Automatism

The work and its context

Automatism is project 281 on the Art Blocks V2 core contract 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270, published under the canonical slug automatism-by-yazid and credited to Yazid. The indexed project record reports a completed edition of 426 of 426 invocations, runtime p5@1.0.0, and the official description: “𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚞𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚎𝚜 𝚙𝚎𝚘𝚙𝚕𝚎 𝚌𝚑𝚘𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 𝚜𝚢𝚖𝚋𝚘𝚕𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚞𝚊𝚐𝚎. 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚜 𝚊 𝚋𝚊𝚜𝚒𝚌 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚌𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎, 𝚊𝚗 𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚛𝚎 𝚘𝚋𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚊 𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚖𝚞𝚖 𝚘𝚏 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚜, 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝚊 𝚜𝚢𝚖𝚋𝚘𝚕. 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚞𝚊𝚐𝚎𝚜, 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚙𝚎𝚘𝚙𝚕𝚎, 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚜.” 'Automatism' is inspired by the practice of artists where they are given a writing implement and a blank surface, and they go freestyle, almost mindlessly filling up the space with whatever comes to their minds and out of their hands. I've often wondered where a machine's mind and "hand" would wander given the same opportunity. This project explores the age-old computer art phenomenon of inviting the viewer to actively participate in the interpretation of the visual output. The way "Sharp-E" draws the strokes is through a mix of various movements , irregular curves, straight lines, sudden changes in direction , in a classic random walk algorithm, while avoiding overlaps with previously drawn strokes. There are no pre-programmed forms per se, but nevertheless it can be common for the viewer to perceive images, symbols, meaning in the generated output. So where does your mind wander? What forms, symbols, and meaning do you see? Controls: • 'D' toggles pausing/drawing or continues space-filling after the first stop (if available) • 'R' reassembles the piece (This automatically happens every minute) • 'S' saves the output 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

Licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. calculateFeatures names Margin, Finishing, Proximity, Stroke Size.

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 automatism claim is the account: marks that look unplanned but are hash-placed. Token 0 is bold black dashes on blue.

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 Automatism are the ones relied on. ⁵¹

Interview sentences that name another project are not treated as statements about this slug. ²⁵

How the work was constructed

The complete artist program for slug automatism-by-yazid was retrieved from projects_metadata.script filtered by that exact slug. The UTF-8 payload is 19010 bytes with SHA-256 25cb58e0d8f98570958107b4ea99af5e14fbdba82664b31154d705e24e49a2e9. 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

19010-byte p5. setup, draw, noLoop, keyPressed, addPoints, drawBackdrop, drawBorder, initPiece, setNewStart. Token 0: Rough, Wide, Bold, Backdrop.

Visual claims come from inspected PNGs of the listed token IDs.

Seed handling is visible in the retrieved program: calculateFeatures reads the hash into margin, finishing, proximity, stroke and palette. Time and interaction behaviour in code is: noLoop still. keyPressed not tested. No audio. 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 Additional construction notes follow so that the seed-to-pixel path stays explicit. Hash bytes are consumed in the order written in the retrieved file; later visual variety is a consequence of those draws, not of an off-chain renderer swapping assets. Preview images produced by the media proxy compress a live or completed state into one PNG, which is useful for colour and composition and insufficient for duration. Canonical token pages confirm identity when they return HTTP 200 for the exact contract and token ID pair used in the examples list. Rights language is copied from the project record rather than inferred from neighbouring Art Blocks series. Where an interview discusses a different project by the same artist, that passage is not treated as a statement about this slug.

The mint

Indexed chronology for project 281 on 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270 is as follows. First token minted_at is 2022-03-14T17:26:28+00:00. activated_at is 2022-03-17T23:55:50+00:00. start_datetime is 2022-03-25T16:00:00+00:00. completed_at is 2022-03-25T16:31:51+00:00. Invocations stand at 426 of a maximum 426, with complete=true on the retrieved row. ²³

Calculated intervals from those timestamps: first mint to activation is 3.27 days; activation to start_datetime is 7.67 days; start_datetime to completion is 31.9 minutes; first mint to completion is 10.96 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 2022-03-14T17:26:28+00:00, activated 2022-03-17T23:55:50+00:00, start 2022-03-25T16:00:00+00:00, completed 2022-03-25T16:31:51+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 Early invocations can carry minted_at values hours or days before start_datetime; those rows are listed individually in evidence.json rather than averaged into a single public-open clock.

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

Automatism #0 is token 281000000 on 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270, minted 2022-03-14T17:26:28+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Blue field in a black frame, bold black dashes, hooks and a triangle. Rough finishing, wide margin, Backdrop palette. Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Margin Wide; Finishing Rough; Proximity Relaxed; Stroke Size Bold; Color Palette Backdrop; Stoic Strokes false; Stroke Variance Varied; Directional Influence Random. ³⁹⁴

Automatism #1 is token 281000001 on 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270, minted 2022-03-25T16:03:48+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Liquid palette, more spacing. Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Margin Wide; Finishing Rough; Proximity Gimme some space; Stroke Size Bold; Color Palette Liquid Chalk; Stoic Strokes false; Stroke Variance Varied; Directional Influence Flow. ³⁹⁴

Automatism #10 is token 281000010 on 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270, minted 2022-03-25T16:21:13+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Tenth public mint of Automatism. Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Margin Wide; Finishing Rough; Proximity Gimme some space; Stroke Size Supa Chonky; Color Palette Colorful Keith; Stoic Strokes false; Stroke Variance Dramatic; Directional Influence Zoom. ³⁹⁴

Automatism #20 is token 281000020 on 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270, minted 2022-03-25T16:25:17+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Twentieth public mint of Automatism. Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Margin Wide; Finishing Rough; Proximity Relaxed; Stroke Size Bold; Color Palette Lightboard; Stoic Strokes false; Stroke Variance Varied; Directional Influence Random. ³⁹⁴

The AB5D header candidate is token 281000069 (edition 69), 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. AB5D Automatism holding. ¹⁰³⁴

Motion, interaction, and audio: noLoop still. keyPressed not tested. No audio. 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

Automatism is project 281 by Yazid. 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. Additional construction notes follow so that the seed-to-pixel path stays explicit. Hash bytes are consumed in the order written in the retrieved file; later visual variety is a consequence of those draws, not of an off-chain renderer swapping assets. Preview images produced by the media proxy compress a live or completed state into one PNG, which is useful for colour and composition and insufficient for duration. Canonical token pages confirm identity when they return HTTP 200 for the exact contract and token ID pair used in the examples list. Rights language is copied from the project record rather than inferred from neighbouring Art Blocks series. Where an interview discusses a different project by the same artist, that passage is not treated as a statement about this slug.