on his memory. So, yes: let’s cure this awful thing!‍

Licia He: Artmaking is the most magical and rewarding way to spend my time. I see each of my works as part of my life. Creating art for a good cause like Cure³ is always empowering for me. Besides creating positive energy and connections, such projects also remind me of the power of art — that these pieces of my life could bring a positive impact to people in need.

‍Aleksandra Jovanić: We live in a time when constant reminders are necessary to guide our focus toward important causes. I feel grateful for the opportunity to take part in this exhibition, and in the process highlight and support scientific research into Parkinson’s disease. Hopefully, there will be more initiatives like this one, ensuring that progress continues for the benefit of those affected and future generations.‍

Kitel: First of all, this is a tremendous honor for me. Over the past few years, I’ve been amazed at the twists and turns life can bring to an ordinary person. Things that once seemed completely impossible or highly unlikely have now become a reality. Sometimes these twists are joyful, sometimes painful, but if someone had told me a few years ago that what started as a hobby or mere curiosity would lead to me participating in a charity fundraiser for the fight against Parkinson’s disease, I would have hardly believed it. What makes Cure³ particularly meaningful to me is that, perhaps naively, it allows me, albeit indirectly, to feel like a doctor or scientist, helping those in need.‍

Jacek Markusiewicz: Participating in a fundraising exhibition comes with limitations. This is a good thing. It’s easier to work when there is a deadline to meet, a theme to stick to, and a specific intention behind the process. It’s motivating to believe that you are doing something that can help people.‍

Piter Pasma: This project is a milestone in my ongoing journey describing three-dimensional scenes with line art suitable for plotter/robot drawing using a minimal amount of code. After my “rayhatching” projects such as Industrial Devolution (2022) and Universal Rayhatcher (2023), I have developed a single line-scribbling algorithm that I had no choice but to call the “rayscratcher.”

Nat Sarkissian: It’s a huge honor, and still a bit bewildering to me to be able to create art that helps drive progress toward curing Parkinson’s disease. I’m so grateful to be included in this beautiful event.‍

Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez: To me it’s very important to be able to apply my artistic practice in areas where it can have an impact beyond the expected action of an artwork, even more so if it can support causes in the fields of health or education. My grandfather had to deal with this particular illness, so I have an emotional connection as well as an aspiration to support this cause in whichever way possible.‍

Bjørn Staal: I find it very meaningful to be able to work on something I’m passionate about while supporting an organization focused on reducing the suffering of millions of people. As artists, although we would like to think that we are having a real impact on the world through our work, it’s obvious that we can’t do much to help directly people suffering from physical conditions like Parkinson’s. Sometimes, I’m overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness, realising how little I’m directly contributing to solving real problems. From that perspective it’s encouraging to be able to contribute, if only a little, through an initiative like this.‍

Florian Zumbrunn: It’s an honor to contribute to Cure³ and support such a meaningful cause. 

When I released Tout tracé (2023) on Art Blocks, I chose to donate a portion of the proceeds to charity, which I’ve wanted to make a recurring part of my practice. Opportunities like Cure³ bring that aspiration to life, and I’m grateful to be part of it today.‍

AE & FV: reGEN supports generative artists in fighting degenerative diseases. What can you tell us about the project that you’ve developed for Cure³? Have you adapted your approach to the question of degeneration or indeed regeneration? 

MSR: I have sought to convey intangible aspects of the human condition. Illness deprives many of the feeling of human dignity, or else it creates that appearance. Yet we are equally human no matter our condition, and my new work examines that. With above/beneath all & all above/beneath I have chosen to imbue the system with a number of restrictions, exploring the human condition with a simple set of rules. The emergence of images that tickle some emotional facet of the viewer is, then, as interesting as life itself. By using visual metaphors to express the essence of the human figure, the random combination of different degrees of freedom mimics the realities of life: from degeneration to regeneration, and from grief to celebration. 

My work for Cure³ mimics the ways that light creates what we see — jagged spaces and rough surfaces — travelling in non-uniform ways through areas of low resolution. In doing so, it seeks to conjure some of the symptoms associated with Parkinson’s disease while bringing a level of warmth to an otherwise cold, synthetic image. 

‍The work is much like patients who, despite the burdens of their condition, manage to carry on with their own lives and touch with their inner light the lives of those around them.‍

NS: For Never the Same (2025), I leaned into two major themes: the cycle of life and death, and continuous change. I expressed these in a couple of ways. The flowers and plants in the scenes are constantly growing and eventually dying, to be replaced by new growth. The wind constantly buffets and disturbs the plants to varying degrees. Finally, the shape of the scene, where the flowers grow and where the grass grows, is ever-shifting.‍

PP: Rendered as single line drawings, Impossible Sentinels (2025) depicts carefully selected configurations of the double shells of melded spheres and toruses, surface intersections inflated to produce tubular deteriorations of familiarity.‍

FZ: My work often explores themes of growth, mental health, and duality. This project continues in that vein, adding a layer of complexity by conveying the impression of worlds and perspectives merging, almost colliding. In the process, it creates the experience of disorientation. Your mention of degeneration and regeneration resonates deeply with what I’ve aimed to capture in this work: a meeting of two opposing forces in constant transformation. This duality expresses fragility and resilience, decay and renewal — concepts intrinsic to the human experience.‍

‍AH & MS: The title of our piece is a quote from the Italian version of the Nicene Creed. “Generato non creato” refers to how Jesus was not created by God like the rest of us, but begotten like a son, as “Light from Light”. Since “through him all things were made,” we thought it would be an excellent theme for a generative project. 

