# Bubble Blobby by Jason Ting ## The work and its context Bubble Blobby presents coloured, luminous forms against darkness. Their boundaries round into lobes, narrow into necks and separate into small satellites. The bodies appear translucent because brighter edges enclose quieter interiors and overlapping regions remain visible. In the official recording of #30, the current AB5D holding, pale green and warm yellow forms occupy a narrow vertical region. Their arrangement changes substantially between views, while scattered smaller bubbles prevent the principal shapes from feeling isolated.[^S15][^S16] Jason Ting's 500-edition Art Blocks Curated project was released in May 2021. The official collection names 7 May as its release date, while the indexed first token predates that date. Ting's practice centres on animated relationships between form, colour and motion, as his own studio biography explains. The [AB5D artist dossier](https://ab5d.xyz/artists/jason-ting/) provides broader context; this series concentrates those concerns into a small family of fluid-looking bodies rather than a depicted landscape or recognisable object.[^S01][^S02][^S18] The distinction between an artwork's program and a recording is important here. The original renderer failed during this inspection with a graphics-related error, so the visual comparisons use the platform's official moving previews. Those recordings demonstrate changing shapes and colours, but cannot verify the original keyboard controls or every possible state. The inspected artist script supplies an independent account of the mechanism. Neither a recording's duration nor its replay should be confused with the duration of the generative work.[^S03][^S06][^S12][^S13][^S14] ## Conception and development In Jeff Davis's interview of 6 May 2021, Ting identifies a video of water droplets in zero gravity as the inspiration for Bubble Blobby. He wanted the pleasure of watching a liquid mass float and change shape, with further character supplied by colour and movement. He specifically recommends the live view and distinguishes editions by their evolving form and movement style, also pointing to colour-changing examples.[^S04] The interview situates the work after his return to creative practice in late 2019 and the daily sketches he began posting in early 2020. By the time of the interview, GLSL shaders and TouchDesigner had become important tools. That testimony explains the connection between sustained experimentation and this animated project without establishing that every part of Bubble Blobby was developed in either tool. The released program inspected here is JavaScript and GLSL running through regl.[^S04][^S03] The reference to weightless water establishes an inspiration, not a claim of physical simulation. The code constructs and blends mathematical distance fields, then accumulates colour along viewing rays. It does not solve a fluid's pressure or conservation equations. That difference allows the work to pursue the visual suggestion of liquid without promising scientific accuracy. Small apparent droplets can contribute to an image of suspension even when their behaviour originates in animated noise functions rather than forces acting on simulated water.[^S03] ## How the work was constructed The complete artist program is 8,076 UTF-8 bytes. The current project record specifies regl 2.1.0, a WebGL framework. The script creates its own canvas, requests a WebGL context and requires half-float texture support and linear filtering of those textures. Its square drawing area fits the smaller window dimension. The underlying image resolution can change separately from that displayed square, which explains why resolution controls belong to the viewing experience rather than to the token's identity.[^S02][^S03] The token hash is read as thirty-two byte values. Early bytes control a shape-style choice, colour offset, palette, rotation, a blending setting, a colour-mode flag and speed. Thirteen encoded palettes supply the colour material. A short seeded integer generator fills a small texture with values used by the animation, while another hash-derived value supplies a noise offset. The parameters establish a reproducible family of behaviour; they do not simply select a completed video from a library.[^S03] Rendering occurs in two main stages. The first shader writes a texture fifty pixels wide and one pixel high. Each entry encodes a position and radius for one component. A four-dimensional noise calculation varies positions with time, and several branches combine the noise with normalised vectors or values sampled from the seeded texture. Different branches produce different spatial distributions and motion, including an oscillating combination. This intermediate texture is data for the next stage, not the picture shown to the viewer.[^S03] The second shader treats those fifty entries as spherical distance fields. For a point in space, it calculates the distance from each sphere and combines the results with a softened minimum operation. Nearby components can therefore join through rounded transitions instead of meeting at a hard seam. The fifty computational components should not be counted as fifty visibly separate bubbles: several can contribute to one connected-looking body, while others appear as tiny detached spots.[^S03] To form the image, the shader sends a viewing ray through this field. A loop takes up to sixty steps and adds small contributions near its surfaces. A colour gradient, distance-dependent weighting and nonlinear adjustments transform those accumulated values into the luminous result. This is why a soft interior and bright rim can suggest volume without a conventional photographed light source. The final fragment is opaque; the impression of translucency is constructed inside the shader rather than obtained by placing transparent video layers over one another.