InC

The work and its context

InC distributes small events across a large field. A line turns sharply, opens into a triangle, meets a curve, then stops. Elsewhere another fragment resumes the activity without explaining how it arrived there. The inspected originals make their empty intervals as conspicuous as their marks. Thin paths encourage the eye to follow them, while small areas of colour repeatedly interrupt that movement. The picture becomes a collection of local encounters rather than one continuous diagram. ¹²³⁴⁵

Released in the Art Blocks Factory category in January 2022, InC is project 244 and currently contains 64 works. Its artist, hex6c, names Terry Riley's 1964 composition In C as a point of departure. The connection is explicitly proposed by the artist; it is not an inference from the title alone. In the drawing, short related fragments coexist without being absorbed into a single central figure. The hex6c dossier provides the broader context of the practice. ⁶

The musical reference should not make a viewer expect a soundtrack. The inspected program draws in p5.js and provides mouse and keyboard interactions, but contains no audio implementation. Nor does the initial drawing automatically develop over time. The relevant temporal experience is partly the time taken to follow its fragments and partly the viewer's ability to add to them. That distinction matters when presenting the work: an interactive original offers something a thumbnail cannot, even though it is initially still. ⁷⁵

Conception and development

In an account published before the Art Blocks release, hex6c describes the sketch as originating in Processing and being translated to p5.js. The same account identifies handmade work by Giorgia Fincato as a stimulus. He recounts trying to reproduce aspects of her drawing procedurally, then adjusting his program away from that starting style. This is the artist's account of development, not a claim that Fincato endorsed the result or that intuition and programming are interchangeable processes. ⁸

He describes a walk that occasionally relocates abruptly, connecting that relocation idea to the imagined web surfer in PageRank. His emphasis on tuning parameters and probabilities helps explain why such a small vocabulary can produce markedly different compositions. The conceptual ingredients are simple enough to describe; their balance is the artistic problem. This account supports an understanding of InC as a deliberately adjusted system, while the deployed script supplies the evidence for its actual drawing rules. ⁸⁷

The platform description also places InC within a multi-year dance-theatre project directed by Barbara Altissimo. That is evidence for a broader conception of the title, but the inspected material does not establish the full performance history or the precise role of these tokens within every staging. The essay therefore concentrates on the executable drawing. It can be read in relation to movement and performance without treating those associations as a substitute for looking at the marks. ⁶

One useful discrepancy survives between the earlier artist account and the indexed code. The former describes black grounds as almost universal, giving a proportion that differs from the later script's threshold. The code also contains a green-background branch. The earlier text records how the artist described the project at that stage; the deployed program records the conditions inspected here. Neither should silently be rewritten to make the two agree, and a threshold is not itself a census of the 64 minted outcomes. ⁸⁷

How the work was constructed

The complete 4,219-byte indexed script was inspected. It names p5.js 1.0.0 as its environment and derives its repeatable decision sequence from the two halves of the token hash. Each half seeds an sfc32 generator. The program advances both generators through a substantial initialization period and then alternates their outputs. This supplies the decisions for colour, distances and marks; it is not fresh unseeded randomness on every draw. The evidence record preserves the query and script digest, but this review did not compare the result with a contract retrieval at a pinned block. ⁶⁷

The canvas is a square whose side is the smaller window dimension. The initial position is its centre. A base step length is calculated from that size and a selected multiplier, and individual steps choose among several further length multipliers. The largest movements also receive heavier strokes. Horizontal and vertical displacement are selected separately. If a proposed displacement crosses the relevant boundary, its sign is reversed, keeping the path directed back toward the field. ⁷

A step does not always leave the same kind of trace. One branch draws either a straight line or a filled triangle. Another draws a Bezier curve, which may be outlined or filled. Small offsets change the triangle's third point and the curve's control points. The result mixes angular and rounded events without requiring separate drawing systems for each visible cluster. A filled curve can create a leaf-like or crescent-like patch, but those resemblances are consequences of the mark, not evidence that the code models leaves. ⁷

