# Alien Clock by Shvembldr

## A clock for an unfamiliar observer

Alien Clock #64, currently held by the AB5D-linked wallet 0xdd19308a9731cdecb67e0d80ca6823394208c045, provides this essay's collection example. Its indexed owner matches one of the three addresses linked by the current AB5D profile. Its original renderer opens onto a cyan circular field, orange accents and a moving constellation of lines and points. The live work appears above with its token link and CC BY-NC 4.0 attribution.[^S09][^S12]

Released through Art Blocks Playground in July 2021, Alien Clock is project 112 on Ethereum contract 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270. The present edition contains 362 tokens. Its official premise imagines an extraterrestrial observer contemplating existence through a clock. The work consequently borrows the concentric organisation of an instrument without supplying a familiar reading of hours or minutes.[^S01]

That absence is productive. Circular bands supply order, while scattered symbols imply an intelligible notation whose key has been withheld. The viewer can recognise rotation, expansion and recurrence without knowing what any of them measures. This reading arises from the original outputs examined here, not from decoding the invented instrument as a functional timepiece.[^S05][^S06]

## Conception and an audience outside ourselves

In a July 2021 conversation with Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez, Shvembldr described moving from frontend development and small games towards experiments with random lines, alongside learning from Joshua Davis and The Coding Train. The interview places Alien Clock within a practice interested in movement and interaction. Discussing this project specifically, the artist wanted continuously moving art that could occupy different screen proportions and restart a copy's sequence from its beginning.[^S03]

The same conversation presents infinity and determinism as ambitions of the work. These are artist statements, rather than properties that a short viewing session can prove. A viewer experiences successive arrangements that make the underlying system difficult to exhaust; that perceptual effect is distinguishable from a mathematical demonstration that a finite program never repeats.[^S03]

The imagined alien offers a useful shift in viewpoint. Instead of using abstraction to erase reference altogether, the work constructs a reference that humans cannot fully inhabit. Thin radial strokes suggest hands or indicators. Glyphs suggest labels. Soft gradients give the instrument an apparent interior. Because no legend resolves these suggestions, attention moves from reading information to watching relations develop. The clock becomes an invitation to linger with an unfamiliar order.[^S05][^S08]

## How the instrument is made

The entire artist script was retrieved from the official project index and read. It specifies p5@1.0.0. A seed begins with a hexadecimal prefix of the token hash; a bitwise xorshift routine supplies the project's custom pseudorandom choices. Helpers select integers and array members and shuffle palettes. The program chooses a layer count between 30 and 49, selects colours and feature switches, and assembles a vocabulary of circles, points, lines, gradients, shapes, optional spirals and glyphs. These selections make each token an ongoing system of related marks.[^S02]

The canvas uses the initial window width and height. Geometry scales from the smaller dimension, keeping the circular instrument centred while allowing a wide screen to supply lateral space. This distinction matters visually: the principal disk remains circular in the inspected widescreen browser, while stars and long radial strokes occupy the surrounding rectangle. No explicit resize handler was located, so responsiveness after changing an already open window is not established here.[^S02][^S09]

A layer object stores its own timing interval, offsets, geometry and easing choices. Its update method derives phases from a running counter and evaluates several easing functions. At interval boundaries it can choose further endpoints or parameters. The renderer then combines arcs and rings, distributed points, radial lines, accumulated paths, gradients and text. The library of easing curves explains why the motion cannot be reduced to a stack of evenly rotating hands: position and radius can accelerate, contract and settle differently from one layer to another.[^S02]

Canvas gradient operations and blend modes add another source of change. Radial and linear gradients can participate in difference or overlay operations; path elements can use additive blending. A bright band seen in one frame may therefore be one temporary relation among several layers, not a permanently outlined component. Unicode glyph dictionaries supply signs around the dial. Their presence makes browser font behaviour a preservation consideration, even though the script does not load an external image collection.[^S02]

