Floating World Genesis

The work and its context

Floating World Genesis is project 1 on the Art Blocks V2 core contract 0x64780ce53f6e966e18a22af13a2f97369580ec11, published under the canonical slug floating-world-genesis-by-aa-murakami and credited to A.A. Murakami. The indexed project record reports a completed edition of 250 of 250 invocations, runtime three@0.124.0, and the official description: The first component of a multidisciplinary project by A.A. Murakami, Floating World Genesis comprises 250 unique NFTs, each depicting one of three animated scenes chronicling the origins of life on Earth: a single microbial bubble that may split in two; clusters of self-organizing bubbles that represent the growth of multicellular life; and a single bubble situated on the horizon, signifying the formation of the Earth’s biosphere. Inspired by the Miller-Urey experiment of 1953, which simulated conditions of the early Earth to explore how life first formed in the primordial oceans through self-organizing bubbles, the Floating World Genesis NFTs possess tranquil, meditative, hypnotic qualities often associated with minimalist painting and the Light and Space movement. Bubbles have been an enduring source of inspiration for A.A. Murakami, whose seminal work New Spring (2017) is an interactive, multi-sensory installation that produces mist-filled blossoms. The formal dynamism of Floating World Genesis, which explores the kinetic possibilities of semi-abstracted bubbles, belies the project’s technical complexity and its wide range of generative effects. Opacities and diffusions of color vary among the NFTs, as do the shapes and positions of the bubbles. Clear bubbles depicted against gradation backgrounds feature refractions of light and color. Some of the NFTs are stereoscopic, allowing viewers to have a three-dimensional experience and immersing them in a world of buoyant, ethereal bubbles. A.A. Murakami is known for creating immersive, sensorial installations as part of a long-standing exploration of natural phenomena and systems. With these concerns at the center of the duo’s practice, A.A. Murakami has pioneered the development of “ephemeral tech,” or technology that is experienced not through standard interfaces like screens, but through ethereal and shifting matter, facilitating fleeting but deeply meaningful in-person experiences. With the multifaceted Floating World Genesis series, the duo aims to further explore this concept through what it has termed the “mataverse,” a space between the physical and digital worlds. Through future Floating World Genesis projects, A.A. Murakami will investigate the possibilities of art that lives on the blockchain and engages all the viewers’ senses in immersive and tactile physical environments. 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 0x64780ce53f6e966e18a22af13a2f97369580ec11. Aspect ratio indexed as 1.0. Website https://www.pacegallery.com/journal/aa-murakami-floating-world/.

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. The first component of a multidisciplinary project by A.A. Murakami, Floating World Genesis comprises 250 unique NFTs, each depicting one of three animated scenes chronicling the origins of life on Earth: a single microbial bubble that may split in two; clusters of self-organizing bubbles that represent the growth of multicellular life; and a single bubble situated on the horizon, signifying the f

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 Floating World Genesis 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 floating-world-genesis-by-aa-murakami was retrieved from projects_metadata.script filtered by that exact slug. The UTF-8 payload is 25025 bytes with SHA-256 c003c40bd3355e610d47b6009dfe6fa93a416ac35ff14b4bf96e86ebf062d1bd. Runtime on the project record is three@0.124.0. The script was read in full; it was not executed in this research session. ⁶

The stored generator is 25025 bytes, SHA-256 c003c40bd3355e610d47b6009dfe6fa93a416ac35ff14b4bf96e86ebf062d1bd, runtime three@0.124.0. Detected source markers: setup, draw, requestAnimationFrame, THREE, WebGLRenderer, tokenData, hash, colorMode. Named functions include M, S, a, b, e, g, h, i, u. 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 161,187,142). File size 1258527 bytes. Indexed features: Light Moon; Scene Primordial; Water N/A; Bubble Lucid; Environment Abyss; Color Theory Triadic; Stereoscopic No; Cell Division No

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 1 on 0x64780ce53f6e966e18a22af13a2f97369580ec11 is as follows. First token minted_at is 2022-08-23T16:37:16+00:00. activated_at is 2022-11-23T23:53:35+00:00. start_datetime is 2022-12-21T17:00:00+00:00. completed_at is 2022-12-21T17:16:47+00:00. Invocations stand at 250 of a maximum 250, with complete=true on the retrieved row. ²³

Calculated intervals from those timestamps: first mint to activation is 92.30 days; activation to start_datetime is 27.71 days; start_datetime to completion is 16.8 minutes; first mint to completion is 120.03 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 2022-08-23T16:37:16+00:00, activated 2022-11-23T23:53:35+00:00, start 2022-12-21T17:00:00+00:00, completed 2022-12-21T17:16:47+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 Ownership License'. 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 Ownership License'.

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. 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

Floating World Genesis #0 is token 1000000 on 0x64780ce53f6e966e18a22af13a2f97369580ec11, minted 2022-08-23T16:37:16+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 161,187,142). File size 1258527 bytes. Indexed features: Light Moon; Scene Primordial; Water N/A; Bubble Lucid; Environment Abyss; Color Theory Triadic; Stereoscopic No; Cell Division No Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Light Moon; Scene Primordial; Water N/A; Bubble Lucid; Environment Abyss; Color Theory Triadic; Stereoscopic No; Cell Division No. ³⁹⁴

Floating World Genesis #1 is token 1000001 on 0x64780ce53f6e966e18a22af13a2f97369580ec11, minted 2022-12-21T17:00:35+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and strongly coloured (mean RGB 155,187,135). File size 1417209 bytes. Indexed features: Light Sun; Scene Primordial; Water N/A; Bubble Lucid; Environment Abyss; Color Theory Triadic; Stereoscopic No; Cell Division Yes Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Light Sun; Scene Primordial; Water N/A; Bubble Lucid; Environment Abyss; Color Theory Triadic; Stereoscopic No; Cell Division Yes. ³⁹⁴

Floating World Genesis #10 is token 1000010 on 0x64780ce53f6e966e18a22af13a2f97369580ec11, minted 2022-12-21T17:15:47+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 120,130,102). File size 1604776 bytes. Indexed features: Light Moon; Scene Primordial; Water N/A; Bubble Lucid; Environment Abyss; Color Theory Triadic; Stereoscopic Yes; Cell Division No Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Light Moon; Scene Primordial; Water N/A; Bubble Lucid; Environment Abyss; Color Theory Triadic; Stereoscopic Yes; Cell Division No. ³⁹⁴

Floating World Genesis #20 is token 1000020 on 0x64780ce53f6e966e18a22af13a2f97369580ec11, minted 2022-12-21T17:16:11+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 158,125,120). File size 1038958 bytes. Indexed features: Light Sun; Scene Horizon; Water Waves; Bubble Opaque; Environment Abyss; Color Theory Complimentary; Stereoscopic No; Cell Division N/A Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Light Sun; Scene Horizon; Water Waves; Bubble Opaque; Environment Abyss; Color Theory Complimentary; Stereoscopic No; Cell Division N/A. ³⁹⁴

The AB5D header candidate is token 1000121 (edition 121), 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, mid-tone and strongly coloured (mean RGB 28,148,166). File size 1037508 bytes. Indexed features: Light Moon; Scene Primordial; Water N/A; Bubble Lucid; Environment Aurora; Color Theory Analogous; Stereoscopic No; Cell Division Yes 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

Floating World Genesis is project 1 by A.A. Murakami on 0x64780ce53f6e966e18a22af13a2f97369580ec11. 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.