[^S03] Time affects both the component positions and the colour sampling. A rotation parameter can move the coordinate system in either direction or leave that contribution neutral. The frame callback continually updates the image unless paused; there is no programmed final frame at which the artwork completes. Periodic operations inside the calculation do not, by themselves, establish a short exact loop for the entire composition. The official recordings are bounded extracts from this continuing system.[^S03] The published controls are spacebar for pause or resume, S for a screenshot and digits 1 through 5 for descending resolution. The script contains those handlers, plus a print-sized export and a hash-copy shortcut. On mobile user agents it uses body clicks to cycle resolution. The pause implementation tracks elapsed paused time, and resolution changes can resume a paused work. These are code findings, not successful interaction tests: the failed original renderer prevented verification here. No audio generation or playback code was found, and sound was not auditioned in the recordings.[^S01][^S03] The original also includes resize handling and an early performance-based resolution adjustment. These details resist treating every playback environment as identical. A browser can display the same composition at a different internal pixel density or rendering rate. In this inspection the canvas remained black and the renderer reported a null-object error; the evidence preserves that failure. The functioning official recordings provide visual evidence without resolving the original's compatibility in this environment.[^S03][^S15] ## The mint The first indexed mint, #0, occurred on 6 May 2021 at 03:11:20 UTC. Activation followed at 03:19:22 UTC. The second mint is recorded on 7 May at 17:00:37 UTC, matching the indexed start field. That sequence separates the earlier token from the official collection's 7 May release date. It does not establish the recipient's role or purpose of the first mint; those would require further transaction-level evidence.[^S02][^S06][^S01] Both #1 and #10 carry the timestamp 17:00:37 UTC on 7 May. Edition #20 follows at 17:00:56 and #30 at 17:00:59. Identical timestamps do not reveal a transaction's internal order or prove independent purchases. The completion field is 21 May at 04:58:20 UTC. From the second-mint timestamp to that completion is thirteen days, eleven hours, fifty-seven minutes and forty-three seconds. This is a span between indexed events, not a demonstrated uninterrupted public sale.[^S02] The refreshed index reports 500 invocations and a maximum of 500. Its current price setting is 0.15 ETH, but no original price history or primary sale configuration was recovered. Reserved allocations and possible pauses likewise remain unresolved. Those gaps cannot be filled with current secondary-market asks, or by assuming that a present contract setting was unchanged throughout the mint.[^S02] ## Copyright and licensing The project record reports CC BY-NC 4.0 and supplies no separate licence URL. The operative standard terms permit noncommercial reproduction, sharing and adaptation under their stated conditions, including attribution, relevant notices, a licence reference and disclosure of modifications. The noncommercial requirement concerns the purpose of the use. Ownership of a token supplies no general commercial-use exception and does not transfer copyright merely because the work is held in AB5D's collection.[^S02][^S10] The complete artist program's licensing remains a separate unresolved question. Public inspection does not establish unrestricted redistribution rights. The exact regl 2.1.0 package supplies the MIT licence, with permission to use and modify the library subject to retaining its copyright and permission notice. That library permission does not determine the terms of Ting's artwork or every part of his source. This package supplies findings and a digest rather than redistributing the artist program. Its original essay prose is offered under CC0; third-party work remains separate.[^S03][^S17] ## Close reading of examples The sample revisits verified early editions #0, #1, #10 and #20, with #30 as the separately checked collection holding. Each official recording was actually viewed at more than one moment. The choice makes differences easy to compare but establishes no rarity ranking or representative distribution across the edition. Descriptions concern the observed frames, not permanent outlines assigned to a token.[^S06][^S12][^S13][^S14][^S15] Edition #0 initially shows creamy, luminous bodies against near-black. A large irregular form occupies the lower centre; above it are smaller rounded masses and separated beads. Its lower body appears folded rather than flat because a bright rim encloses layered, cloudy regions. A later frame is warmer and rearranges the larger forms into a more compact gathering, with a raised three-lobed shape near the top and a rounded body at lower right. The initial silhouette has not survived, but the softness and warm luminosity make the two states recognisably related.