Colour begins with a randomly selected RGB triplet. A rejection condition avoids a small region around middle grey; a second triplet is then obtained by subtracting each component from 255. This is an explicit RGB inversion relationship. Calling the pair complementary can be useful informally, but it should not imply a measured perceptual opposition in every colour space. Lines and triangles use one member of the pair; the curved branch uses the other. The difference in shape and colour reinforces the separation of the two kinds of event. ⁷

After a mark is made, the walk usually continues from its endpoint. Occasionally, it resumes from another interior location without drawing the intervening connection. These relocations explain how fragments can appear scattered even though each is produced by the same procedure. A viewer following one chain eventually has to cross an interval of ground to find another. The gap is an active part of the composition rather than an unfinished connection waiting to be supplied. ⁷

A significant qualification concerns resolution. The number of initial iterations is selected from ranges proportional to canvas size. Some distances scale with the canvas, while stroke widths and the small control-point offsets remain expressed in fixed pixel values. A different initial window size can therefore alter the number and relative weight of marks. The hash makes the procedure repeatable under the same conditions; it does not guarantee a composition that merely scales unchanged to every window. The five close readings below use the same viewport for that reason. ⁷

The initial drawing is completed in setup, and the draw function is empty. Clicking relocates the walker to the pointer, disables subsequent teleportation and adds a short run of marks using the continuing decision sequence. In AB5D's #60, a click visibly added a small group of curves and coloured shapes to a previously open area. The action changes the current rendering, not the minted token input. Reloading reconstructs the starting work at the current display size. ⁷⁵

The C key clears the canvas, alternating white and black grounds. It does not redraw the original composition against a newly selected background; the existing marks disappear. That behaviour was tested in #60. The S key requests a JPEG save in the code, although no export was needed for this review. Preserving the work's interaction requires explaining these differences: adding, clearing and reconstructing are separate operations. ⁷⁵

The mint

The current collection page lists 25 January 2022 as the release date. The index records an earlier first token on 20 January, activation on 21 January, and a second token shortly before the scheduled start on 25 January. The header's first-mint date consequently differs from the public release date. Both can be retained when their meaning is named. The index alone does not classify the earlier transactions as public purchases, artist mints or administrative actions. ⁶

The present invocation count and maximum are both 64. Completion is recorded on 13 July 2022. A current price setting of 0.25 ETH and a fixed-price sales note are also present. These establish the observed configuration, not a verified history of every price or an exact public sellout interval. Recovering the originally announced maximum and the transaction-level sale history would strengthen the mint account. ⁶

The artist states an intention to donate a quarter of proceeds to local nonprofit organizations. The essay records that undertaking as an announced intention. The inspected project record does not provide receipts or another basis for asserting that the donations were completed. Separating the announcement from proof of fulfillment preserves the meaning of the source without either endorsing or disputing an outcome it does not document. ⁶

AB5D's #60 was selected for the header after its owner was checked against the three linked collection wallets in the fresh response. The remaining examples are editions 0, 1, 10 and 20, selected as an early comparison group before viewing. This establishes a limited and reproducible sample, not a claim about the prevalence of colours, backgrounds or compositions throughout the edition. ⁶¹²³⁴⁵

Copyright and licensing

The current artwork label is CC BY-NC-SA, with no version or terms link supplied. The attribution, noncommercial and share-alike components are recognizable licence elements, but this incomplete label does not justify selecting a particular version of the legal terms on the artist's behalf. The caption therefore retains the reported label and identifies the missing version. The Creative Commons licence index is explanatory context, not a recovered project-specific agreement. ⁶⁹

The p5.js 1.0.0 repository supplies an LGPL 2.1 licence file for the dependency. That library notice does not establish a comprehensive reuse grant for the artist's drawing program. The indexed script was inspected but is not republished with this essay. AB5D dedicates its original prose to CC0; the artwork, artist software and library remain distinct rights questions. Earlier artwork terms and any separate code grant remain research gaps. ⁷¹⁰

Close reading of five outputs

The originals were viewed in a 1280-by-720 browser window, producing a 720-pixel square drawing field with surrounding browser margins. The descriptions concern the untouched initial states unless an interaction is specifically named. This viewing condition matters because the inspected program uses canvas size in its iteration count. Comparing screenshots produced under different conditions without noticing that dependency could confuse a rendering difference with a difference between tokens. ⁷¹²³⁴⁵

