CENTURY 2052

The work and its context

CENTURY 2052 is project 369 on the Art Blocks V2 core contract 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270, published under the canonical slug century-2052-by-casey-reas and credited to Casey REAS. The indexed project record reports a completed edition of 50 of 50 invocations, runtime p5@1.0.0, and the official description: This artwork will “die” on 20 October 2052. Today I’m 50. Will I live to be 80? Will I outlive this artwork? Will this artwork outlive me? The original CENTURY project is autobiographical. Creating art and experiencing art is the core of my life, and CENTURY is my homage to 20th Century artists. It’s a synthesis of their ideas. CENTURY 2052 brings the endeavor to the 21st Century. It’s released as 50 unique artworks, one for each year since I was born. The artwork transitions from life to death at 6:44pm EST on October 20th 2052. This isn't a commercial or public release. It’s a gift to others who have shaped the world of art that I inhabit. 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 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270. Aspect ratio indexed as 1.0. Website https://reas.com.

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. This artwork will “die” on 20 October 2052. Today I’m 50. Will I live to be 80? Will I outlive this artwork? Will this artwork outlive me? The original CENTURY project is autobiographical. Creating art and experiencing art is the core of my life, and CENTURY is my homage to 20th Century artists. It’s a synthesis of their ideas. CENTURY 2052 brings the endeavor to the 21st Century. It’s released

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 CENTURY 2052 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 century-2052-by-casey-reas was retrieved from projects_metadata.script filtered by that exact slug. The UTF-8 payload is 6802 bytes with SHA-256 1770ad5783f63828424ffbec61a464e437a4f7c6a54e9b256898269b0280f6c5. 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 6802 bytes, SHA-256 1770ad5783f63828424ffbec61a464e437a4f7c6a54e9b256898269b0280f6c5, runtime p5@1.0.0. Detected source markers: setup, draw, noLoop, WEBGL, createCanvas, keyPressed, tokenData, hash, colorMode. Named functions include draw, imdead, instantDeath, keyPressed, newFields, revive, setup. 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 158,172,200). File size 8979702 bytes. Indexed features: F1 Angle 330; F2 Angle 326; F3 Angle 320

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 noLoop. The inspected PNG is a finished still. Live motion was not stopwatched. 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 369 on 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270 is as follows. First token minted_at is 2022-10-12T00:58:23+00:00. activated_at is 2022-10-12T18:36:11+00:00. start_datetime is 2022-10-20T22:45:00+00:00. completed_at is 2022-11-21T02:40:59+00:00. Invocations stand at 50 of a maximum 50, with complete=true on the retrieved row. ²³

Calculated intervals from those timestamps: first mint to activation is 17.63 hours; activation to start_datetime is 8.17 days; start_datetime to completion is 31.16 days; first mint to completion is 40.07 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 2022-10-12T00:58:23+00:00, activated 2022-10-12T18:36:11+00:00, start 2022-10-20T22:45:00+00:00, completed 2022-11-21T02:40:59+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

CENTURY 2052 #0 is token 369000000 on 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270, minted 2022-10-12T00:58:23+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 158,172,200). File size 8979702 bytes. Indexed features: F1 Angle 330; F2 Angle 326; F3 Angle 320 Indexed features returned for this V2 token: F1 Angle 330; F2 Angle 326; F3 Angle 320. ³⁹⁴

CENTURY 2052 #1 is token 369000001 on 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270, minted 2022-10-20T22:56:11+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, light and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 179,196,193). File size 7168704 bytes. Indexed features: F1 Angle 222; F2 Angle 213; F3 Angle 231 Indexed features returned for this V2 token: F1 Angle 222; F2 Angle 213; F3 Angle 231. ³⁹⁴

CENTURY 2052 #10 is token 369000010 on 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270, minted 2022-10-21T19:18:35+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, light and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 168,189,189). File size 10011785 bytes. Indexed features: F1 Angle 333; F2 Angle 320; F3 Angle 320 Indexed features returned for this V2 token: F1 Angle 333; F2 Angle 320; F3 Angle 320. ³⁹⁴

CENTURY 2052 #20 is token 369000020 on 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270, minted 2022-10-21T20:51:11+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, light and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 165,207,184). File size 4742012 bytes. Indexed features: F1 Angle 164; F2 Angle 159; F3 Angle 174 Indexed features returned for this V2 token: F1 Angle 164; F2 Angle 159; F3 Angle 174. ³⁹⁴

The AB5D header candidate is token 369000006 (edition 6), 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, light and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 187,171,183). File size 6521892 bytes. Indexed features: F1 Angle 242; F2 Angle 231; F3 Angle 230 ¹⁰³⁴

Motion, interaction, and audio: Source contains noLoop. The inspected PNG is a finished still. Live motion was not stopwatched. 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

CENTURY 2052 is project 369 by Casey REAS on 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270. 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.