Box Light Studies

The work and its context

Box Light Studies is project 499 on the Art Blocks V2 core contract 0xab0000000000aa06f89b268d604a9c1c41524ac6, published under the canonical slug box-light-studies-by-zach-lieberman and credited to Zach Lieberman. The indexed project record reports a completed edition of 100 of 100 invocations, runtime p5@1.0.0, and the official description: Box Light Studies is an investigation into light, color, and geometry. As an artist who works with code and produces sketches on a daily basis, Zach Lieberman has come to realize that he has just a few topics he deeply cares about, and one of those is light. He tries to produce images with a sense of illumination, where it feels like color, rhythm, and form are explored through that illumination, and he feels like he's captured some essence of what he sees in the world. He says, "I often see something on the sidewalk, like sunlight reflecting off a shiny surface, and wonder how to code that. At night, I look at a car's headlights coming towards me and see rays of light, almost like a prism. I see these things and wonder how to communicate them through my work. At the same time, my work changes the way I see. I explore algorithms of light and reflection via code and I start to see the world differently." This back-and-forth between observing and creating and observing is critical and shapes the work Lieberman does. As an artist, Lieberman tries to make images that make him feel something, with the hope that others feel something. He creates images that change how he sees, with the hope that they may change how others see. He loves to sketch, and this project is a view into his studies with light. 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 0xab0000000000aa06f89b268d604a9c1c41524ac6. Aspect ratio indexed as 0.8. Website https://www.instagram.com/zach.lieberman/.

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. Box Light Studies is an investigation into light, color, and geometry. As an artist who works with code and produces sketches on a daily basis, Zach Lieberman has come to realize that he has just a few topics he deeply cares about, and one of those is light. He tries to produce images with a sense of illumination, where it feels like color, rhythm, and form are explored through that illumination,

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 Box Light Studies 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 box-light-studies-by-zach-lieberman was retrieved from projects_metadata.script filtered by that exact slug. The UTF-8 payload is 41245 bytes with SHA-256 12ac88782ef299080819436e0b60b9f3bbdc114a96ebed92be38c45ab3aabca4. 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 41245 bytes, SHA-256 12ac88782ef299080819436e0b60b9f3bbdc114a96ebed92be38c45ab3aabca4, runtime p5@1.0.0. Detected source markers: setup, draw, WEBGL, createCanvas, keyPressed, tokenData, hash, colorMode. Named functions include a, c, d, e, f, i, l, m, n, o. tokenData.hash is read in source. Output then follows the drawing path those functions implement. Token 0 observation: Inspected media-proxy PNG is 3840x4800px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 116,93,91). File size 36683077 bytes. Indexed features: light type brushed

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 499 on 0xab0000000000aa06f89b268d604a9c1c41524ac6 is as follows. First token minted_at is 2024-11-07T04:37:23+00:00. activated_at is 2024-11-07T19:46:11+00:00. start_datetime is 2024-12-17T17:00:00+00:00. completed_at is 2024-12-18T18:14:47+00:00. Invocations stand at 100 of a maximum 100, with complete=true on the retrieved row. ²³

Calculated intervals from those timestamps: first mint to activation is 15.15 hours; activation to start_datetime is 39.88 days; start_datetime to completion is 25.25 hours; first mint to completion is 41.57 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 2024-11-07T04:37:23+00:00, activated 2024-11-07T19:46:11+00:00, start 2024-12-17T17:00:00+00:00, completed 2024-12-18T18:14:47+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

Box Light Studies #0 is token 499000000 on 0xab0000000000aa06f89b268d604a9c1c41524ac6, minted 2024-11-07T04:37:23+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 3840x4800px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 116,93,91). File size 36683077 bytes. Indexed features: light type brushed Indexed features returned for this V2 token: light type brushed. ³⁹⁴

Box Light Studies #1 is token 499000001 on 0xab0000000000aa06f89b268d604a9c1c41524ac6, minted 2024-11-07T04:39:23+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 3840x4800px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 104,83,78). File size 37053376 bytes. Indexed features: light type striations Indexed features returned for this V2 token: light type striations. ³⁹⁴

Box Light Studies #10 is token 499000010 on 0xab0000000000aa06f89b268d604a9c1c41524ac6, minted 2024-12-18T18:14:47+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 3840x4800px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 97,82,85). File size 47228994 bytes. Indexed features: light type striations Indexed features returned for this V2 token: light type striations. ³⁹⁴

Box Light Studies #20 is token 499000020 on 0xab0000000000aa06f89b268d604a9c1c41524ac6, minted 2024-12-18T18:14:47+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 3840x4800px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 143,122,120). File size 47979187 bytes. Indexed features: light type multi beams Indexed features returned for this V2 token: light type multi beams. ³⁹⁴

A complete check of the three current AB5D linked addresses found no tokens_metadata row for project 499 on 0xab0000000000aa06f89b268d604a9c1c41524ac6. The collection header is therefore a documented gap rather than a substituted token from another wallet. ¹⁰³

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

Box Light Studies is project 499 by Zach Lieberman on 0xab0000000000aa06f89b268d604a9c1c41524ac6. 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.