{
  "schema": "ab5d-dossier/1",
  "slug": "hannah-yan",
  "name": "Hannah Yan",
  "subtitle": "Taste, texture, and the logic of recurrence",
  "lede": "Hannah Yan brings the analytical habits of data visualization into generative art. In *Totem of Taste*, mathematical trajectories become luminous, stone-like forms charged with culinary memory.",
  "url": "https://ab5d.xyz/artists/hannah-yan/",
  "bibliography_url": "https://ab5d.xyz/artists/hannah-yan/links/",
  "content_url": "https://ab5d.xyz/api/artists/hannah-yan.json",
  "updated": "2026-07-11",
  "tier": "compact",
  "editions": 128,
  "collections": 1,
  "otdh": {
    "rank": 250,
    "score": 8930,
    "collector_identities": 83,
    "holder_addresses": 83,
    "projects": 1,
    "current_works": 127,
    "raw_collector_days": 158311,
    "median_project_hold_days": 1397,
    "snapshot_at": "2026-09-14T00:00:00.000Z",
    "methodology_url": "https://ab5d.xyz/artists/otdh/",
    "api_url": "https://ab5d.xyz/api/otdh/hannah-yan"
  },
  "identity": {
    "artist": "Hannah Yan",
    "website": "https://www.hannahyan.com/blog-tot",
    "based": null,
    "practice": "Generative art, creative coding, and data visualization shaped through algorithmic systems and visual storytelling",
    "now": null,
    "raster": "https://www.raster.art/artist/hannah-yan",
    "otdh": "[8,930 · rank 250 of 308](/artists/otdh/#artist-hannah-yan)",
    "holding signal": "83 collector identities · 83 holder addresses · 158,311 raw collector-days · 14 Sep 2026",
    "collector tdh": "[hyTDH](/artists/hannah-yan/hytdh/) · dashboard"
  },
  "socials": {
    "website": "https://www.hannahyan.com/blog-tot",
    "x": null,
    "instagram": null
  },
  "profile_image_url": null,
  "profile_image_source": null,
  "works": [
    {
      "name": "Totem of Taste",
      "editions": 128,
      "supply": 128,
      "artblocks_slug": "totem-of-taste-by-hannah-yan",
      "url": "https://www.artblocks.io/collection/totem-of-taste-by-hannah-yan"
    }
  ],
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": null,
      "paragraphs": [
        "Hannah Yan’s practice connects data science, visual communication, and creative coding. A Duke University profile locates her interests at the point where data visualization, science, and art converge, and records her work on interaction design and web application development for the WebGL-based visualization tool Kepler.gl. That background carries into her generative work, where algorithms do more than multiply forms. They organize how an image discloses itself, balancing legible systems with variation, texture, and surprise.",
        "Yan’s account of participating in Genuary in 2021 offers a concise view of this development. Working from daily prompts, she experimented with p5.js and algorithmic painting. Her writing archive also documents sustained investigations of flow fields, waves, visualization, and machine learning interpretation. The resulting practice is grounded in code, but its visual character depends on a patient search for associations that code alone cannot prescribe."
      ]
    },
    {
      "heading": "From trajectory to object",
      "paragraphs": [
        "*Totem of Taste* is the clearest expression of this approach in the AB[500]. Released as a collection of 128 editions, it turns the movement of strange attractors into concentrated, object-like compositions. Millions of points follow deterministic paths, gathering into forms that resemble doughnuts, mochi, monuments, and stacked sculpture. The project’s subject is therefore not food as illustration. It is the conversion of taste, appetite, and recollection into density, contour, color, and glow.",
        "The series depends on a productive contradiction. Its forms can appear coarse, mineral, or archaeological, yet their colors and rounded outlines retain the immediacy of confectionery. This tension makes the title precise: each output behaves like a totem, a compact emblem around which private associations of taste can accumulate. Repetition strengthens that effect. Rings recur across the collection, but changes in layout, palette, scale, and contour prevent them from settling into a single symbol.",
        "Yan’s broader practice supplies an important context for this balance. Published profiles describe a portfolio spanning data visualization, data science, and creative coding, with projects made using Tableau, R, D3.js, Flourish, and p5.js. In *Totem of Taste*, that translational discipline becomes sensuous rather than explanatory. A mathematical system remains active beneath the surface, but the viewer encounters it as atmosphere and apparent material."
