Born in Austin, Texas—where he continues to live and work—Tyler Hobbs (b. 1987) has always been fascinated by art. As a child he spent time drawing comic books by hand, and later dabbled in a number of figurative genres through oil painting. He discovered a deep admiration for the Abstract Expressionists, as well as artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Vincent van Gogh, Agnes Martin, Bridget Riley, Sol LeWitt and Mark Bradford. After studying computer science at university, and working as a software engineer for a start-up, Hobbs began to think about ways in which the two disciplines might collide. By 2014, he had started to document his thoughts in a series of online essays, contemplating in particular the role of randomness in art and the natural world. It was during this period that Hobbs first tried his hand at generative art, conducting his earliest experiments with flow fields in 2016. His process remains one of trial and adaptation: the artist refines his algorithms through the inclusion of spontaneous ideas and bugs, often leading him into wild and unforeseen territory. In Fidenza, he explains, ‘the core structures of the algorithm are highly flexible, allowing for enough variety to produce continuously surprising results’ (T. Hobbs, quoted in J. Borg, ‘Tyler Hobbs: Who Is The NFT Artist Behind Fidenza?’, NFT Evening, 29 June 2022).