Eccentrics

The work and its context

Eccentrics makes a small collection of geometric forms seem to have intentions. Circles acquire eyes, triangles become towers, and nested outlines suggest machines or ceremonial objects. The images never quite settle into those identities. A face is also a pair of circles inside another circle; a monumental structure remains an arrangement of flat shapes. The pleasure lies in the repeated movement between recognising something and seeing the elementary construction that prompted recognition. ^{1 2 3 4}

Radix, the artist Rob Dixon, released this 400-work project through Art Blocks Playground. His project statement foregrounds imperfect repetition and slightly unsettled symmetry, locating the resulting imagery between art deco, pop art and science fiction. These are declared associations rather than a checklist of historical sources. The Radix artist dossier supplies the broader practice context; this essay concentrates on the first Eccentrics project, not the later Orbits release. ^{5 6}

AB5D's verified example, edition 11, offers a comparatively orderly introduction. Four ochre panels stand on a grey-green ground, each containing three circular devices. Small changes in ring thickness and surrounding dots make them seem like buttons, lenses or faces. The repetition is strong enough to establish a rule before the viewer begins inspecting its details. The work was examined in its default state and with its keyboard-controlled outlines hidden. ⁷

Conception and development

In a December 2021 account, Dixon describes Eccentrics as growing from a layout subsystem for a larger project. He initially used geometric placeholders while investigating how composition could convey drama without representational subject matter. Towers, spacecraft and faces began to suggest themselves. He retained those associations, then introduced deviations from cloned repetitions so that groups could unexpectedly change character. The account treats this productive irregularity as an important discovery in development. ⁸

That history explains why the geometry is neither a neutral demonstration nor a disguised illustration algorithm. The inspected program does not contain a category called face or spacecraft. It constructs nested modules and allows their arrangement to invite recognition. A pair of repeated circles can become eyes without requiring the rest of a body. The ambiguity is sustained because a viewer can always return from the imagined subject to the visible relationship between parts. ^{9 1 2}

Dixon's account discusses the developing Eccentrics system broadly and includes experiments beyond this particular deployed script. It is useful evidence for the project’s conception, but not a reason to attribute every later shape or feature to project 104. The distinction matters especially with a series that continued into other editions: the code inspected here defines the specific vocabulary considered below. ^{9 8}

A July 2021 artist notice offered owners one signed physical print per mint number, with the edition number inscribed. This gives the digital composition a documented material counterpart without suggesting that every token has been printed. The same notice lists editions 1 and 10 among those already ordered, linking two examples in this essay to the artist's print programme. The list is a dated record, not a current inventory. ¹⁰

How the work was constructed

The full indexed artist script contains 15,547 characters. It runs in p5.js 1.0.0 using instance mode, with a logical square of 10,000 units scaled to the smaller window dimension. Margins and line weights follow that scale, and pixel density is explicitly set to two. An initial segment of the token hash seeds a bitwise pseudorandom generator. Its successive values choose palette, configuration and many local construction decisions. ^{5 9}

The token identifier is also an input. After reducing it to the edition number, the script tests for specific editions and numerical classes before applying the ordinary layout choice. Editions 128 and 256 share a dedicated construction; 222 has another; positive multiples of one hundred use a repeated grid. Edition 0 reaches a separate modulo condition that selects a two-tower arrangement and a particular palette range. Therefore the series should not be described as driven only by the hash, and #0 should not be treated as a neutral random sample of all available layouts. ⁹

For ordinary cases, a sampled value chooses among predefined arrangements. These include stacked nesting, free subdivision, paired side elements, framed vertical groups, concentrated circles and an off-centre combination of large and small regions. The layout sets a broad compositional proposition before the recursive process fills it. This separation lets two works share a recognisable arrangement while differing substantially in their internal structures. Editions 10 and 20 make that distinction especially clear. ^{9 3 4}

Each module records its shape type, position, dimensions, margins, colour, ancestry and contained modules. The base type draws a rectangle; specialised types draw circles, triangles, diamonds, arches and elongated oval forms. Arches use Bézier segments and have different internal margins because the curved or pointed top cannot accommodate children in the same way as a rectangle. This is a layout system that responds to its shapes, rather than one grid with different symbols pasted over it. ⁹

The recursive routine considers the available inner width and height before adding children. Elongated regions have opportunities to split across rows or columns, while smaller regions eventually stop. Some divisions use equal portions and others use predefined unequal proportions. Shape eligibility also depends on the parent and its ancestors. Those restrictions help prevent every combination from becoming equally likely and keep nesting coherent enough to read, even where the resulting image is eccentric. ⁹

Cloning is crucial. When a region is divided, the code can copy a previously constructed module together with its descendants, or generate a new one. A copied tower can therefore repeat many small decisions at once. A new module interrupts that agreement. The effect is more specific than adding random noise to a regular pattern: the alternatives operate on whole structures, so a deviation can change an entire cluster while neighbouring clusters remain closely related. ⁹

Colour follows several families of rules. The script contains established palette arrays, alternatives built around a small number of colours, interpolated transitions and nearly monochrome schemes. Background selection and optional sequential colour choices modify how those arrays are used. Nested filled shapes leave earlier colours exposed as bands; many of the apparent rings are therefore successive surfaces rather than independently placed decorative strokes. Black outlines reinforce their boundaries in the default view. ⁹

Depth here is compositional, not a third dimension. The script draws parents and their contents in order, and some specialised shapes suppress their own background when a particular child occupies them. That can make the continuity of an outer silhouette harder to trace. Overlap, exposed bands and shared colours encourage a reading of recesses or layered objects, but there is no inspected lighting or perspective model behind that impression. ⁹

