# Letters to My Future Self by Ryan Struhl

## The work and its context

Letters to My Future Self is a 1,000-edition Art Blocks Factory series by Ryan Struhl on the V2 core contract `0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270`. The official collection page places it in Art Blocks 500 / Factory and prints a fixed edition of 1,000 unique artworks.[^S01] Indexed project metadata retrieved on 18 September 2026 records project ID 174, slug `letters-to-my-future-self-by-ryan-struhl`, script type `js@na`, license `CC BY-NC-SA 4.0`, vertical name factory, heritage status ab500, website https://www.instagram.com/rwstruhl/, and 1,000 of 1,000 invocations.[^S02] Atlas position 167 is an index number, not the contract project ID.

The stored project description frames the series as communication through time. It names lockdown isolation, new friends and community, and "letters sent into the future expressing our collective hopes, fears, sadness, and love." It adds that 25 percent of proceeds will support future artists through art education grants via Donors Choose.[^S01][^S02]

Ryan Struhl's official website field is an Instagram profile.[^S02][^S05] The AB5D dossier is a bibliography lead, not a primary statement of this series.[^S08] This essay uses the on-chain description, the indexed script, and inspected outputs. The collaborative-sounding title is still a single-artist credit on the project record. "Future self" is an addressee inside the brief, not a second credited artist.

## Conception and development

No dated standalone interview unique to Letters to My Future Self was attached to the assignment snapshot. The conception document that can be pinned to this slug is the project description stored on the collection page and in `projects_metadata.description`.[^S01][^S02] That text is explicit about occasion: lockdown, isolation, joy in new community. It does not claim that the generated marks are readable English. "Words can't express" is in the same paragraph as the letter metaphor, which is a useful warning against treating the stills as deciphered handwriting.

The Instagram account listed as website supplies artist context. Individual posts were not treated as dated project briefs.[^S05] Later AB5D prose that restates the time-capsule metaphor is treated as secondary.[^S08] The Donors Choose sentence is a sales-allocation claim inside the project brief. No receipt proving the transfer was retrieved for this essay.[^S01]

Published token features name Form, Paper, Detail, Palette, Special, Inverted, Implement, Penmanship, Censor Mode, Censor Type, and Orientation. Sampled papers include marigold, daffodil, sand, newsprint, and white. Implements in this sample are all Fountain pen. Censor Type is chaotic or straight. Orientation is ltr or vertical.[^S03] Those labels should be checked against stills: paper color is visible, while Penmanship=medium is not a measured nib width.

What the description does not say is also useful. It does not claim a mint price or a public-sale duration.[^S02][^S07]

## How the work was constructed

The indexed record reports script type and version `js@na`.[^S02] The full script was retrieved on 18 September 2026 from `projects_metadata.script` on `https://artblocks-mainnet.hasura.app/v1/graphql`, filtered by contract `0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270` and project_id `"174"`. The UTF-8 payload is 8283 bytes. SHA-256 of those exact bytes is `b11708420557dc577c3afe5e0f6809544f41c5eb02499ba0e1193370a522c639`. The script was read in full and was not executed in a local sandbox.[^S03]

The body is an IIFE that builds a square canvas, reads `tokenData.hash`, and strokes polylines that resemble handwriting. Censor bars are drawn with multiply compositing when a glyph is flagged. A `keydown` listener saves a PNG when Control-S or Command-S is pressed. There is no p5 `draw` loop and no `noLoop()`. The still is a completed 2D canvas fill, not a timed animation. No Tone.js or Web Audio API appears.[^S03]

What is stored on chain is the project script plus each token hash. Rendering still requires a browser and the generator shell that injects `tokenData`. The project record marks the script locked. No Ethereum block was pinned.[^S02] Control-S is documented from the script. It was not pressed against a live generator in this pass. The save hook writes a PNG named from the hash. That is a local download convenience, not an on-chain media file and not a license to redistribute the image beyond the artwork CC label.[^S03][^S06]

## The mint

Several clocks have to be kept apart. Token 174000000, invocation 0, was minted on 24 September 2021 at 03:22:20 and is currently owned by `0x439f64293716d6778c0c7ffd10e1ebdd33d63672`.[^S03] The project record's `activated_at` is 30 September 2021 at 22:48:37. `start_datetime` is 1 October 2021 at 19:00:00.[^S02] Invocation 1 (token 174000001) was minted on 1 October 2021 at 19:00:43, forty-three seconds after start. Invocations 10, 20 and 689 followed at 20:05:34, 20:06:25 and 20:15:41 the same day. `completed_at` is 1 October 2021 at 20:18:40.[^S02][^S03]

Invocation 0 therefore predates activation by six days and public start by seven. It is the natural candidate for an artist or administrative mint; contract event logs that would prove the minter role were not pulled. Public minting evidence in this sample begins with invocation 1, immediately after start. From start to `completed_at` is 1 hour, 18 minutes and 40 seconds. That span covers the remaining 999 tokens only if no pause occurred and if start equaled purchaser availability. This essay does not convert that span into a sold-out claim.

Invocations and max_invocations both read 1,000 on 18 September 2026.[^S02] The collection page confirms the completed fixed edition.[^S01] No Dutch-auction schedule or opening ETH price was recovered from the collection page or the indexed project record.[^S07] Current secondary listings are not historic increments. Who paid what for invocation 1 versus invocation 689 remains open, including whether the Donors Choose cut was calculated on those same payments.

