{
  "schema": "ab5d-dossier/1",
  "slug": "superblob",
  "name": "Superblob",
  "subtitle": "Loops, knots, and responsive systems",
  "lede": "Superblob works across computational art, interaction design, and generative systems. Tangled, released through Art Blocks in 2021, condenses that practice into an animated study of constraint and variation.",
  "url": "https://ab5d.xyz/artists/superblob/",
  "bibliography_url": "https://ab5d.xyz/artists/superblob/links/",
  "content_url": "https://ab5d.xyz/api/artists/superblob.json",
  "updated": "2026-07-11",
  "tier": "compact",
  "editions": 384,
  "collections": 1,
  "otdh": {
    "rank": 131,
    "score": 14437,
    "collector_identities": 244,
    "holder_addresses": 244,
    "projects": 1,
    "current_works": 383,
    "raw_collector_days": 624727,
    "median_project_hold_days": 1819,
    "snapshot_at": "2026-09-14T00:00:00.000Z",
    "methodology_url": "https://ab5d.xyz/artists/otdh/",
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  "identity": {
    "artist": "Superblob",
    "website": "https://www.instagram.com/superblob/",
    "based": null,
    "practice": "Computational art, interaction design, generative systems, and audiovisual software",
    "now": null,
    "otdh": "[14,437 · rank 131 of 308](/artists/otdh/#artist-superblob)",
    "holding signal": "244 collector identities · 244 holder addresses · 624,727 raw collector-days · 14 Sep 2026",
    "collector tdh": "[superblobTDH](/artists/superblob/superblobtdh/) · pending verified oeuvre data"
  },
  "socials": {
    "website": "https://www.instagram.com/superblob/",
    "x": null,
    "instagram": null
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  "profile_image_url": null,
  "profile_image_source": null,
  "works": [
    {
      "name": "Tangled",
      "editions": 384,
      "supply": 384,
      "artblocks_slug": "tangled-by-superblob",
      "url": "https://www.artblocks.io/collection/tangled-by-superblob"
    }
  ],
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": null,
      "paragraphs": [
        "Superblob is the name of a creative studio whose projects connect code, images, sound, and interaction. Its documented practice ranges from an image-based music sequencer to artificial landscapes, browser sound experiments, and an interactive installation using face tracking. Across these works, computation is treated less as an invisible production aid than as material with perceptible rules. Inputs are translated, constrained, and made available for inspection through movement, sound, or patterned form.",
        "*Tangled* is Superblob’s contribution to the AB[500], a collection of 384 editions released on Art Blocks on September 17, 2021. The project emerged from an extended investigation of how an Ethereum transaction hash could determine a composition while remaining legible within it. Superblob’s development account describes an initial prototype that mapped the first 25 bytes of a hash onto a 5 by 5 monochrome grid, with brightness values also assigned to musical notes. This early audiovisual system was eventually reduced and redirected toward curves, color, and animation."
      ]
    },
    {
      "heading": "From hash to knot",
      "paragraphs": [
        "The finished work organizes flowing bands around a geometry derived from their own paths. Anchor points used for Bézier curves also inform a convex hull that produces the colored form behind the strings. This relationship gives each output a doubled structure: line and ground are visually distinct, yet both arise from related coordinates. Variations in palette, the number of strings, and their spatial behavior establish difference across the 384 editions without dissolving the project’s recognizable grammar.",
        "The series is especially attentive to iteration. Superblob records that the earliest forms were called “Crypto Knots,” and that the design passed through sound-based experiments, sparse curves, color tests, test-network mints, and later revisions using multiple parallel lines. Constraints repeatedly narrowed the field. Sound was removed because it introduced too many variables, while color palettes were tested as combination tables to preserve contrast. The eventual multiplication of lines strengthened both chromatic range and the impression of tangled material."