There is an important limit to a blanket determinism claim. The core layer system uses the custom hash-derived generator, but the background star classes also call p5's random function, and the artist script contains no randomSeed call. This inspection therefore does not establish pixel-identical reproduction of the complete visible frame. The artist's stated intention remains clear; the implementation evidence supports a narrower account of seeded central construction with separately randomised background elements.[^S02][^S03]

Interaction changes the experience without minting a different token. Number keys 1 and 9 produced visible 0.2x and 1.8x overlays during the #64 test. The s key removed the starfield. The t key enabled persistence that left fading traces around moving elements. Space stopped the image at the same arrangement in two successive observations, and a second press resumed movement. The code implements these controls by changing speed, background handling and the draw loop. No audio calls were found; this research did not audition sound or test touch interaction.[^S02][^S09]

## Mint chronology and the collector club

Several dates need to remain distinct. The index records the first token on 13 July 2021 at 22:01:15 UTC, activation on 14 July at 17:18:01, and the second token at 17:27:27 that day. Its start field matches that second mint. The collection page gives 14 July as the release date. These records support an initial token preceding the stated release, but do not identify the first token's purpose.[^S01][^S05][^S06]

A contemporary Art Blocks article by Druid describes The Blocks of Art club as nine letter tokens and says their holders received early access, identifying Alien Clock as the first project to use that arrangement. Shvembldr's July interview also describes a 24-hour head start for club holders. Together these sources establish that release access had a collector-specific structure. They do not establish the number of tokens allocated to that group or classify each transaction in the early mint period.[^S04][^S03]

Completion is indexed at 15 July 2021, 18:02:03 UTC. From the second mint this is 24 hours, 34 minutes and 36 seconds. Calling that whole interval an unrestricted public sellout would erase the documented early-access distinction. It is simply the interval between two recorded events.[^S01]

The current index reports 362 invocations, a maximum of 362 and a price field of 0.1 ETH. Actual count, current ceiling and present stored price are separately useful facts. None proves that the launch began with the same maximum or charged every buyer that price. No original configuration history or complete mint-transaction classification was recovered for this essay.[^S01]

## Artwork, program and dependency rights

The official project record currently labels the work CC BY-NC 4.0. The corresponding Creative Commons legal terms permit noncommercial reproduction, sharing and adaptation subject to their conditions, including attribution, a licence reference and identification of modifications. The record does not supply a separate licence link, so the terms linked here are the official text corresponding to its explicit label. No licence change history was established.[^S01][^S10]

An attributed, noncommercial editorial presentation can use that artwork permission within its conditions. It does not imply an unrestricted commercial grant or transfer of copyright through token ownership. The header retains Shvembldr's credit, the exact token reference and the rights label. This research package contains descriptions and links, not a redistributed copy of the artist program.[^S10]

The program and its dependency require separate treatment. No independent artist-code licence was located in the inspected script or project record. p5.js 1.0.0 carries LGPL 2.1 terms, but those terms concern the library and do not grant rights over Shvembldr's artwork or original code. Public accessibility of the script is valuable evidence of construction; it is not itself a permission statement.[^S02][^S11]

## Four clocks, observed through change

The four verified examples are editions #0, #1, #10 and #20. They are a purposeful early-edition comparison, not a representative statistical sample. Each original hosted renderer was viewed at two moments, alongside its exact token record. Their common circular grammar becomes clearer when colour, brightness and layer spacing change.[^S05][^S06][^S07][^S08]

In #0, the first observed arrangement placed a broad brown-orange halo around an open dark centre. Narrow amber contours enclosed it, while short radial strokes and small glyphs suggested the face of a dim instrument. A later view introduced a clearer slate-coloured inner ring, longer spokes reaching well beyond the perimeter and angular partial outlines along the circumference. The palette remained subdued, but the distribution of emphasis changed. What first seemed a softly lit rim became a framework through which lines could extend into surrounding space. Its indexed Columba palette and 49 dimensions describe the system; they do not replace the observation that its apparent architecture reorganises over time.[^S05]

