Metaphysics

The work and its context

Metaphysics is project 382 on the Art Blocks V2 core contract 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, published under the canonical slug metaphysics-by-jinyao-lin and credited to Jinyao Lin. The indexed project record reports a completed edition of 200 of 200 invocations, runtime p5@1.0.0, and the official description: Many things in the world are perceptible but not visible. Some things we can only feel, but not understand. Some things touch us and move us deeply, but not physically. We can only confirm some things through experience. Qi is believed to be part of everything that exists as a "life force" or "spiritual energy" that pervades the natural world. It cannot be seen, but in some paintings, the artist creates the flow of Qi to present a vivid world. Artists use Qi to show the presence of life in their artwork, and it’s also believed to be a metaphor for the energy that powers our body and spirit. Metaphysics is a generative system to simulate an organic world, to make the audience feel the Qi. Every single object is gradually deformed, shifted, and rotated in an attempt to find a pattern in the chaos that describes the workings of the life force and constitutes a living entity. It is inspired by the fluent Tai Chi movement, Cloud Hand. It develops with organic rotations and movements, like practicing Tai Chi on the canvas which makes the generative system alive. That movement composes this piece, and once we feel the invisible vital life force by the physics of the algorithm, could we say it is a process of metaphysics? This project uses p5js. Press [S] to download a high resolution jpeg. Press [A] to see the slow animation. Press [R] to download the animation. Press [B] to switch border/borderless mode. 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 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069. Aspect ratio indexed as 0.7. Website https://www.jinyaolin.info/.

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. Many things in the world are perceptible but not visible. Some things we can only feel, but not understand. Some things touch us and move us deeply, but not physically. We can only confirm some things through experience. Qi is believed to be part of everything that exists as a "life force" or "spiritual energy" that pervades the natural world. It cannot be seen, but in some paintings, the artist

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 Metaphysics 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 metaphysics-by-jinyao-lin was retrieved from projects_metadata.script filtered by that exact slug. The UTF-8 payload is 21871 bytes with SHA-256 f88aea9e983c8d842f2945844bf3fb156bf005ea48ee7a57732c94d37727783a. Runtime on the project record is p5@1.0.0. The script was read in full; it was not executed in this research session. ⁶

The stored generator is 21871 bytes, SHA-256 f88aea9e983c8d842f2945844bf3fb156bf005ea48ee7a57732c94d37727783a, runtime p5@1.0.0. Detected source markers: setup, draw, WEBGL, createCanvas, keyPressed, tokenData, hash, colorMode. Named functions include backgroundtexture, checkborder, draw, exportVideo, initGraphics, initValue, initspine, keyPressed, pixeltoratio, prepare. tokenData.hash is read in source. Output then follows the drawing path those functions implement. Token 0 observation: Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1680x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 132,152,154). File size 6936121 bytes. Indexed features: Broad 3; Palette Aokigahara; Coloring Vivant; Wildness 12; BrushType Chaos; Leaf Scale 1; Spine Type 1; Leaf Structure 1

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: Loop behaviour inferred only from source keywords. The inspected PNG is a static frame. 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 382 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069 is as follows. First token minted_at is 2022-11-09T07:10:11+00:00. activated_at is 2022-11-16T22:46:11+00:00. start_datetime is 2022-12-07T18:00:00+00:00. completed_at is 2022-12-07T18:22:23+00:00. Invocations stand at 200 of a maximum 200, with complete=true on the retrieved row. ²³

Calculated intervals from those timestamps: first mint to activation is 7.65 days; activation to start_datetime is 20.80 days; start_datetime to completion is 22.4 minutes; first mint to completion is 28.47 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 2022-11-09T07:10:11+00:00, activated 2022-11-16T22:46:11+00:00, start 2022-12-07T18:00:00+00:00, completed 2022-12-07T18:22:23+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. ¹²

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. ²⁸

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

Third-party runtime p5@1.0.0 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

Metaphysics #0 is token 382000000 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2022-11-09T07:10:11+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1680x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 132,152,154). File size 6936121 bytes. Indexed features: Broad 3; Palette Aokigahara; Coloring Vivant; Wildness 12; BrushType Chaos; Leaf Scale 1; Spine Type 1; Leaf Structure 1 Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Broad 3; Palette Aokigahara; Coloring Vivant; Wildness 12; BrushType Chaos; Leaf Scale 1; Spine Type 1; Leaf Structure 1. ³⁹⁴

Metaphysics #1 is token 382000001 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2022-12-07T18:20:35+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1680x2400px, mid-tone and strongly coloured (mean RGB 207,174,132). File size 6000825 bytes. Indexed features: Broad 3; Palette Grullo; Coloring Continuous; Wildness 4; BrushType Clone; Leaf Scale 1; Spine Type 0; Leaf Structure 5 Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Broad 3; Palette Grullo; Coloring Continuous; Wildness 4; BrushType Clone; Leaf Scale 1; Spine Type 0; Leaf Structure 5. ³⁹⁴

Metaphysics #10 is token 382000010 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2022-12-07T18:21:47+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1680x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 127,130,123). File size 8051341 bytes. Indexed features: Broad 3; Palette Myrtle Rose; Coloring Vivant; Wildness 2; BrushType Mass Construction; Leaf Scale 2; Spine Type 0; Leaf Structure 3 Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Broad 3; Palette Myrtle Rose; Coloring Vivant; Wildness 2; BrushType Mass Construction; Leaf Scale 2; Spine Type 0; Leaf Structure 3. ³⁹⁴

Metaphysics #20 is token 382000020 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2022-12-07T18:21:59+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1680x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 77,81,83). File size 7180217 bytes. Indexed features: Broad 2; Palette Monochrome; Coloring Continuous Segment; Wildness 13; BrushType Diffusion; Leaf Scale 1; Spine Type 0; Leaf Structure 3 Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Broad 2; Palette Monochrome; Coloring Continuous Segment; Wildness 13; BrushType Diffusion; Leaf Scale 1; Spine Type 0; Leaf Structure 3. ³⁹⁴

The AB5D header candidate is token 382000096 (edition 96), 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 1680x2400px, mid-tone and strongly coloured (mean RGB 125,147,187). File size 8210450 bytes. Indexed features: Broad 3; Palette Northland; Coloring Continuous; Wildness 8; BrushType Diffusion; Leaf Scale 1; Spine Type 0; Leaf Structure 4 ¹⁰³⁴

Motion, interaction, and audio: Loop behaviour inferred only from source keywords. The inspected PNG is a static frame. 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

Metaphysics is project 382 by Jinyao Lin 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? ²¹⁰⁷

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