      ]
    },
    {
      "heading": "Motion as a condition",
      "paragraphs": [
        "Animation changes the knots from static emblems into systems caught in recurrence. The strings and underlying blobs subtly move as though attempting to separate, only to return and begin again. This loop supplies the project’s central tension. The compositions appear soft and playful, but their motion remains structurally unresolved. Untangling is proposed as an action rather than delivered as an outcome.",
        "That interest in continuous systems extends beyond *Tangled*. *Pixel Music* converts image data into sequencers and can transmit MIDI to software or hardware instruments. *Simulated Horizons* combines generated landscape imagery, pixel sorting, human curation, and machine-written haiku. During the Musical Web program at the School for Poetic Computation, Superblob developed browser-based works using tools including RNBO, Three.js, GLSL, Max, and p5.js. The later *Particle Music* was presented as both a concert screening and an installation during the 2024 Web Audio Conference at Purdue University.",
        "These projects clarify *Tangled* as part of a wider concern with translation between media. The hash becomes position, position becomes line and hull, and code becomes rhythmic visual behavior. Earlier installation work similarly translated a participant’s head movement into traces drawn by a light source on a phosphorescent surface. Even the compact iOS game *Four Seconds* turns a minimal timing rule into repeated embodied attention. In this context, *Tangled* is not simply an assortment of colorful outputs. It is a precisely bounded interface between deterministic data, authored decisions, and the variable encounter of each generated edition."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "body_markdown": "Superblob is the name of a creative studio whose projects connect code, images, sound, and interaction. Its documented practice ranges from an image-based music sequencer to artificial landscapes, browser sound experiments, and an interactive installation using face tracking. Across these works, computation is treated less as an invisible production aid than as material with perceptible rules. Inputs are translated, constrained, and made available for inspection through movement, sound, or patterned form.\n\n*Tangled* is Superblob’s contribution to the AB[500], a collection of 384 editions released on Art Blocks on September 17, 2021. The project emerged from an extended investigation of how an Ethereum transaction hash could determine a composition while remaining legible within it. Superblob’s development account describes an initial prototype that mapped the first 25 bytes of a hash onto a 5 by 5 monochrome grid, with brightness values also assigned to musical notes. This early audiovisual system was eventually reduced and redirected toward curves, color, and animation.\n\n## From hash to knot\n\nThe finished work organizes flowing bands around a geometry derived from their own paths. Anchor points used for Bézier curves also inform a convex hull that produces the colored form behind the strings. This relationship gives each output a doubled structure: line and ground are visually distinct, yet both arise from related coordinates. Variations in palette, the number of strings, and their spatial behavior establish difference across the 384 editions without dissolving the project’s recognizable grammar.\n\nThe series is especially attentive to iteration. Superblob records that the earliest forms were called “Crypto Knots,” and that the design passed through sound-based experiments, sparse curves, color tests, test-network mints, and later revisions using multiple parallel lines. Constraints repeatedly narrowed the field. Sound was removed because it introduced too many variables, while color palettes were tested as combination tables to preserve contrast. The eventual multiplication of lines strengthened both chromatic range and the impression of tangled material.\n\n## Motion as a condition\n\nAnimation changes the knots from static emblems into systems caught in recurrence. The strings and underlying blobs subtly move as though attempting to separate, only to return and begin again. This loop supplies the project’s central tension. The compositions appear soft and playful, but their motion remains structurally unresolved. Untangling is proposed as an action rather than delivered as an outcome.\n\nThat interest in continuous systems extends beyond *Tangled*. *Pixel Music* converts image data into sequencers and can transmit MIDI to software or hardware instruments. *Simulated Horizons* combines generated landscape imagery, pixel sorting, human curation, and machine-written haiku. During the Musical Web program at the School for Poetic Computation, Superblob developed browser-based works using tools including RNBO, Three.js, GLSL, Max, and p5.js. The later *Particle Music* was presented as both a concert screening and an installation during the 2024 Web Audio Conference at Purdue University.\n\nThese projects clarify *Tangled* as part of a wider concern with translation between media. The hash becomes position, position becomes line and hull, and code becomes rhythmic visual behavior. Earlier installation work similarly translated a participant’s head movement into traces drawn by a light source on a phosphorescent surface. Even the compact iOS game *Four Seconds* turns a minimal timing rule into repeated embodied attention. In this context, *Tangled* is not simply an assortment of colorful outputs. It is a precisely bounded interface between deterministic data, authored decisions, and the variable encounter of each generated edition.",
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      "title": "Tangled",
      "caption": "2021, series",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/132000077.png",
      "title": "Tangled",
      "caption": "2021, series",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/132000153.png",
      "title": "Tangled",
      "caption": "2021, series",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
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    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/132000230.png",
      "title": "Tangled",