Edition #1 is more emphatic. At the first observation, two brilliant white rings dominated a blue-black centre, with pale blue rays reaching across the starfield. Later, the white bands appeared closer together around a smaller interior, while a broad dark-blue halo established a new outer edge. Signs remained distributed around the disk, making the contraction feel like a change in the instrument's state rather than a transition to a different composition. The record names Ara and 30 dimensions and flags Spiral Galaxy. A feature label can establish a configured option; this essay does not pretend that a brief inspection isolates every contribution that option makes.[^S06]

The contrast between these two examples is more than warm versus cool. In #0 the comparatively low contrast asks the eye to find structure in darkness. In #1 the bright white annuli provide immediate anchors, leaving the subtle interior to be discovered afterward. Both maintain a centred arrangement, yet they distribute attention differently. Their later phases show why a single preview would exaggerate the permanence of those anchors.[^S05][^S06]

Edition #10 presented pale green and muted blue layers, a compact central glow and conspicuous short ticks near its centre. Larger dots lay outside the main disk. By the second view, a broken green ring had become a stronger outer boundary while thin lines traversed it. Its Hydra palette and 32 dimensions sit between the other examples numerically, but the airy separation of rings is a visual observation, not a conclusion deduced from that count.[^S07]

In #20, crimson supplied the principal accent against blue-grey gradients. An initially substantial red annulus later became a faint outline around a much smaller luminous centre, leaving greater apparent emptiness. Red glyphs and scattered points continued to occupy that space. The indexed Phoenix palette and 35 dimensions identify the edition's configuration, while the two views demonstrate how dramatically its density can change during playback.[^S08]

## Significance and remaining questions

Alien Clock makes duration part of the object collected. Its token selects a system, while the browser supplies an encounter with one developing state of that system. Speed and pause controls let a viewer influence the pace of that encounter. The resulting image can resemble a scientific instrument, an eye or a distant mechanism without settling into any one of those readings.[^S02][^S09]

Its early-access club also links formal experimentation to a particular collecting structure. Preserving the work therefore involves both a moving program and an accurate account of how access was organised. The strongest account keeps the artist's ambitions, the inspected implementation and contemporary release testimony visible as distinct kinds of evidence.[^S02][^S03][^S04]

Unresolved research questions:

- What were the original maximum, opening price and precise early-access allocations, and why was #0 minted before activation?
- Does an archived development account explain particular layer and palette decisions beyond the July interview?
- Was a separate licence granted for the artist's program, and has the artwork label changed?
- How closely do complete frames reproduce across browsers, fonts and fresh loads, given the background random calls?
- What preservation behaviour should be expected after resizing, during touch interaction, or over extremely long playback?

[^S01]: Art Blocks / Shvembldr. [Alien Clock project and exact indexed record](https://www.artblocks.io/collection/alien-clock-by-shvembldr). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S02]: Shvembldr. [Alien Clock full artist program](https://artblocks-mainnet.hasura.app/v1/graphql). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S03]: Marcelo Soria-Rodríguez / Shvembldr. [Slowing down with Shvembldr](https://www.iillucid.com/slowing-down-with-shvembldr/). Published 2021-07-30. Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S04]: Druid / The Link, Art Blocks. [A Few Approaches to Project Drops](https://medium.com/the-link-art-blocks/a-few-approaches-to-project-drops-4b8da0d13512). Published 2021-07-28. Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S05]: Shvembldr. [Alien Clock #0](https://www.artblocks.io/token/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/112000000). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S06]: Shvembldr. [Alien Clock #1](https://www.artblocks.io/token/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/112000001). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S07]: Shvembldr. [Alien Clock #10](https://www.artblocks.io/token/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/112000010). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S08]: Shvembldr. [Alien Clock #20](https://www.artblocks.io/token/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/112000020). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S09]: Shvembldr. [Alien Clock #64](https://www.artblocks.io/token/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/112000064). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S10]: Creative Commons. [Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International legal code](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode.en). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S11]: p5.js contributors / Free Software Foundation. [p5.js 1.0.0 licence](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/processing/p5.js/1.0.0/license.txt). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S12]: Art Blocks / AB5D. [AB5D current collector profile](https://www.artblocks.io/profile/ab5d). Accessed 2026-09-18.