The default rendering ends with noLoop. Keyboard controls nevertheless alter its presentation: R toggles delayed redraw, L toggles line visibility, P switches to a 7,200-pixel canvas mode, and S requests a JPEG save. These are code findings; the line-visibility change was also verified visually on the held example. Delayed redraw is not evidence of a continuously moving composition. The high-resolution and saving controls were not exercised, and no audio routine was found. ^{9 7}

This distinction matters to preservation. A static preview shows the default finished image but omits the optional presentation states. The token hash and edition number both belong with the script and compatible library in a reproducible record. Retaining only one image would preserve a useful visual reference while losing the rules and controls that connect it to other renderings. ^{9 11}

The mint

The current index places the first mint on 29 June 2021 at 17:45:49. Activation follows on 30 June at 17:46:51. The second mint and scheduled-start fields both read 18:00:07 that day, while completion reads 18:03:26. Dixon's dedicated project page gives 30 June as the release date and 400 minted works. These observations are compatible with an earlier initial token followed by release-day activity, but they do not identify the purpose of each transaction. ^{5 6}

Present invocations and maximum are both 400. The current price setting is 0.12 ETH; it has not been established here as the original public price. Nor does a current maximum prove the maximum announced before release. Subtracting the second-mint time from completion would give an index interval of three minutes nineteen seconds, not automatically a verified public sellout duration. Reserved, artist and administrative allocations remain unclassified. ⁵

The artist's general biography currently lists this first series as 300, whereas his dedicated Eccentrics page and the fresh project record both report 400. This essay uses the project-specific evidence and retains the discrepancy as a research note rather than silently harmonising all three records. A retrospective site summary should not override the exact collection record without explanation. ^{6 12 5}

Copyright and licensing

The current project label is NFT License, with no terms URL in the metadata. Art Blocks' contemporary licensing guide identifies NFT License and NIFTY as names for NFT License 2.0. The published standard reserves the underlying intellectual property to the creator and provides specified permissions to owners. No completed, project-specific terms document or complete history of earlier labels was recovered. ^{5 13 14}

The standard text distinguishes personal noncommercial use, conditional marketplace or application display, and limited merchandise commercialisation. Its website conditions should not be reduced to an unrestricted right to republish an owned image permanently. AB5D's ownership of edition 11 has been verified; the precise basis for enduring public archival display remains a separate rights question. The reported artwork label is retained without substituting a Creative Commons licence. ^{14 7}

The p5.js dependency has LGPL 2.1 terms, but no separate artist-code reuse grant was found. The artist's program is analysed without being redistributed in this package. CC0 applies to the essay's original prose, not to the artwork, artist software or dependency. The signed-print offer is evidence of that particular artist-run programme, not a universal extension of the software or reproduction licence. ^{9 11 10}

Close reading of four outputs

Editions 0, 1, 10 and 20 were selected in advance as a small early-edition group. Their token IDs are 104000000, 104000001, 104000010 and 104000020 on Ethereum contract 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270. All four original generator pages were visually inspected. Three use a two-tower arrangement, and #0 has special code treatment, so this selection is particularly unsuitable as a statistical portrait of the collection. It is useful for comparing how one broad arrangement can change. ^{9 1 2 3 4}

In #0, pointed salmon-coloured towers flank overlapping circular forms on cream. The lower central blue disc contains two pale devices that resemble paired faces; the upper blue-grey disc distributes its smaller circles asymmetrically. The side towers repeat closely, creating a stable border around a more unsettled centre. Colourful rings make the circles appear mechanical, but the little paired openings also encourage a bodily reading. Neither interpretation erases the other. ¹

In #1, a broad pink circle overlaps a pale triangular structure on muted green. Three conspicuous ringed discs cross the top, while lower groups vary in scale and internal detail. The large central disc is heavier than its smaller neighbours. Here the repeated circles can look like a collection of expressions or components set into one large body. The enclosing circle gives the scattered groups a common field, while the triangle remains visible as an incompatible support. ²

In #10, two slender blue-green towers frame a central blue-grey circle. Two large circles sit side by side inside that centre, while smaller ringed forms cluster above and below. The side structures contain orange and blue circular groups, some with tiny paired openings. Compared with #0, the centre is more compact and the pale ground has greater room to separate the three main elements. The paired inner circles suggest eyes with remarkable economy, although no mouth or head contour completes a literal face. ³

In #20, the central dark circle is surrounded by many fine coloured rings and joined to a pink disc above and a smaller dark disc below. The flanking towers contain stacked triangular forms with small circular pairs, then narrow dark points near their bases. Pale blue and black make the towers seem sharper and less soft than #0's salmon forms. The three circular marks on the pink upper disc resist the familiar two-eye reading, shifting the centre toward an instrument or emblem. ⁴

Significance and limitations

Eccentrics shows how representational suggestion can emerge from organisation rather than from a library of recognisable subjects. Repeated forms establish expectations; a difference in scale, spacing or nesting disrupts them. The viewer supplies a tower, face or device, then notices that its identity rests on a handful of geometric relationships. The ambiguity is not an obstacle to seeing the system. It is one of the system's most distinctive results. ^{9 1 2 3 4}

The artist's developmental account and the deployed code meet most clearly in the relation between clones and fresh constructions. Repetition makes a rule visible; replacing part of the repetition gives the eye a reason to return. The images can therefore remain legible and unsettled at the same time. Their apparent eccentricity depends on a considerable amount of structure. ^{9 8}

Unresolved research questions:

• Recover original price and maximum announcements, plus changes before completion.
• Classify mint allocations and verify the actual public opening before calculating a sellout duration.
• Resolve the artist biography's 300-work entry against the project-specific count of 400.
• Locate completed project-specific NFT License terms, archival display permission and any artist-code grant.
• Compare the indexed script with a pinned chain retrieval and test optional redraw, export and high-resolution behaviour across environments.