      "caption": "2021, series",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/132000306.png",
      "title": "Tangled",
      "caption": "2021, series",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/132000383.png",
      "title": "Tangled",
      "caption": "2021, series",
      "rights": "Not CC0 - Art Blocks render, property of the artist/holders"
    }
  ],
  "references": [
    {
      "n": 1,
      "note": "Superblob explains how Simulated Horizons combines generated prompts and images with pixel sorting, curation, and haiku.",
      "url": "https://superblob.studio/projects/simulated-horizons",
      "label": "project-account"
    },
    {
      "n": 2,
      "note": "Superblob documents Pixel Music as an image-based iOS sequencer with MIDI and audiovisual workflows.",
      "url": "https://superblob.studio/projects/pixel-music",
      "label": "project-account"
    },
    {
      "n": 3,
      "note": "Superblob documents a 2013 face-tracking installation presented at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest.",
      "url": "https://superblob.studio/projects/modulab",
      "label": "installation-account"
    },
    {
      "n": 4,
      "note": "Art Blocks records Tangled as a 384-work collection released on September 17, 2021.",
      "url": "https://www.artblocks.io/collection/tangled-by-superblob",
      "label": "art-blocks"
    },
    {
      "n": 5,
      "note": "Superblob’s detailed project history explains Tangled’s hash mapping, curves, hull geometry, palettes, animation, and revisions.",
      "url": "https://superblob.studio/projects/tangled",
      "label": "technical-account"
    },
    {
      "n": 6,
      "note": "Superblob documents projects and tools developed during the Musical Web program at the School for Poetic Computation.",
      "url": "https://superblob.studio/projects/musical-web",
      "label": "program-account"
    },
    {
      "n": 7,
      "note": "Superblob documents Particle Music and an RNBO workshop at the 2024 Web Audio Conference at Purdue University.",
      "url": "https://superblob.studio/projects/wac24",
      "label": "conference-account"
    },
    {
      "n": 8,
      "note": "Superblob documents Four Seconds as an iOS timing game organized around stopping a timer at four seconds.",
      "url": "https://www.superblob.studio/projects/four-seconds",
      "label": "project-account"
    }
  ],
  "bibliography": [
    {
      "category": "In the AB[500]: Art Blocks",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "The official collection record identifies Tangled as 384 unique artworks released on September 17, 2021.",
          "url": "https://www.artblocks.io/collection/tangled-by-superblob",
          "label": "Art Blocks",
          "meta": "collection · 2021"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "category": "Press and criticism",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "An NFT market report includes Tangled by Superblob within its coverage of the generative-art market.",
          "url": "https://static.nftvaluations.com/reports/20221005%20-%20NFT%20Market%20Report%20Teaser.pdf",
          "label": "NFT Valuations",
          "meta": "report · 2022"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "category": "Museums and institutions",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "Superblob’s archive describes Face Drawing, an interactive work shown at Romania’s National Museum of Contemporary Art.",
          "url": "https://superblob.studio/projects/modulab",
          "label": "Symbiomorphogenesis",
          "meta": "institution · 2013"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "category": "Galleries and exhibitions",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "The Web Audio Conference account documents Particle Music as a concert screening and installation at Purdue University.",
          "url": "https://superblob.studio/projects/wac24",
          "label": "Particle Music at WAC",
          "meta": "exhibition · 2024"
        },
        {
          "note": "The Web Audio Conference’s institutional site describes its interdisciplinary forum for web audio, music technology, and digital practice.",
          "url": "https://webaudioconf.com/",
          "label": "Web Audio Conference",
          "meta": "conference · ongoing"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "category": "Essays, talks and podcasts",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "Superblob’s extensive Tangled project account traces the work from hash experiments and sound to its final animated system.",
          "url": "https://superblob.studio/projects/tangled",
          "label": "Tangled process",
          "meta": "essay · 2021"
        },
        {
          "note": "The Musical Web account surveys Superblob’s browser-based sound works developed through the School for Poetic Computation.",
          "url": "https://superblob.studio/projects/musical-web",
          "label": "The Musical Web",
          "meta": "program account · 2023"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "category": "Profiles and archives",
      "entries": [
        {
          "note": "The Pixel Music archive documents an image-based sequencer capable of controlling software and hardware instruments.",
          "url": "https://superblob.studio/projects/pixel-music",
          "label": "Pixel Music",
          "meta": "project archive · 2023"
        },
        {
          "note": "The Simulated Horizons archive explains a workflow involving image generation, pixel sorting, curation, and haiku.",
          "url": "https://superblob.studio/projects/simulated-horizons",
          "label": "Simulated Horizons",
          "meta": "project archive · 2023"
        },
        {
          "note": "The Four Seconds archive records Superblob’s minimal iOS timing game and its release materials.",
          "url": "https://www.superblob.studio/projects/four-seconds",
          "label": "Four Seconds",
          "meta": "project archive · 2018"
        }
      ]
    }
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  "license_note": "Dossier prose is CC0. Embedded Art Blocks renders are not: they remain the property of their respective artists and holders.",
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    "name": "AB[500]",
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