Augury

The work and its context

Augury is project 440 on the Art Blocks V2 core contract 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, published under the canonical slug augury-by-lovid and credited to LoVid. The indexed project record reports a completed edition of 126 of 126 invocations, runtime p5@1.0.0, and the official description: Augury is a festive collection ranging from vast sorbet-colored landscapes to dense pattern iterations. Augury remixes frames from LoVid’s red, green, and blue (RGB) luminous moving image work. For over two decades, LoVid has been making audiovisual works using custom-built handmade analog video (and audio) synthesizers. In addition to moving-image media, LoVid’s outputs capture stills (frames) from generative video and incorporate these into digital collages, textile designs, wearable works, prints, and more. An essential part of LoVid’s process involves translating signals and experiences from one medium into another. This conversion/interoperability appears critical for living in an interdisciplinary, intermedia, intersectional mixed-reality world. With Augury, LoVid continues exploring on-chain processes that are inspired by the mechanism and aesthetic of analog synthesis.This collection builds upon LoVid’s first analog video synthesizer-inspired collection: Tide Predictor. Each output in Augury grabs frames from the Tide Predictor algorithm (using a unique new hash) and arranges them on the screen based on a set of instructions, possibilities, and limitations. The generative compositions in Augury are therefore both procedurally related to and visually reminiscent of quilting, tapestry pattern designs, and tactile weaving. They use visual elements that LoVid often employs in static works: mirroring and repetitive looping, abrupt changes in intensity and detail, overlapping recycled patterns, and a colliding playful mix of lines and signals buzzing in different directions. The rules applied in Augury are primarily set around placing variable levels of density on the borders, the edges of the work, creating a sense of dynamic movement and discovery. Focusing the viewer’s gaze outside the center encourages shifts in perspectives, literally and symbolically. Augury is inspired both by the ideas and aesthetics in the Pattern and Decoration (P&D) movement and Glitch art. P&D emerged in the 1970s as a response and challenge to a predominantly white male aesthetic that dominated the artworld and historically marginalized art forms and practices of women and people of color. P&D took a feminist approach by shifting the conversation around crafts and decorative arts, placing them on an equal canonic level with western-style paintings. Augury expands this conversation to generative art and challenges hierarchies and relationships to status, economy, and desire. Glitch art refers to artifacts that were created by machine error, intentionally or by chance. Glitch as an art form originally emerged as a response to and celebration of loss in signals “fleeting artifacts that momentarily offer a glimpse into the inner workings and complexities of storage, display, and communication technology” (Iman Moradi, 2009). In Augury, LoVid incorporates a color palette, textures, and shapes inspired by both digital glitches and inherently unstable analog outputs. Aesthetically and viscerally, Augury finds beauty in discarded marginal dysfunctionality. This collection’s title, Augury, refers to the practice of interpreting omens/predicting the future based on the behavior of birds. Complex systems and environmental signals inspire and require attention. LoVid’s Augury harnesses and embraces this chaos, the turbulent flow of data, to bring you a sweet and colorful feast for the eyes, food for thought and beyond! 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 1.0. Website https://lovid.org/.

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. Augury is a festive collection ranging from vast sorbet-colored landscapes to dense pattern iterations. Augury remixes frames from LoVid’s red, green, and blue (RGB) luminous moving image work. For over two decades, LoVid has been making audiovisual works using custom-built handmade analog video (and audio) synthesizers. In addition to moving-image media, LoVid’s outputs capture stills (frames)

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 Augury 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 augury-by-lovid was retrieved from projects_metadata.script filtered by that exact slug. The UTF-8 payload is 13303 bytes with SHA-256 0ba5490b8a1bf5ba441dadb7c90251ead70c217663b98db2de6df106ac3b5c1f. 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 13303 bytes, SHA-256 0ba5490b8a1bf5ba441dadb7c90251ead70c217663b98db2de6df106ac3b5c1f, runtime p5@1.0.0. Detected source markers: setup, draw, createCanvas, tokenData, hash. Named functions include draw, get_image_segment, horiz_stripe, increment_rbg, make_augury_image, make_image, make_parameters, mirror_h_image, mirror_v_image, random_period. tokenData.hash is read in source. Output then follows the drawing path those functions implement. Token 0 observation: Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 122,129,126). File size 3156628 bytes. Indexed features: woven False; num_backgrounds 2; num_vert_stripes 4; num_horiz_stripes 5; center_vert_stripe False; center_horiz_stripe False

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: Loop behaviour inferred only from source keywords. The inspected PNG is a static frame. 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 440 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069 is as follows. First token minted_at is 2023-03-29T00:50:47+00:00. activated_at is 2023-04-01T00:53:59+00:00. start_datetime is 2023-05-03T17:00:00+00:00. completed_at is 2023-09-01T05:17:11+00:00. Invocations stand at 126 of a maximum 126, with complete=true on the retrieved row. ²³

Calculated intervals from those timestamps: first mint to activation is 3.00 days; activation to start_datetime is 32.67 days; start_datetime to completion is 120.51 days; first mint to completion is 156.19 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 2023-03-29T00:50:47+00:00, activated 2023-04-01T00:53:59+00:00, start 2023-05-03T17:00:00+00:00, completed 2023-09-01T05:17:11+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-ND 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-ND 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

Augury #0 is token 440000000 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2023-03-29T00:50:47+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 122,129,126). File size 3156628 bytes. Indexed features: woven False; num_backgrounds 2; num_vert_stripes 4; num_horiz_stripes 5; center_vert_stripe False; center_horiz_stripe False Indexed features returned for this V2 token: woven False; num_backgrounds 2; num_vert_stripes 4; num_horiz_stripes 5; center_vert_stripe False; center_horiz_stripe False. ³⁹⁴

Augury #1 is token 440000001 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2023-05-02T17:06:11+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 122,126,126). File size 2987125 bytes. Indexed features: woven True; num_backgrounds 2; num_vert_stripes 3; num_horiz_stripes 4; center_vert_stripe False; center_horiz_stripe False Indexed features returned for this V2 token: woven True; num_backgrounds 2; num_vert_stripes 3; num_horiz_stripes 4; center_vert_stripe False; center_horiz_stripe False. ³⁹⁴

Augury #10 is token 440000010 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2023-05-02T17:26:11+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 123,126,127). File size 4553854 bytes. Indexed features: woven True; num_backgrounds 4; num_vert_stripes 6; num_horiz_stripes 3; center_vert_stripe False; center_horiz_stripe False Indexed features returned for this V2 token: woven True; num_backgrounds 4; num_vert_stripes 6; num_horiz_stripes 3; center_vert_stripe False; center_horiz_stripe False. ³⁹⁴

Augury #20 is token 440000020 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2023-05-03T00:35:35+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 124,151,128). File size 2128536 bytes. Indexed features: woven False; num_backgrounds 2; num_vert_stripes 3; num_horiz_stripes 4; center_vert_stripe False; center_horiz_stripe True Indexed features returned for this V2 token: woven False; num_backgrounds 2; num_vert_stripes 3; num_horiz_stripes 4; center_vert_stripe False; center_horiz_stripe True. ³⁹⁴

The AB5D header candidate is token 440000074 (edition 74), 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 2400x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 123,126,134). File size 3223957 bytes. Indexed features: woven False; num_backgrounds 1; num_vert_stripes 6; num_horiz_stripes 4; center_vert_stripe False; center_horiz_stripe False ¹⁰³⁴

Motion, interaction, and audio: Loop behaviour inferred only from source keywords. The inspected PNG is a static frame. 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

Augury is project 440 by LoVid 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.