## Copyright and licensing

The project metadata field `license` is the exact string `CC BY-NC-SA 4.0`. No separate `link_to_license` field was stored on the indexed record inspected for this essay.[^S02] The Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International deed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ permits sharing and adaptation with attribution, forbids commercial use as defined in that deed, and requires adaptations to be licensed under the same terms.[^S06] Whether the artist intended that standard deed or only the short label is not documented in a project-specific instrument beyond the Art Blocks field.

Artwork rights are separate from source-code rights. The artist script is visible through the index and generator. Visibility is not a license to copy or reissue the program. No SPDX header was present in the inspected body.[^S03] The runtime is raw browser JavaScript and Canvas 2D; those dependencies are not relicensed by the artwork label.[^S02]

AB5D's CC0 grant covers this essay's original prose only. Token ownership does not transfer copyright in the images. The Donors Choose sentence is a sales allocation claim, not a change to the artwork licence.[^S01]

## Close reading of examples

Four tokens from the assignment discovery set were confirmed on the V2 contract and inspected as media-proxy PNGs with linked generator URLs: invocations 0, 1, 10 and 20. Invocation 689, owned by `0xdd19308a9731cdecb67e0d80ca6823394208c045` on 18 September 2026, is the header object.[^S03][^S04][^S09] Control-S was not tested live. PNGs are completed canvas stills.

Edition 0 (token 174000000) carries Form=letter, Paper=marigold, Detail=true, Palette=modern, Implement=Fountain pen, Penmanship=medium, Censor Mode=normal, Censor Type=chaotic, Orientation=ltr. The PNG is a cream page of black cursive-like strokes arranged in loose horizontal rows. Dense hatch bars in black, rust, and teal redact stretches of the line, matching chaotic censoring. No word resolves into English. Marigold here is a warm paper, not a drawn flower.[^S03][^S10]

Edition 1 (token 174000001) is the first mint after start: Paper=daffodil, Detail=false, Palette=royals, Censor Type=straight, Orientation=vertical. The still continues the letter grammar on a different paper temperature with straighter redaction blocks and a vertical flow rather than left-to-right rows. Detail=false is visible as fewer extra ticks around the main strokes compared with edition 0.[^S03][^S10]

Edition 10 is Paper=sand / balance / vertical / straight. Edition 20 is newsprint / dark construct / ltr / chaotic. Header edition 689 is Paper=white / atoms / ltr / straight. All five tokens exist on the stated contract. White paper on the header is the lightest ground in the sample; atoms is a palette name, not a drawn Bohr model.[^S03][^S10]

Canonical token URLs use the chain/contract/id pattern. Displayed edition numbers are invocations.

## Significance and limitations

Letters to My Future Self is a locked Factory edition that puts unreadable handwriting and censor bars on Ethereum and asks the viewer to read them as messages across lockdown time. The stored brief says words cannot express what the letters hold. The inspected stills obey that warning: they look like pages, and they do not yield a transcript.[^S01][^S03] The one-hour-nineteen-minute window from `start_datetime` to `completed_at` is a pair of indexed clocks, not a reconstructed sales narrative.[^S02]

Limits of this account are specific. Control-S was not live-tested. Invocation 0's minter role was not read from logs. Individual token prices were not recovered.[^S07] The Donors Choose transfer was not independently documented beyond the project-description sentence.[^S01] The Instagram website field was not a substitute for a dated essay.[^S05] Before publication, the coordinator refreshed the complete three-wallet AB5D linked-account set and checked the chosen token owner against it. The owner matched. The exact requests, returned identity and observation time are retained in the evidence record, separately from the earlier research snapshot. This is current indexed ownership evidence; it does not establish the acquisition date or historical custody of the work.[^S02][^S09]

Unresolved questions
- What ETH price did each sampled token pay at primary sale?
- Who minted token 174000000 on 24 September 2021, and under what project role?
- Was the 25 percent Donors Choose allocation paid, and on what sales base?
- Do chaotic versus straight censors map one-to-one onto hatch direction in every output?
- Does Inverted=true flip paper and ink, and does that trait appear in the collection?

[^S01]: Art Blocks. [Letters to My Future Self by Ryan Struhl](https://www.artblocks.io/collection/letters-to-my-future-self-by-ryan-struhl). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S02]: Art Blocks. [projects_metadata for project 174 on V2 core](https://artblocks-mainnet.hasura.app/v1/graphql). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S03]: Art Blocks. [tokens_metadata and projects_metadata.script for project 174](https://artblocks-mainnet.hasura.app/v1/graphql). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S04]: Art Blocks. [Letters to My Future Self #0 token page](https://www.artblocks.io/token/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/174000000). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S05]: Ryan Struhl. [Ryan Struhl Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/rwstruhl/). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S06]: Creative Commons. [Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S07]: Art Blocks. [Letters to My Future Self project page](https://www.artblocks.io/project/174). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S08]: AB5D. [Ryan Struhl artist dossier](https://ab5d.xyz/artists/ryan-struhl/). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S09]: Art Blocks. [Letters to My Future Self #689 token page](https://www.artblocks.io/token/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/174000689). Accessed 2026-09-18.
[^S10]: Art Blocks. [Media-proxy PNGs for Letters sample tokens](https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/174000000.png). Accessed 2026-09-18.