# Ego Death by electralina

## The work and its context

Ego Death is project 386 on the Art Blocks V2 core contract 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, published under the canonical slug ego-death-by-electralina and credited to electralina. The indexed project record reports a completed edition of 222 of 222 invocations, runtime three@0.124.0, and the official description: This collection is a study of identity in the modern digital era, increasingly dominated by NFT profile pictures. We all construct complex identities to project out into the world, perhaps to distract ourselves from facing the real question that is gnawing at our subconscious. "Who am I?" The moment we feel ourselves begin to grasp an answer it recedes further out of reach leaving us in free fall. The good news is there is no ground.  We pay homage to Ukrainian-born artist Kazimir Malevich, founder Suprematism, an avant garde art movement focused on the fundamentals of geometry and the essence of experience. In the same way that artists from this movement explored the supremacy of pure artistic feeling, we explore the pure essence of identity and self-expression. Can we express an identity using  long form generative art with nothing but math and code? What is considered beautiful and desirable?  Taking this further we then explore the concept of Ego Death. Each piece represents not just the aesthetic combination of geometry and faceless human energies, but can be used as a meditation object that will remind the collector of the illusion of self. We have created a new type of pfp project that doesn’t just represent the egoic desire to fulfill ambitions and own scarce luxury goods, but rather is a true expression of one’s soul on the journey to enlightenment.   ---  # Interactivity This artwork contains one important interaction. The viewer is invited to click on the image, at which point it comes to life allowing the viewer to explore his or her identity by moving the mouse. We liken this to sitting down to meditate and asking the question “who am I?”. As the exploration continues, the viewer realizes that the decorative and outwardly expressed aspects of identity are but an illusion and they begin to dissolve.  Eventually the viewer experiences ego death, arriving at a pure black square illuminated by a sliver of light. The light of pure awareness. The viewer realizes he or she is nothing more, and nothing less, than consciousness itself.  ---  # Features The algorithm maps color palette variations and meta-structures of the geometries to different human archetypes. The code playfully generates characters for each collector based on a unique moment in time, and the collector’s unique wallet address, which we hope will establish a personal connection with the piece.  Some of the most rare pieces are the most undecorated, representing the highest version of enlightenment that is hardest to achieve through practice. When you dissolve into the absolute there is no more decoration but only the feeling of oneness. [^S01][^S02]

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. [^S01][^S02]

Contract 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069. Aspect ratio indexed as 0.91667. Website https://www.electralina.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. [^S04][^S09]

## 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 collection is a study of identity in the modern digital era, increasingly dominated by NFT profile pictures. We all construct complex identities to project out into the world, perhaps to distract ourselves from facing the real question that is gnawing at our subconscious. "Who am I?" The moment we feel ourselves begin to grasp an answer it recedes further out of reach leaving us in free fall.

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 Ego Death are the ones relied on. [^S07][^S01]

Secondary pages that only repeat the marketplace listing are not treated as independent conception sources. [^S02][^S07]

## How the work was constructed

The complete artist program for slug ego-death-by-electralina was retrieved from projects_metadata.script filtered by that exact slug. The UTF-8 payload is 79646 bytes with SHA-256 17e3fa95668fcbe28a10a117b6a15af0ff8716610cb04a0e09347c0bee108584. Runtime on the project record is three@0.124.0. The script was read in full; it was not executed in this research session. [^S03]

The stored generator is 79646 bytes, SHA-256 17e3fa95668fcbe28a10a117b6a15af0ff8716610cb04a0e09347c0bee108584, runtime three@0.124.0. Detected source markers: setup, requestAnimationFrame, Tone, THREE, WebGLRenderer, tokenData, hash. Named functions include i, p. tokenData.hash is read in source. Output then follows the drawing path those functions implement. Token 0 observation: Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2201x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 125,124,130). File size 5559746 bytes. Indexed features: ego Manifested; identity Judge; marking1 Dots; personality Connected

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. [^S03][^S10]

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. [^S03][^S06]

## The mint

Indexed chronology for project 386 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069 is as follows. First token minted_at is 2022-11-03T04:22:11+00:00. activated_at is 2022-11-08T04:06:35+00:00. start_datetime is 2022-12-02T18:00:00+00:00. completed_at is 2022-12-02T18:43:23+00:00. Invocations stand at 222 of a maximum 222, with complete=true on the retrieved row. [^S02][^S04]

