Ouroboros

The work and its context

Ouroboros is a 1,024-edition Art Blocks Factory series by Shane Rich | raregonzo on the V2 core contract 0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270. The official collection page places it in Art Blocks 500 / Factory and prints a fixed edition of 1,024 unique artworks.¹ Indexed project metadata retrieved on 18 September 2026 records project ID 166, slug ouroboros-by-shane-rich-or-raregonzo, script type js@na, license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, vertical name factory, heritage status ab500, website https://shanerichardson.art, and 1,024 of 1,024 invocations.² Atlas position 164 is an index number, not the contract project ID.

The stored project description opens with a sentence about humans who "must continually devour ourselves to be reborn with new understanding." It then describes the algorithm as "a grid of rounded squares, continuously spinning, an eternal cycle which expresses unity of matter and spirit which never disappear but perpetually change form through this cycle of destruction and re-creation." It lists color palettes, grid sizes, blend modes, border styles and shadows as the generators of variation, and ends with the instruction "Click for enlightenment."¹²

Shane Richardson publishes on Art Blocks as Shane Rich | raregonzo. The official website field is https://shanerichardson.art.²³ The AB5D dossier listed under Shane Richardson is a bibliography lead, not a primary statement of this series.⁴ This essay uses the on-chain description, the indexed script, and inspected outputs.

Conception and development

No dated standalone interview unique to Ouroboros 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.¹² The title names the snake that eats its tail. The description converts that image into a spinning grid rather than a drawn serpent. "Click for enlightenment" is an interaction instruction in the same paragraph as the metaphysics. It is not a separate manual.

The studio site at shanerichardson.art is the official website recorded on the project. It supplies artist context for Shane Richardson. It does not, on the pages inspected for this pass, replace the Art Blocks description as the dated brief for Ouroboros.³ Later AB5D prose that restates the cycle metaphor is treated as secondary.⁴

Published token features recovered from the index name Palette, Blend, Border, Shadow, Grid, Prose, and Margin. Sampled values include Flag, Amoeba, Candy, Flux for palettes; Multiply, Hard Light, Soft Light, Overlay for blends; Ego, Assimilation, Slough, Catalyst, Riddle for Prose; and grids from 4x4 to 10x10.⁵ Those labels are collector-facing traits. The description's "rounded squares" and "continuously spinning" have to be checked against the script and against stills, which cannot themselves prove spin.⁵

What the description does not say is also useful. It does not claim a mint price or a public-sale duration. Those facts have to come from clocks and from any sales note actually found.²⁶

How the work was constructed

The indexed record reports script type and version js@na, meaning a raw JavaScript runtime without a declared p5 version.² 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 "166". The UTF-8 payload is 11139 bytes. SHA-256 of those exact bytes is a9a408746d0fea50aa48152812a58432884989ee5ce0793d0406a471f60f2f87. The script was read in full and was not executed in a local sandbox.⁵

Named functions in the body include start, addCss, generateCell, and toggleArtText. A Random class is present. There is no createCanvas and no p5 draw. Layout is built from CSS-styled cells generated in script. A click path exists in the body and toggleArtText is the named handler that matches the published "Click for enlightenment" line. There is no noLoop() because there is no p5 loop; animation, if present, is CSS or timer driven inside start / generateCell. This essay does not treat a static PNG as proof of a measured rotation period.⁵¹

Hash consumption uses tokenData.hash through the Random class. Feature strings such as Palette and Prose are index traits; they are not all present as those exact labels inside the minified program. 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.²⁵

No Tone.js or Web Audio API appears in the inspected bytes. Claims about sound would have to come from outside this program.⁵

The mint

Several clocks have to be kept apart. Token 166000000, invocation 0, was minted on 22 September 2021 at 00:04:31 and is currently owned by 0x458e9ea6396d593ae888ce86a2ae154b36f31617.⁵ The project record's activated_at is 28 September 2021 at 00:35:26. start_datetime is 28 September 2021 at 19:15:00.² Invocation 1 (token 166000001) was minted on 28 September 2021 at 19:17:09, two minutes nine seconds after start. Invocations 10, 20 and 409 followed at 19:49:08, 19:50:40 and 20:10:03 the same day. completed_at is 10 October 2021 at 01:04:02.²⁵

Invocation 0 therefore predates activation by six days and public start by six days. 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, just after start_datetime. From start to completed_at is 11 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes. That long tail is not a 35-minute Factory snap sale. This essay does not invent a reason for the twelve-day close.

Invocations and max_invocations both read 1,024 on 18 September 2026.² The collection page confirms the completed fixed edition.¹ No Dutch-auction schedule or opening ETH price was recovered from the collection page or the indexed project record.⁶ Current secondary listings are not historic increments.

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.² 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.⁷ 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.⁵ The runtime is raw browser JavaScript (js@na), not a named p5 build. Third-party CSS or font dependencies, if any, are not relicensed by the artwork label.²

AB5D's CC0 grant covers this essay's original prose only. Token ownership does not transfer copyright in the images.

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 409, owned by 0xdd19308a9731cdecb67e0d80ca6823394208c045 on 18 September 2026, is the header object.⁵⁸⁹ Live clicks of toggleArtText were not performed. PNGs are single frames of a grid the description calls continuously spinning.

Edition 0 (token 166000000) carries Palette=Flag, Blend=Multiply, Border=Groove, Shadow=False, Grid=7x7, Prose=Ego, Margin=-3vmin. The PNG is a coral-red disk filling most of a pale square. Interlocking rounded-square loops in black, rust, and dark teal overlap under multiply blending so crossings go darker. The 7x7 cadence is visible as a lattice of rounded cells, not as a snake. Shadow=False matches the flat graphic, with no drop offset.⁵¹⁰

Edition 1 (token 166000001) is the first mint after start: Palette=Amoeba, Blend=Hard Light, Border=Double, Shadow=True, Grid=10x10, Prose=Assimilation, Margin=-7vmin. The PNG is a peach disk packed with a finer lattice of cream, white, and pink loops. Hard Light keeps crossings bright rather than muddy. The 10x10 grid reads as denser weaving than edition 0. A faint inner rim is consistent with Shadow=True plus the double border. "Assimilation" is a Prose trait, not a visible caption on the still.⁵¹⁰

Edition 10 (token 166000010) is Candy / Multiply / Solid / Shadow True / 5x5 / Slough. Edition 20 is Flag / Soft Light / