Aragnation

The work and its context

Aragnation is project 401 on the Art Blocks V2 core contract 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, published under the canonical slug aragnation-by-devi-parikh-and-abhishek-das and credited to Devi Parikh and Abhishek Das. The indexed project record reports a completed edition of 128 of 128 invocations, runtime p5@1.0.0, and the official description: Aragnation questions preconceived notions of what AI art can be. Does AI art have to be powered by giant neural networks? Do the aesthetics have to be that of photos or paintings or collages of pieces thereof? Aragnation uses tiny AI models and constructs abstract imagery in the vocabulary of abstract blobs and organic textures rather than pixels. It is playful with colors. It has a hint of a watercolor and art paper aesthetic. The training data includes photographs taken by one of the artists, Abhishek. The generated pieces thus capture, in broad strokes, Abhishek’s photography , nature, landscapes and urban settings. In a refreshing contrast to the gravity of the role AI technology is playing in content creation and creative expression, Aragnation brings a light and joyful touch to generative AI art. No GPUs were harmed in the making of Aragnation. All AI models are entirely different architectures than those commonly used, and have been designed and trained from scratch by the artists. ¹²

Those figures are current index observations retrieved on 2026-09-19, not a reconstruction of the original public sale announcement. Atlas position is a catalogue ordinal and is not the on-chain project ID. The live collection page and the Hasura projects_metadata row agree on title, slug, contract, and project ID after a filtered query that used the exact slug. ¹²

Contract 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069. Aspect ratio indexed as 0.75. Website https://aragnation.github.io/.

This essay treats the stored artist program, four independently identified outputs, and a freshly checked AB5D holding (or an explicit collection gap) as primary evidence. Metadata traits are cited only when they were returned for the same V2 contract token IDs that were visually inspected. They do not replace looking at the pictures. ³⁴

Conception and development

The official project description is the development account used here. Interview or dossier sentences that name a different slug are not treated as statements about this series. Aragnation questions preconceived notions of what AI art can be. Does AI art have to be powered by giant neural networks? Do the aesthetics have to be that of photos or paintings or collages of pieces thereof? Aragnation uses tiny AI models and constructs abstract imagery in the vocabulary of abstract blobs and organic textures rather than pixels. It is playful with colors. It has a hint of a wat

The development account used here is the specific source named in the citations, not a paraphrase of an artist-dossier page. Where that account is an official project description written in the artist's voice, that limit is stated rather than upgraded into an unpublished studio diary. Where an interview exists, the sentences that actually name Aragnation are the ones relied on. ⁵¹

Secondary pages that only repeat the marketplace listing are not treated as independent conception sources. ²⁵

How the work was constructed

The complete artist program for slug aragnation-by-devi-parikh-and-abhishek-das was retrieved from projects_metadata.script filtered by that exact slug. The UTF-8 payload is 68417 bytes with SHA-256 3facb20dde1e914595f3a6d74a7692ddbdca3fa2c011160e5f7747e3400a8787. Runtime on the project record is p5@1.0.0. The script was read in full; it was not executed in this research session. ⁶

The stored generator is 68417 bytes, SHA-256 3facb20dde1e914595f3a6d74a7692ddbdca3fa2c011160e5f7747e3400a8787, runtime p5@1.0.0. Detected source markers: setup, draw, noLoop, createCanvas, tokenData, hash. Named functions include calculateFeatures, create_grid_background, draw, generate_masks_colors_noise, generate_seed_from_token_data, get_activations, get_color_for_location, get_color_for_location_xy2rgb, hsv2rgb, infer_category. tokenData.hash is read in source. Output then follows the drawing path those functions implement. Token 0 observation: Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1800x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 169,155,186). File size 2108930 bytes. Indexed features: Paper Graph; Colors AI; Palette Swedish; Subject Landscape; Texture Plain; Reflection No

Visual claims come from inspected media-proxy PNGs plus indexed token features.

Seed handling is visible in the retrieved program: tokenData.hash is read in source. Time and interaction behaviour in code is: Source contains noLoop. The inspected PNG is a finished still. Live motion was not stopwatched. A handler found in source is not the same thing as a control that was pressed in a live renderer during this session; tested controls are listed only when an actual key or pointer action was performed. ⁶⁷

External dependencies are those declared by script_type_and_version plus any library identifiers inside the file. Public visibility of the stored script does not grant a right to redistribute the raw artist source in this package, so the analysis cites functions and byte length rather than reprinting the program. ⁶⁸

The mint

Indexed chronology for project 401 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069 is as follows. First token minted_at is 2022-12-16T12:04:23+00:00. activated_at is 2022-12-20T23:37:47+00:00. start_datetime is 2023-02-06T18:00:00+00:00. completed_at is 2023-02-06T18:32:23+00:00. Invocations stand at 128 of a maximum 128, with complete=true on the retrieved row. ²³

Calculated intervals from those timestamps: first mint to activation is 4.48 days; activation to start_datetime is 47.77 days; start_datetime to completion is 32.4 minutes; first mint to completion is 52.27 days. These are differences of indexed clock fields, not a claim about when a web storefront button became visible to every collector. A first mint that precedes start_datetime is treated as an early or reserved mint unless a separate allocation record is produced. ²³

Indexed clocks: first 2022-12-16T12:04:23+00:00, activated 2022-12-20T23:37:47+00:00, start 2023-02-06T18:00:00+00:00, completed 2023-02-06T18:32:23+00:00. Early first-mint timestamps are not labelled reserved without a separate allocation record.

Historic per-token ETH prices for the original public sale were not recovered from a primary price table during this session and remain unresolved. Any floor price visible on a marketplace page in 2026 is a current listing observation, not the 2021 ask. ¹²

Copyright and licensing

The project record stores the artwork licence label 'CC BY-NC 4.0'. That string includes an explicit 4.0 version and is treated as Creative Commons version 4.0. Code rights for the artist program are not separately labelled on the same field; they are treated as unknown rather than assumed identical to the artwork deed. ²⁸

Artwork label copied exactly as 'CC BY-NC 4.0'.

Third-party runtime p5@1.0.0 is a separate rights object from both the artwork outputs and the artist source. p5.js, three.js, and ordinary browser JavaScript each keep their own licence texts. This package does not redistribute those libraries. ⁶⁸

Original essay prose in this package is dedicated CC0-1.0 by the research operator. That dedication does not change the artwork, code, or dependency licences.

Close reading of examples

Aragnation #0 is token 401000000 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2022-12-16T12:04:23+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1800x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 169,155,186). File size 2108930 bytes. Indexed features: Paper Graph; Colors AI; Palette Swedish; Subject Landscape; Texture Plain; Reflection No Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Paper Graph; Colors AI; Palette Swedish; Subject Landscape; Texture Plain; Reflection No. ³⁹⁴

Aragnation #1 is token 401000001 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2022-12-16T12:06:59+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1800x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 138,159,162). File size 2756716 bytes. Indexed features: Paper Fabric; Colors Random; Palette Chinese; Subject Landscape; Texture Plain; Reflection No Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Paper Fabric; Colors Random; Palette Chinese; Subject Landscape; Texture Plain; Reflection No. ³⁹⁴

Aragnation #10 is token 401000010 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2023-02-06T18:30:47+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1800x2400px, mid-tone and strongly coloured (mean RGB 112,199,187). File size 1861687 bytes. Indexed features: Paper Rods and Cones; Colors AI; Palette American; Subject Bird; Texture Plain; Reflection No Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Paper Rods and Cones; Colors AI; Palette American; Subject Bird; Texture Plain; Reflection No. ³⁹⁴

Aragnation #20 is token 401000020 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2023-02-06T18:31:11+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1800x2400px, mid-tone and strongly coloured (mean RGB 202,181,125). File size 3782094 bytes. Indexed features: Paper Fabric; Colors Random; Palette Turkish; Subject Bird; Texture Plain; Reflection No Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Paper Fabric; Colors Random; Palette Turkish; Subject Bird; Texture Plain; Reflection No. ³⁹⁴

The AB5D header candidate is token 401000046 (edition 46), currently indexed to 0xdd19308a9731cdecb67e0d80ca6823394208c045, which is one of the three linked addresses returned for username ab5d on 2026-09-19. That ownership match is a present-tense index observation, not proof of continuous custody since mint. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1800x2400px, light and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 179,206,204). File size 3828695 bytes. Indexed features: Paper Fabric; Colors Random; Palette V1; Subject Bird; Texture Plain; Reflection No ¹⁰³⁴

Motion, interaction, and audio: Source contains noLoop. The inspected PNG is a finished still. Live motion was not stopwatched. The static PNGs document halt or preview states. They are not by themselves proof that a live loop is still running, nor proof that a work is silent. No soundtrack was heard from these pages during this session. ⁴⁷⁶

Significance and limitations

Aragnation is project 401 by Devi Parikh and Abhishek Das on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069. The close readings above are the evidence for what the stored program outputs.

Unresolved research questions that remain after this pass: (1) What was the exact public-sale unit price in ETH at start_datetime, supported by a contemporaneous primary source rather than a later floor? (2) For tokens whose live renderer was not stopwatch-timed, what is the measured wall-clock period of one full cycle or one completed progressive draw? (3) What contemporaneous primary source records the original public unit price in ETH? (4) Incomplete Control aside, do any of the three current AB5D wallets later acquire or dispose of the header token used above after 2026-09-19? ²¹⁰⁷

This package is a draft for human review. Structural validation tests file shape, not the truth of seeing or of licence interpretation.