[^S06] That continuity matters more than any momentary resemblance to a familiar object. The viewer can follow a neck or rim, then lose it as another lobe changes the outline. Small detached circles provide a slower visual register against the larger transformations. They also make the central forms seem materially related to the surrounding space: the work is not simply one plastic-looking object turning on a pedestal. Its composition repeatedly renegotiates which pieces appear separate and which appear joined.[^S06] Edition #1 shows a more pronounced colour transition in the observed recording. One frame is violet, with a large connected upper body, a separate lower-left mass and numerous satellites. A later frame is cyan and more vertically extended; the bright rims, interior hollows and smaller bubbles have shifted with the larger forms. The change is not merely the same silhouette under a different tint. Geometry and colour both participate in the passage between frames.[^S12] Edition #10 occupies less of the square in the inspected frames, leaving a broad dark surround. Its compact centre combines several colours at once: lavender, pink, orange, yellow and pale blue. In one frame a pale folded lobe overlaps a warmer lower region, with a yellow satellite above; another frame gathers blue and pink masses beneath a yellow-green upper-right bubble. The small scale intensifies the contrast between isolated coloured points and the denser luminous middle.[^S13] This multicolour arrangement changes how overlap is read. In #0, similar tones encourage the eye to imagine continuous material. In #10, different colours can distinguish neighbouring regions while their softened boundaries still appear to mingle. Some small circles look like inclusions within a larger body, while others sit apart in darkness. The shader's depth-dependent colour accumulation helps account for that ambiguous layering, but it does not oblige a viewer to identify a particular material.[^S13][^S06][^S03] Edition #20 is cooler and more restrained in the sampled recording, with pale lavender-white forms spanning much of the image. The first view has broad upper and lower lobes surrounding a large dark opening. In the later view, the assembly becomes more vertical, the central opening narrows, and small detached bubbles appear along its left. Soft internal ovals suggest overlapping layers or hollows. Relative to #10, its limited apparent colour range directs attention towards changing boundary and internal shading.[^S14] ## Significance and limitations Bubble Blobby turns a small number of parameter choices into a continuing negotiation between joined and separated forms. Its liquid suggestion comes from softened distance fields and accumulated colour, while the artist's zero-gravity reference supplies a documented imaginative starting point. The work does not need a literal liquid simulation to offer that sensation of suspended, changing matter. Its most distinctive continuity lies in the behaviour and surface character that persist while individual silhouettes disappear.[^S03][^S04] The recordings support that account of visible change, but remain records of selected intervals. Preserving the original renderer and its controls remains important even when a recorded preview is the practical fallback. The current inspection establishes the construction, several actual moving outputs and the collection holding; successful original playback and control verification remain an explicit review exception.[^S03][^S15][^S16] Unresolved research questions: - What were the original sale price, pricing changes and reserved allocations?[^S02] - What purpose did the pre-activation first mint serve?[^S02] - What separate permissions apply to the complete artist program?[^S03] - Can the original renderer and its controls be verified in a working WebGL environment? No successful original execution or fixed full-work loop duration is claimed here.[^S03] [^S01]: Art Blocks / Jason Ting. [Bubble Blobby official collection](https://www.artblocks.io/collection/bubble-blobby-by-jason-ting). Accessed 2026-09-18. [^S02]: Art Blocks. [Bubble Blobby exact project and token index](https://artblocks-mainnet.hasura.app/v1/graphql). Accessed 2026-09-18. [^S03]: Jason Ting. [Bubble Blobby complete artist program](https://artblocks-mainnet.hasura.app/v1/graphql). Accessed 2026-09-18. [^S04]: Jeff Davis / Art Blocks. [In Conversation with Jason Ting](https://www.artblocks.io/articles/in-conversation-with-jason-ting). Published 2021-05-06. Accessed 2026-09-18. [^S06]: Jason Ting. [Bubble Blobby #0 official output](https://www.artblocks.io/token/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/62000000). Accessed 2026-09-18. [^S10]: Creative Commons. [CC BY-NC4.0 operative terms](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode.en). Accessed 2026-09-18. [^S12]: Jason Ting. [Bubble Blobby #1](https://www.artblocks.io/token/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/62000001). Accessed 2026-09-18. [^S13]: Jason Ting. [Bubble Blobby #10](https://www.artblocks.io/token/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/62000010). Accessed 2026-09-18. [^S14]: Jason Ting. [Bubble Blobby #20](https://www.artblocks.io/token/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/62000020). Accessed 2026-09-18. [^S15]: Jason Ting. [Bubble Blobby #30 official recording](https://www.artblocks.io/token/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/62000030). Accessed 2026-09-18. [^S16]: Art Blocks / AB5D. [AB5D complete linked wallets and Bubble Blobby holdings](https://www.artblocks.io/profile/ab5d). Accessed 2026-09-18. [^S17]: Mikola Lysenko / regl. [regl2.1.0 MIT licence](https://unpkg.com/regl@2.1.0/LICENSE). Accessed 2026-09-18. [^S18]: Jason Ting. [Jason Ting studio biography](https://www.jasonting.studio/about). Accessed 2026-09-18.