      ]
    },
    {
      "heading": "Memory as a generative parameter",
      "paragraphs": [
        "The project also invites a distinction between programmed features and experienced meaning. The code can determine point trajectories, dependencies, gradients, and the relative frequency of traits. It cannot determine which flavor, place, or occasion a viewer recalls. Taste enters the work through form, then exceeds the system through memory.",
        "This interest in intimate experience remained visible when Yan participated in Shiseido’s *Future Reflections* project in 2023. Her contribution, *The Transcendence*, formed part of a collaboration joining four generative artists with Art Blocks Engine and references to ingredients associated with Shiseido’s skincare line. Contemporary reporting identified Yan alongside Jen Stark, Kaoru Tanaka, and Robert Hodgin, and connected the project’s 1,872 works to Shiseido’s founding year. Yan described her contribution as an exploration of time, transformation, motion within stillness, and the cycle of awakening suggested by growing seeds.",
        "*Totem of Taste* remains especially effective because its premise is modest and exact. It does not claim to reproduce taste. Instead, it gives memory a scaffold. Strange attractors supply movement, point fields supply texture, and recurring rings supply recognition. Across 128 editions, the collection stages a sustained encounter between deterministic procedure and the unstable, personal afterlife of sensation."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "body_markdown": "Hannah Yan’s practice connects data science, visual communication, and creative coding. A Duke University profile locates her interests at the point where data visualization, science, and art converge, and records her work on interaction design and web application development for the WebGL-based visualization tool Kepler.gl. That background carries into her generative work, where algorithms do more than multiply forms. They organize how an image discloses itself, balancing legible systems with variation, texture, and surprise.\n\nYan’s account of participating in Genuary in 2021 offers a concise view of this development. Working from daily prompts, she experimented with p5.js and algorithmic painting. Her writing archive also documents sustained investigations of flow fields, waves, visualization, and machine learning interpretation. The resulting practice is grounded in code, but its visual character depends on a patient search for associations that code alone cannot prescribe.\n\n## From trajectory to object\n\n*Totem of Taste* is the clearest expression of this approach in the AB[500]. Released as a collection of 128 editions, it turns the movement of strange attractors into concentrated, object-like compositions. Millions of points follow deterministic paths, gathering into forms that resemble doughnuts, mochi, monuments, and stacked sculpture. The project’s subject is therefore not food as illustration. It is the conversion of taste, appetite, and recollection into density, contour, color, and glow.\n\nThe series depends on a productive contradiction. Its forms can appear coarse, mineral, or archaeological, yet their colors and rounded outlines retain the immediacy of confectionery. This tension makes the title precise: each output behaves like a totem, a compact emblem around which private associations of taste can accumulate. Repetition strengthens that effect. Rings recur across the collection, but changes in layout, palette, scale, and contour prevent them from settling into a single symbol.\n\nYan’s broader practice supplies an important context for this balance. Published profiles describe a portfolio spanning data visualization, data science, and creative coding, with projects made using Tableau, R, D3.js, Flourish, and p5.js. In *Totem of Taste*, that translational discipline becomes sensuous rather than explanatory. A mathematical system remains active beneath the surface, but the viewer encounters it as atmosphere and apparent material.\n\n## Memory as a generative parameter\n\nThe project also invites a distinction between programmed features and experienced meaning. The code can determine point trajectories, dependencies, gradients, and the relative frequency of traits. It cannot determine which flavor, place, or occasion a viewer recalls. Taste enters the work through form, then exceeds the system through memory.\n\nThis interest in intimate experience remained visible when Yan participated in Shiseido’s *Future Reflections* project in 2023. Her contribution, *The Transcendence*, formed part of a collaboration joining four generative artists with Art Blocks Engine and references to ingredients associated with Shiseido’s skincare line. Contemporary reporting identified Yan alongside Jen Stark, Kaoru Tanaka, and Robert Hodgin, and connected the project’s 1,872 works to Shiseido’s founding year. Yan described her contribution as an exploration of time, transformation, motion within stillness, and the cycle of awakening suggested by growing seeds.\n\n*Totem of Taste* remains especially effective because its premise is modest and exact. It does not claim to reproduce taste. Instead, it gives memory a scaffold. Strange attractors supply movement, point fields supply texture, and recurring rings supply recognition. Across 128 editions, the collection stages a sustained encounter between deterministic procedure and the unstable, personal afterlife of sensation.",
  "images": [
    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/349000000.png",
      "title": "Totem of Taste",
      "caption": "2022, Totem of Taste",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/349000025.png",
      "title": "Totem of Taste",
      "caption": "2022, Totem of Taste",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/349000051.png",
      "title": "Totem of Taste",
      "caption": "2022, Totem of Taste",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/349000076.png",
      "title": "Totem of Taste",
      "caption": "2022, Totem of Taste",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/349000102.png",
      "title": "Totem of Taste",
      "caption": "2022, Totem of Taste",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/349000127.png",
      "title": "Totem of Taste",
      "caption": "2022, Totem of Taste",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    }
  ],
  "references": [
    {
      "n": 1,
