(Dis)connected

The work and its context

(Dis)connected is project 431 on the Art Blocks V2 core contract 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, published under the canonical slug disconnected-by-tibout-shaik and credited to Tibout Shaik. The indexed project record reports a completed edition of 48 of 48 invocations, runtime js@na, and the official description: An audiovisual series that explores the paradoxical nature of our over-connected world. We are objectively moving more and more into the digital world. Increasingly connected through technology, and while it’s undoubtedly clear there are a lot of advantages to our interconnected world, it also seems to feel more dystopian. Soon we may no longer be able to realize what is objectively real. As if the more connected we become; the deeper we explore the possibilities of technology; the further we move away from the lives right in front of us. When was the last time you took time to observe a leaf falling from a tree, carried on the wind? Watched a beautiful sunray coming through a window? Listened to a gentle piano tune for a while? It feels like the whole world is collectively forgetting to enjoy moments like these. (Dis)connected tries to emulate the sentiment of those moments, while contrasting it at the same time with a darker, nostalgic undertone. (Dis)connected is a series that invites you to take your time to really appreciate each piece. The visual artwork has soft swaying analog cables on a breeze, with a play on light in the background, as if days are going by. Cables, for decades now have been used to connect appliances, transmitting either electricity or data. The cables in (Dis)connected are clearly connected to something and leading somewhere, but we do not know to what or where. The long form generative auditory work complements the soft swaying of the cables. At times the generated soundtrack is soothing, nearly meditative, at other times it becomes slightly off-tune and the sine wave changes. Forcing the viewer into the disconnected sentiment. The entire piece purposely glitches at times, disturbing both the auditory and visual state. Asking you to take a look at your own reality both in the digital and the physical realm. For color palettes works from both traditional and crypto-native artists resembling the sentiment of (Dis)connected were incorporated. You may recognize palettes utilized by Van Gogh, Rothko, Picasso, XCopy, Grant Yun and more. There are also a handful of custom palettes that aren't related to other artists. One of the artist inspirations for the work was Ryan D. Anderson, who creates incredible moody animations often accompanied by piano music. Ryan really has mastered the duality of soothing animation and music in a usually quite dystopian or nostalgic world. On a technical level, where (Dis)connected is really breaking new ground is in the melodies. Most generative art series working with sound use none or fairly simple music theory. The melodies in (Dis)connected are created by first selecting one of 60 different scales (a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch) and combining them with one of 16 different chord progressions (a chord progression is a succession of chords). Every beat, the chord is matched to the scale and during the beat musical notes that fit that chord can be played as well. The number of notes varies per beat, per melody and per piece. For each piece there is a generative main melody which is repeated throughout the piece and between each main melody a new custom melody is generated. In essence creating a musical piece that can play into infinity, together with the animation, and will continuously sound slightly different. It's also worth noting that the entire work is coded in vanilla JavaScript, meaning no external libraries were used. Most browsers don't support the auto-playing of sound. Once your piece has loaded in tap, click or press any key to start your (Dis)connected piece. As the animation can be quite heavy there is an option to set a "hq" parameter in your URL (you do this by adding "index.html?hq=false" at the end of your live URL), especially on mobile or high DPR screens (e.g.: retina screens), it is recommended setting hq to false. 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 0.645. Website https://twitter.com/ShaikTibout.

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. An audiovisual series that explores the paradoxical nature of our over-connected world. We are objectively moving more and more into the digital world. Increasingly connected through technology, and while it’s undoubtedly clear there are a lot of advantages to our interconnected world, it also seems to feel more dystopian. Soon we may no longer be able to realize what is objectively real. As if t

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 (Dis)connected 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 disconnected-by-tibout-shaik was retrieved from projects_metadata.script filtered by that exact slug. The UTF-8 payload is 23903 bytes with SHA-256 357024473b37bc85c624ff82e30f958bab683bd2fcd7960f6729deea16b4b59b. 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 23903 bytes, SHA-256 357024473b37bc85c624ff82e30f958bab683bd2fcd7960f6729deea16b4b59b, runtime js@na. Detected source markers: setup, draw, keydown, requestAnimationFrame, AudioContext, tokenData, hash. Named functions include C, E, Et, Ft, Ot, Pt, Qt, St, a, be. tokenData.hash is read in source. Output then follows the drawing path those functions implement. Token 0 observation: Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1548x2400px, light and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 177,199,207). File size 5712568 bytes. Indexed features: Border Black; Palette A Day In New England; Has noise False; Background #B8D1DB; Notes wave Triangle; Scale type Major; Zoom level 17; Beat repeat 0

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 431 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069 is as follows. First token minted_at is 2023-03-03T23:25:35+00:00. activated_at is 2023-03-09T03:30:47+00:00. start_datetime is 2023-04-19T17:00:00+00:00. completed_at is 2024-05-01T07:23:11+00:00. Invocations stand at 48 of a maximum 48, with complete=true on the retrieved row. ²³

Calculated intervals from those timestamps: first mint to activation is 5.17 days; activation to start_datetime is 41.56 days; start_datetime to completion is 377.60 days; first mint to completion is 424.33 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 2023-03-03T23:25:35+00:00, activated 2023-03-09T03:30:47+00:00, start 2023-04-19T17:00:00+00:00, completed 2024-05-01T07:23:11+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 'NFT License 2.0'. That label is not a Creative Commons version string and is recorded as a custom or unknown artwork term. 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 'NFT License 2.0'.

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

(Dis)connected #0 is token 431000000 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2023-03-03T23:25:35+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1548x2400px, light and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 177,199,207). File size 5712568 bytes. Indexed features: Border Black; Palette A Day In New England; Has noise False; Background #B8D1DB; Notes wave Triangle; Scale type Major; Zoom level 17; Beat repeat 0 Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Border Black; Palette A Day In New England; Has noise False; Background #B8D1DB; Notes wave Triangle; Scale type Major; Zoom level 17; Beat repeat 0. ³⁹⁴

(Dis)connected #1 is token 431000001 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2023-04-18T15:18:59+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1548x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 65,75,78). File size 5507462 bytes. Indexed features: Border None; Palette Starry Night; Has noise True; Background #3B4548; Notes wave Piano; Scale type Dorian; Zoom level 15; Beat repeat 0 Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Border None; Palette Starry Night; Has noise True; Background #3B4548; Notes wave Piano; Scale type Dorian; Zoom level 15; Beat repeat 0. ³⁹⁴

(Dis)connected #10 is token 431000010 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2023-04-19T07:22:11+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1548x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 155,185,172). File size 5082557 bytes. Indexed features: Border White; Palette A Gray Day; Has noise False; Background #96B7A9; Notes wave Piano; Scale type Dorian; Zoom level 19; Beat repeat 0 Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Border White; Palette A Gray Day; Has noise False; Background #96B7A9; Notes wave Piano; Scale type Dorian; Zoom level 19; Beat repeat 0. ³⁹⁴

(Dis)connected #20 is token 431000020 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2023-04-19T18:41:47+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1548x2400px, mid-tone and strongly coloured (mean RGB 135,182,198). File size 5265986 bytes. Indexed features: Border White; Palette Untitled 1982; Has noise False; Background #81B8CC; Notes wave Piano; Scale type Natural minor; Zoom level 4; Beat repeat 1 Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Border White; Palette Untitled 1982; Has noise False; Background #81B8CC; Notes wave Piano; Scale type Natural minor; Zoom level 4; Beat repeat 1. ³⁹⁴

The AB5D header candidate is token 431000027 (edition 27), 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 1548x2400px, dark and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 67,35,74). File size 5543495 bytes. Indexed features: Border Black; Palette Growing Older; Has noise False; Background #3F1C49; Notes wave Piano; Scale type Natural minor; Zoom level 14; Beat repeat 1 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

(Dis)connected is project 431 by Tibout Shaik 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.