IX Shells (Panamanian, b. 1990) is the pseudonym of Itzel Yard, who creates generative art in TouchDesigner, layering sound, rhythm and glitch into a style she calls “Caribbean glitch”.In May 2021, her collaboration with The Tor Project on Dreaming at Dusk sold for 500 ETH, then more than two million dollars,and she was named to Fortune's NFTy 50 list that year.,
Yard began learning about cryptography and computer science in school, then continued teaching herself onlineand found her way to TouchDesigner, a visual, node-based programming language.Architecture, particularly Brutalist structures, and patterns from her daily life run through her work, which she builds from glitch, gradients and pixelation into layered, rhythmic compositions.A drummer, she listens to musicians such as Nils Frahm and Jon Hopkins while workingand has described experiencing synesthesia, seeing patterns in sound.Her first NFT sale was to fellow artist Dmitri Cherniak, whose purchase let her pursue art full time.,She went on to build a crypto art community in Panamaand later co-founded Creative Code Art, an artist-led community supporting emerging generative artists.
In 2021 she made Casco Viejo, an abstract composition inspired by the paved streets and plazas of Panama City, among the first works made available through Sotheby's Metaverse. The following year Avant Arte released a collaboration building on the piece.For Fortune magazine's April/May 2023 issue on the crypto market's recovery, she created a cover artwork later released as the NFT edition 1337.That year she was also one of fifteen artists invited to take part in MoMA's blockchain-based Postcard project.,Her video work Bend, made after she began dancing during Panama's pandemic lockdowns,entered the permanent collection of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum in 2023.
In 2024 the National Gallery of Denmark's exhibition “Against All Odds: Historical Women and New Algorithms” featured her as its only digital artist, built around an interactive installation.For Christie's 2024 auction “Bridging Worlds: Digital Art Beyond Borders”, held to support UNHCR, she contributed Rompeolas — Resurgiendo a través de la Resistencia, describing displacement as “an emotional and spiritual state”.In 2025 she presented No Me Olvides, a solo generative installation of light, sound and data shown by Fellowship and ARTXCODE at Art Basel Miami Beach's new Zero 10 section for digital art.,The work linked the histories of Nordic women artists to her own Afro-Caribbean and Latin American heritage.She made it with long-time collaborator Rosendo Morel Choy using TouchDesigner, Notch and LiDAR.,