Calculated intervals from those timestamps: first mint to activation is 4.99 days; activation to start_datetime is 24.58 days; start_datetime to completion is 43.4 minutes; first mint to completion is 29.60 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. [^S02][^S04]

Indexed clocks: first 2022-11-03T04:22:11+00:00, activated 2022-11-08T04:06:35+00:00, start 2022-12-02T18:00:00+00:00, completed 2022-12-02T18:43:23+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. [^S01][^S02]

## Copyright and licensing

The project record stores the artwork licence label 'CC BY-NC-ND 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. [^S02][^S06]

Artwork label copied exactly as 'CC BY-NC-ND 4.0'.

Third-party runtime three@0.124.0 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. [^S03][^S06]

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

Ego Death #0 is token 386000000 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2022-11-03T04:22:11+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2201x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 125,124,130). File size 5559746 bytes. Indexed features: ego Manifested; identity Judge; marking1 Dots; personality Connected Indexed features returned for this V2 token: ego Manifested; identity Judge; marking1 Dots; personality Connected.  [^S04][^S05][^S09]

Ego Death #1 is token 386000001 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2022-12-02T18:07:35+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2201x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 152,151,127). File size 5034593 bytes. Indexed features: ego Energized; energy Strong; identity Creator; marking1 Scratch; marking2 SmallCross; symmetry both; personality Spontaneous Indexed features returned for this V2 token: ego Energized; energy Strong; identity Creator; marking1 Scratch; marking2 SmallCross; symmetry both; personality Spontaneous.  [^S04][^S05][^S09]

Ego Death #10 is token 386000010 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2022-12-02T18:42:59+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2201x2400px, dark and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 93,57,43). File size 4829405 bytes. Indexed features: ego Manifested; identity Leader; marking1 Scratch; marking2 Scratch; personality Embraced Indexed features returned for this V2 token: ego Manifested; identity Leader; marking1 Scratch; marking2 Scratch; personality Embraced.  [^S04][^S05][^S09]

Ego Death #20 is token 386000020 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2022-12-02T18:42:59+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2201x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 106,101,111). File size 5180675 bytes. Indexed features: ego Manifested; identity Leader; personality Connected Indexed features returned for this V2 token: ego Manifested; identity Leader; personality Connected.  [^S04][^S05][^S09]

The AB5D header candidate is token 386000204 (edition 204), 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 2201x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 129,128,124). File size 5979308 bytes. Indexed features: ego Manifested; identity Creator; personality Clarified [^S08][^S04][^S09]

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. [^S09][^S10][^S03]

## Significance and limitations

Ego Death is project 386 by electralina 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? [^S02][^S08][^S10]

This package is a draft for human review. Structural validation tests file shape, not the truth of seeing or of licence interpretation.

[^S01]: Art Blocks. [Ego Death by electralina collection page](https://www.artblocks.io/collection/ego-death-by-electralina). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S02]: Art Blocks Hasura index. [projects_metadata record for ego-death-by-electralina](https://artblocks-mainnet.hasura.app/v1/graphql). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S03]: electralina. [Ego Death on-chain artist program](https://artblocks-mainnet.hasura.app/v1/graphql). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S04]: Art Blocks Hasura index. [tokens_metadata for sampled Ego Death token IDs](https://artblocks-mainnet.hasura.app/v1/graphql). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S05]: Art Blocks. [Canonical token pages for sampled Ego Death outputs](https://www.artblocks.io/token/1/0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069/386000000). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S06]: Creative Commons. [Reported artwork licence label CC BY-NC-ND 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S07]: electralina. [Ego Death official description](https://www.electralina.com/). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S08]: Art Blocks. [AB5D linked wallet set and profile index](https://www.artblocks.io/profile/ab5d). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S09]: Art Blocks media proxy. [Static PNG renders of sampled Ego Death tokens](https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069/386000000.png). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S10]: Art Blocks. [Live generator renderer for Ego Death](https://generator.artblocks.io/0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069/386000000). Accessed 2026-09-19.