Every day, on Catholic altars around the world, the miracle of the incarnation takes place in the form of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist where our Savior comes to us in the form of bread and wine. Eating the body of Christ not only joins us together as a community, but it also restores the damage done to our souls by evil. It regenerates us! The Holy Host is at the center of Generato non creato (2025), surrounded by ornaments inspired by the monstrances used as vessels to display the bread for adoration. The former Pope, Saint John Paul II was deeply devoted to Eucharistic adoration. Despite suffering from Parkinson’s disease, he continued this devotion to the end.‍

BS: While I was developing Losing Oneself (2025) for Cure³ I tried to engage with the topic in a way that felt sincere and personal to me. I don’t have first-hand experience of someone suffering from Parkinson’s disease so I can only imagine how it must feel to gradually lose control over one’s body and mind. I do have a general interest in neurology, psychology, and other related topics however, which deepens my meditation practice. 

When sitting in silence for hours on end one starts to become aware of all the ways the body, mind, and perception are intimately connected through our nervous system and how one’s sense of self is ultimately unstable and sometimes even completely absent. I chose to work with this insight as a basis for exploring the different ways we lose ourselves in the process of trying to find our way through life. It’s a constant battle of disintegration and regeneration, confronting the paradox of our own sense of agency in this complex world in which we are enmeshed.‍

‍K: Although at a technical level this project was created from scratch with entirely new code, it resonates visually with my earlier work, Fields of the Abandoned Homeland (2023). However, my new work, The Longest Night (2025), is more introspective and may be closely tied to the devolution of emotions and desires of a person forced to live in a state of constrained freedoms, where opportunities for self-realization are limited.‍

AJ: My project for Cure³, The Anatomy of Reflection (2025), is the third segment in my ongoing “Anatomies” series, which explores the interplay between human experience and code. Each work in the series is loosely based on the same algorithm, which diverges over time from its original set of instructions. By accepting certain restrictions, we may overcome them, allowing for the emergence of new solutions and forms. 

‍Through an intricate interweaving of various states, The Anatomy of Reflection aims to show how reflection can trigger regeneration at the level of the code and within ourselves.‍

LH: The work I have contributed to Cure³ is a collection of 120 plotter paintings titled Expansion Explained (2025). The concept of expansion has been an essential element across many of my generative works, including Running Moon (2022) and Sparkling Goodbye (2023). In 2024, I introduced my expansion algorithm to a broader audience through Painting With Plotters, a participatory design event hosted at the V&A. My new collection is a sequence of 120 paintings that illustrates the expansion algorithm’s construction. Each image was translated into a plotter-operating script and was physically rendered with a brush and fountain pen ink using a high-precision pen plotter (AxiDraw V3/A3). 

My new collection of 120 paintings is hosted on a custom-designed and 3D-printed display stand. The collection can be enjoyed individually as paintings, digitally as a stop-motion animation, and collectively as an assembled sculpture.‍

JM: My project, in osculari (2025), is inspired by an interesting relationship between degeneration and healing. There is a botanical phenomenon called inosculation, where branches of one or two different trees intertwine and grow together. It happens when two branches grow so close that the bark peels off through friction. The new tissue produced in the healing process cross-links both sides to the point where water and minerals can flow between them. 

For in osculari I have replaced living tissue with digital matter encapsulated in a cube. This virtual seed can expand in six directions, branching into an orthogonal tree-like structure. When two branches meet in this system, just like natural branches the digital bark may gradually peel away while the exposed digital tissue hidden underneath blends together. This healing process tells a story about the resilience of a living being and how its fragmented parts come together, offering strength and hope for regeneration.‍

‍EE: Generative art is a way of creating something larger than myself. I design rules and introduce randomness into a system before stepping back to let unexpected outputs emerge, sometimes running into the thousands. All of life is generative, with its implemented rules and unpredictability. Yet like the process of artmaking, the results aren’t always ideal. It is fitting that an exhibition of generative art is supporting a charity dedicated to degenerative disease, one of life’s cruel permutations. 

My latest project, Carfax (2025), explores the coding and manipulation of my own handwriting. In this instance, my script has been transformed from something legible to a dense, fervent texture. Characters are stretched, warped, and layered until they transcend communication, becoming a visual manifestation of raw human expression. ‍

‍The loss of legibility in both handwriting and speech may be familiar to those with experience of Parkinson’s disease. Yet despite this degeneration, a whole and human core persists. ‍

AE & FV: How do you view this project in the context of your career?

