Balance

The work and its context

Balance is project 489 on the Art Blocks V2 core contract 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, published under the canonical slug balance-by-kelly-milligan-x-amber-vittoria and credited to Kelly Milligan x Amber Vittoria. The indexed project record reports a completed edition of 250 of 250 invocations, runtime js@na, and the official description: Balance is a generative collaboration between Kelly Milligan and Amber Vittoria. This series nods to the ever-changing composition of harmony by leveraging Milligan's movement through code and Vittoria's colorful play on equilibrium. Even though the composition is set upon mint, the collector can temporarily change the composition of the piece, further speaking to the idea of balance constantly moving. Over the course of 2023, Milligan and Vittoria chatted about color, theory, and how to translate Vittoria's painted palette on screen in a textural way. The theme of balance is seen overtly in the composition, but also subtly in the use of gradients and color relationships, creating tension and stability. Every decision in this collection builds to the idea of finding, and changing, one's footing in life. 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://kellymilligan.art/piece/balance.

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. Balance is a generative collaboration between Kelly Milligan and Amber Vittoria. This series nods to the ever-changing composition of harmony by leveraging Milligan's movement through code and Vittoria's colorful play on equilibrium. Even though the composition is set upon mint, the collector can temporarily change the composition of the piece, further speaking to the idea of balance constantly

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 Balance 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 balance-by-kelly-milligan-x-amber-vittoria was retrieved from projects_metadata.script filtered by that exact slug. The UTF-8 payload is 54707 bytes with SHA-256 4d5152fa263ae2d7d918ffbe4bb20978ff72ba5c3aa06ee135c8c87de6f7cdea. Runtime on the project record is js@na. The script was read in full; it was not executed in this research session. ⁶

The stored generator is 54707 bytes, SHA-256 4d5152fa263ae2d7d918ffbe4bb20978ff72ba5c3aa06ee135c8c87de6f7cdea, runtime js@na. Detected source markers: draw, WEBGL, requestAnimationFrame, tokenData, hash. Named functions include no function keyword matches. 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 160,133,135). File size 7534255 bytes. Indexed features: Scale Split; Profile Thick; Spectrum Wide; Background Stone

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 a continuing-draw or audio/WebGL constructor. The inspected PNG is one frame. Live timing and soundtrack were not captured this session. 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 489 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069 is as follows. First token minted_at is 2024-01-13T02:34:59+00:00. activated_at is 2024-01-17T21:58:23+00:00. start_datetime is 2024-01-31T18:00:00+00:00. completed_at is 2024-01-31T20:17:23+00:00. Invocations stand at 250 of a maximum 250, with complete=true on the retrieved row. ²³

Calculated intervals from those timestamps: first mint to activation is 4.81 days; activation to start_datetime is 13.83 days; start_datetime to completion is 2.29 hours; first mint to completion is 18.74 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 2024-01-13T02:34:59+00:00, activated 2024-01-17T21:58:23+00:00, start 2024-01-31T18:00:00+00:00, completed 2024-01-31T20:17:23+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-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 js@na 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

Balance #0 is token 489000000 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2024-01-13T02:34:59+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 160,133,135). File size 7534255 bytes. Indexed features: Scale Split; Profile Thick; Spectrum Wide; Background Stone Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Scale Split; Profile Thick; Spectrum Wide; Background Stone. ³⁹⁴

Balance #1 is token 489000001 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2024-01-13T02:36:35+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 225,171,138). File size 6895895 bytes. Indexed features: Scale Huge; Profile Split; Spectrum Wide; Background Cream Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Scale Huge; Profile Split; Spectrum Wide; Background Cream. ³⁹⁴

Balance #10 is token 489000010 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2024-01-31T18:26:47+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 muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 179,141,142). File size 7231840 bytes. Indexed features: Scale Large; Profile Mixed; Spectrum Wide; Background Stone Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Scale Large; Profile Mixed; Spectrum Wide; Background Stone. ³⁹⁴

Balance #20 is token 489000020 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2024-01-31T18:28:35+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1800x2400px, light and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 194,196,222). File size 4676997 bytes. Indexed features: Scale Large; Profile Square; Spectrum Narrow; Background Light Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Scale Large; Profile Square; Spectrum Narrow; Background Light. ³⁹⁴

The AB5D header candidate is token 489000066 (edition 66), 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, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 179,156,145). File size 7186116 bytes. Indexed features: Scale Huge; Profile Thick; Spectrum Wide; Background Cream ¹⁰³⁴

Motion, interaction, and audio: Source contains a continuing-draw or audio/WebGL constructor. The inspected PNG is one frame. Live timing and soundtrack were not captured this session. 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

Balance is project 489 by Kelly Milligan x Amber Vittoria 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.