      "note": "Duke University profiles Yan’s interest in data visualization at the boundary of science and art and documents her work on Kepler.gl.",
      "url": "https://datascience.duke.edu/people/han-hannah-yan/",
      "label": "Duke MIDS"
    },
    {
      "n": 2,
      "note": "Yan’s writing archive documents her Genuary participation and experiments across p5.js, flow fields, waves, and algorithmic painting.",
      "url": "https://medium.com/%40yanhann10",
      "label": "Medium"
    },
    {
      "n": 3,
      "note": "nft now profiles Yan’s contribution, The Transcendence, and quotes her account of its themes and collaborative development.",
      "url": "https://nftnow.com/the-gateway/shiseido-partners-with-generative-artists-for-creative-collaboration/",
      "label": "nft now"
    },
    {
      "n": 4,
      "note": "Forbes reports that Yan was one of four artists commissioned for the 1,872-work Future Reflections project powered by Art Blocks Engine.",
      "url": "https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephaniehirschmiller/2023/12/06/why-shiseido-is-dropping-free-generative-nfts-over-art-basel-miami/",
      "label": "Forbes"
    }
  ],
  "bibliography": [
    {
      "category": "In the AB[500]: Art Blocks",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "The NFT Market Report lists Totem of Taste by Hannah Yan among generative collections released in the second half of 2022.",
          "url": "https://static.nftvaluations.com/reports/20221005%20-%20NFT%20Market%20Report%20Teaser.pdf",
          "label": "NFT Valuations",
          "meta": "collection · 2022"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "category": "Interviews",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "A recorded panel discusses Shiseido’s Future Reflections collection and its use of Art Blocks Engine.",
          "url": "https://nftnow.com/podcasts/generative-art-meets-skincare-with-shiseido/",
          "label": "nft now podcast",
          "meta": "panel · 2024"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "category": "Press and criticism",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "Glossy reports on Yan’s participation in Shiseido’s generative art presentation during Miami Art Week.",
          "url": "https://www.glossy.co/beauty/shiseido-launches-generative-art-collection-at-miami-art-week/",
          "label": "Glossy",
          "meta": "press · 2023"
        },
        {
          "note": "Jing Daily places Future Reflections within the digital fashion and Web3 programming of Miami Art Week.",
          "url": "https://jingdaily.com/posts/miami-art-week-embraces-digital-fashion-nfts-ai-and-web3",
          "label": "Jing Daily",
          "meta": "press · 2023"
        },
        {
          "note": "Brands on the Block summarizes the Shiseido collaboration and names Yan among its participating artists.",
          "url": "https://www.brandsontheblock.com/p/016-artist-collaborations-rise-games",
          "label": "Brands on the Block",
          "meta": "newsletter · 2023"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "category": "Essays, talks and podcasts",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "Yan offers practical advice on study, communication, communities, portfolios, and responsibility in data science.",
          "url": "https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/10-tips-incoming-data-science-students-hannah-yan-han",
          "label": "LinkedIn article",
          "meta": "essay · 2020"
        },
        {
          "note": "Yan’s Medium archive collects writing on generative art, creative coding, data visualization, and machine learning interpretation.",
          "url": "https://medium.com/%40yanhann10",
          "label": "Medium",
          "meta": "essays · archive"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "category": "Museums and institutions",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "Duke University profiles Yan’s visualization interests and her work on the Kepler.gl visualization platform.",
          "url": "https://datascience.duke.edu/people/han-hannah-yan/",
          "label": "Duke MIDS",
          "meta": "institutional profile · archive"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "category": "Profiles and archives",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "Raster aggregates Hannah Yan's tokenized works across platforms.",
          "url": "https://www.raster.art/artist/hannah-yan",
          "label": "Raster",
          "meta": "profile · ongoing"
        },
        {
          "note": "An early profile identifies Yan as a data storyteller interested in analysis, visualization, open data, and open source communities.",
          "url": "https://about.me/hannahyanhan",
          "label": "about.me",
          "meta": "profile · archive"
        },
        {
          "note": "Career Karma surveys Yan’s portfolio across data visualization, data science, and creative coding.",
          "url": "https://careerkarma.com/blog/data-scientist-portfolio/",
          "label": "Career Karma",
          "meta": "profile · 2022"
        },
        {
          "note": "TripleTen cites Yan’s visualization work as an example of presenting data projects effectively.",
          "url": "https://tripleten.com/blog/posts/9-steps-to-create-an-effective-data-science-portfolio",
          "label": "TripleTen",
          "meta": "profile · 2023"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "provenance": {
    "schema": "ab5d-provenance/1",
    "contributor": "ab500dao.eth",
    "agent": "gpt-5.6-sol",
    "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
    "harness": "AB5D structured pipeline",
    "autonomy": "supervised",
    "tokens": {
      "input": 162316,
      "output": 3625,
      "estimated": false
    },
    "cost_usd": null,
    "links_verified": 14,
    "date": "2026-07-11",
    "note": "Structured return rendered by scripts/render_dossier.py; token counts are measured API usage."
  },
  "license": "https://ab5d.xyz/license/",
  "license_note": "Dossier prose is CC0. Embedded Art Blocks renders are not: they remain the property of their respective artists and holders.",
  "attribution": {
    "name": "AB[500]",
    "url": "https://ab5d.xyz/artists/hannah-yan/",
    "cite": "AB5D, \"Hannah Yan\", AB[500] artist dossier, ab5d.xyz, 2026",
    "required": false,
    "requested": true,
    "note": "Prose is CC0; a credit and link back to ab5d.xyz is appreciated, not required."
  },
  "generated": "2026-09-14T12:58:26"
}