In #0, pink angular paths and triangular patches share a black field with green curves and occasional rounded fills. The upper portion contains a comparatively concentrated group of pink shapes, crossed by a long green diagonal. Below it, a substantial interval of black delays the transition to separate lower clusters. The drawing can look dispersed at first, yet those longer strokes establish local directions that keep the marks from becoming an undifferentiated scatter. ¹

The difference between line and fill regulates its pace. A fine curve asks for close attention; a filled triangle is found almost immediately. Following the long pink diagonal upward leads into a denser region, but does not disclose a single path through the whole image. The viewer must repeatedly choose another beginning. That recurring interruption makes the artist's fragment-based conception tangible without requiring the drawing to illustrate a musical score. ¹

In #1, pale yellow angles and dark blue curves produce a more emphatic contrast of shapes. The lower half is busier, with a long yellow wedge on the left and an elongated blue filled mark nearby. Angular chains on the right repeatedly change direction. The yellow is easy to follow against black, while some fine blue passages recede. The eye therefore receives an unequal account of two kinds of mark, even though both contribute to the structure. ²

The blue filled passage is especially effective because it gives the quieter colour a concentrated presence. It interrupts the tendency to read the work only through its brighter network. Nearby yellow triangles point and turn; the blue shape moves more continuously along its curve. Their proximity makes the difference between a corner and a bend feel like a difference in gesture. This is an interpretation of the visible marks, rather than a claim that each corresponds to a particular dancer or note. ²

In #10, yellow-orange paths meet vivid blue curves. Activity gathers at the upper right, with other groups around the middle left and lower centre. Long diagonals stretch between more compact passages. A substantial blue curved wedge toward the lower right anchors its area more strongly than the surrounding hairline marks. Compared with #1, the balance is redistributed: the force of a filled curve arrives in another place and changes the route by which the eye crosses the field. ³

In #20, the angular network is dark purple and nearly disappears into black. Pale yellow curved marks remain conspicuous, including small leaf-like patches and fine arcs. The upper left is notably open, while a denser purple group occupies the upper right. A tall narrow purple shard below the centre becomes apparent only after looking past the bright accents. Apparent sparseness here is partly a matter of contrast; counting only the easily visible marks would miss much of the drawing. ⁴

AB5D's #60 pairs similarly subdued purple angular marks with much brighter lime curves and fills. Small clusters are separated by generous black intervals. A crescent-like mark on the right and a wandering curve near the bottom provide distinct points of attention without creating a central emblem. The colours make the curved vocabulary seem more assertive than the fine angular paths, although the latter continue to organize local connections. ⁵

The interaction test changed that balance locally. Clicking in an open lower area added purple shapes, thin curves and a lime patch around a new point of departure. The addition was recognizably of the same vocabulary, yet its placement reflected the viewer's action. Clearing with C then removed the entire drawing and left white. The two operations clarify the work's openness: the viewer can extend or clear a current state, while the minted hash remains the basis for reconstructing its initial procedure. ⁷⁵

Significance and limitations

InC gives a small vocabulary enough room to remain differentiated. Its paths, triangles and curves carry different visual weights, and the relocations prevent continuity from becoming compulsory. The strongest inspected examples reward moving between a local fragment and the surrounding interval. Their coherence comes from recurring rules of gesture and colour, rather than a repeated central motif. ⁷¹²³⁴⁵

The interactive program also makes the viewer's contribution unusually plain. A click does not reveal a hidden precomposed scene; it chooses a starting location for another short application of the drawing rules. The result remains connected to the generator while acquiring a history of interaction. That distinction offers a precise way to discuss participation without pretending that the viewer authored the underlying system. ⁷⁵

Further work should recover launch-era configuration evidence, document the announced donations where records exist, clarify the artwork licence version, establish any separate artist-code terms and compare the indexed program with a pinned chain retrieval. Testing more display sizes would also improve the preservation account. The present reading is deliberately grounded in five functioning originals and their inspected procedure, with the earlier artist account treated as a valuable but separately situated source. ⁶⁷⁸