The project · 2023
A postcard passed around the world
MoMA Postcard invited people to create together through a digital chain letter. Each postcard contained fifteen stamps, added by successive participants as the card traveled from person to person. The stamps were recorded on the blockchain.
Cherniak was one of the fifteen artists invited to launch the project with its first fifteen postcards. Each artist proposed a prompt, and the cards circulated among the group. His postcard prompt was “Create a pixel goose.” He invited fellow artists to create goose avatars within MoMA’s 10 × 10 pixel grid and color palette. He built a browser-based goose generator so each participant could choose a stamp that represented them.
The prompt pays homage to the culture of profile-picture projects and to Ringers #879, known as “The Goose”: a chance resemblance that became a shared symbol for the community.
- MoMA Postcard: Collaboration and Creativity on BlockchainMoMA Magazine · Madeleine Pierpont · 3 October 2023
- MoMA’s exhibition page
55,498 miles traveled
15 artists 12–23 August 2023
Locations are approximate. Distances follow MoMA’s journey record.
Dmitri Cherniak
MoMA, New York, United States
Starting location
Select a stamp to follow the journey.
The software
Goose Generator
Created for the postcard, goosegenerator.com turns a 10 × 10 grid into a field of possible goose avatars. Colors, expressions, hairstyles, poses, and accessories vary from one output to the next. Participants could select the goose that felt most like them.
The generator’s outputs were released under CC0, intentionally minimizing copyright restrictions so people could freely reuse, remix, and put their own geese on blockchains. Making the software available online opened the prompt to a much wider audience and let the imagery travel beyond the original postcard.
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Beyond the postcard
Goosinals and geese across blockchains
Community members began taking outputs from Goose Generator and putting them on blockchains. On Bitcoin, images were inscribed through Ordinals and gathered into the collection known as Goosinals. The generator supplied the visual language; participants created and collected the inscriptions.
Other goose works and collections appeared across multiple blockchains. What began as a tool for fifteen postcard stamps became material for communities to adopt, circulate, and reinterpret.
- Explore the Goosinals collectionOrdinals Wallet · Community inscriptions on Bitcoin
- Read about the origins of GoosinalsPANews · Nancy · In Chinese
An essay by Dmitri Cherniak
On MoMA Postcard
On a global community, pixel geese, and returning to MoMA as a “postman.”