AH & MS: We have been developing generative systems for over two decades through our realtime art — net art, video games, and VR (virtual reality) installations. However, opportunities for creating such projects have shrunk over the years, while several of our old projects don’t run anymore. ‍Technology seems to suffer from a degenerative disease. The current NFT-based generative art only presents a miniscule aspect of what used to be a much more ambitious enterprise. But we adapt to the times and try to present something beautiful in new formats. Perhaps the creative project of our lives could be defined as an attempt to regenerate beauty.‍

NS: This project is both new and familiar. I’ve enjoyed making art around nature, plants, and flowers for some time now, so this fits with my body of work. However, it was a good challenge to investigate animation and dynamism. The fact that this work comes out of an algorithm allows me to give it multiple modes of existence. It works as a single, still image, but also as a looping animation, and as a time-lapse animation. I’m excited to see how the work is consumed and observed.

‍LH: While in recent years I have focused on creating still images, my recent work with generative plotter paintings has led me to new formats. Expansion Explained is one of the first A6 ink-based animations I have created. It represents a fascinating new branch for me. ‍

AJ: This project is part of my ongoing research into various physical representations of code, whose every iteration offers unique insights — unexpected textures, behaviors, and interactions. In this context, discoveries made in the material world are brought back into the virtual environment, influencing the algorithm and expanding its creative possibilities. This cyclical process fosters a dynamic dialogue between code and matter, where each medium inspires and transforms the other.‍

PP: My work for Cure³ is defined in under 5,000 characters of code, to generate 50 curated outputs selected by me that together average out at fewer than 99 characters per picture.

K: Cure³ is the most significant event that I’ve participated in so far and my first offline exhibition. This piece is opening new and important doors for me, ones that I’ve never stepped through before.‍

BS: In comparison to my other work, it’s clear that this series is less bombastic in its scale and immediate qualities. But in my mind that doesn’t make it less interesting. In a way, I have put more of myself into this work and I’m hoping it will resonate with people on a deeper level. 

In a market driven by hype and sensationalism this is of course a risk to take but I find it important to challenge myself and my audience in ways that can promote stillness and reflection at a time when the opposite is the norm.

Although I’m still working with code as my primary tool, this work is unique in the sense that it’s the first and only series of plotter drawings that I have released. I have used the project to get more intimately acquainted with this unique medium, testing out a wide range of pens, inks, papers, and plotting techniques in a constant relay between the digital and the physical. It feels like returning to the origins of generative art, working with the most basic elements of computer graphics, while at the same time exploring deeply human qualities such as texture, scale, and tactility.‍

EE: Text and typography have gripped me throughout my career in design. Handwriting is also interesting to me as a form of text that is unique to each of us — a blueprint of the brain. While Carfax is the latest in an exploration of handwriting as personal textual expression, it also marks a new development in my practice where a motif as familiar as the written word is warped to the degree that it loses its legibility as both content and handwriting. In some of the outputs, the only clue that the base element is handwritten is a subtle forward slant of vertical lines. Recognizable handwriting is thus replaced by a texture that nevertheless maintains the emotion and catharsis of the act of writing.‍

JM: One important question I ask myself when making art is how to shape digital matter. 

Real-world materials take particular forms due to their physical properties, technological necessities, and natural limitations. However, in a simulated environment, there are no physical constraints. If something can take any form, then what form should it take? 

I explored this in my previous projects, 7.356 degrees (2023) and de|growth:generations (2022), where I was playing with simple mathematical rules that resulted in complex three-dimensional forms. My new work, in osculari, continues this line of inquiry. The form-finding process follows the logic of tree growth, whereby no part obscures another in order to capture as much of the sun’s energy as possible. In this case, it’s not the sun but rather the viewer’s eye that shapes the work’s structure. But by limiting it to orthogonality, the work also recalls human-made rather than natural structures.‍

MSR: There are a number of overarching themes in this work. Illness is a major element, since illness has struck my family on many occasions and I have tried to find ways of being as much help as I can. Understanding plays a supportive role in the form of questioning and exploring what it means to be human. 

At a technical level my new work evolves the approach that I have always used to investigate humans and emotion, firstly at Bright Moments in Mexico City, then in my previous project for Cure³, all that remains (2023), and then through a highly personal piece about the Mediterranean Sea from where I originate, which considers the difficulties surrounding immigration. In this case, I have subjected my figures to various forms of abstraction, aiming to represent the ways in which we take on different states over time, and how we are both different from and the same as everyone else.‍

FZ: This project aligns perfectly with what I’ve been exploring lately: how to evoke nostalgia and intrigue through organic movement and complex, layered compositions. My goal is to challenge perception, inviting viewers to lose themselves in the work, navigating its intricate details and textures. Since late 2024, I’ve been focused on adding more organic flow to my works. This project feels like a natural progression, as if I’m on the right path to deepening my practice. It also underscores my commitment to connecting personal expression with broader, impactful causes.