Dmitri Cherniak

2024

Floor Ringer

Sculpture

Floor Ringer brings the code of Ringers into three dimensions for the first time. Its metal surfaces and projecting pegs turn the algorithm’s geometry into a freestanding sculpture.

Ringers launched in early 2021 as a series of 1,000 algorithmic works, defined by a limited palette and the geometry of its string-wrapped pegs.

Floor Ringer debuted with AOTM in the inaugural Zero 10 sector at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2025.

Year
2024
Designed with
Zachary Fish
Materials
Stainless steel, patina, machined aluminum
Dimensions
58.25 × 58.25 × 23 inches
Weight
About 700 pounds
Presented by
AOTM
Floor Ringer, a freestanding metal sculpture of looping dark bands and cylindrical pegs on a steel base.
Floor Ringer, 2024.

Photographs

The sculpture

Its form comes from a bug in the original Ringers code. When the string wrapped around a center point that fell outside the grid of pegs, in negative space, the way the algorithm draws fills cut into the shape. Cherniak kept this glitch in the final Ringers set.

The title is literal, a Ringer on the floor, and also a joke. In NFT markets the “floor” is the lowest price, a word heard constantly in the early days. Monumental and heavy, the sculpture turns that negative connotation on its head.

Cherniak cites Isamu Noguchi’s investigations of floor space as an inspiration, in works such as Floor Frame (1962), where the floor becomes an active part of the work. At over five feet tall and about 700 pounds, Floor Ringer takes that gesture to a maximalist scale, rising from the floor rather than resting on it.

Floor Ringer, a freestanding sculpture of dark looping bands and machined aluminum pegs on a steel base, with a framed yellow grid print leaning against the wall behind it.
Floor Ringer, front view.
Floor Ringer seen from an angle, showing the depth of its layered bands and conical aluminum pegs in front of green-framed windows.
Floor Ringer, three-quarter view.
Floor Ringer in profile, its stacked rounded bands and projecting pegs catching sunlight from tall windows.
Floor Ringer, side view.

Fabrication

Behind the scenes

Floor Ringer was fabricated between late 2022 and 2023, as its steel bands were formed and welded and its aluminum pegs machined.

A person crouches beside flat aluminum band shapes and conical pegs laid out on the workshop floor.
Aluminum parts laid out in the workshop, December 2022.
Rows of polished conical aluminum pegs resting on cardboard and cloth on a workshop table.
Machined aluminum pegs, January 2023.
The sculpture’s stainless steel backing plate and curved band walls hang from chains inside a steel frame in the workshop.
The internal frame and band walls during assembly, June 2023.
Dark steel band sections and aluminum pegs wrapped in plastic on workshop tables, with lifting chains hanging nearby.
Sections of the sculpture in progress, July 2023.
A welder in a helmet and leather sleeves welds a curved steel band section, with lifting chains attached and wrapped pegs behind.
Welding the band sections, July 2023.
The finished Floor Ringer stands on a wooden pallet in a sunlit workshop with green-framed windows and a steel worktable.
The finished sculpture in the workshop, September 2023.

Shown at

Exhibitions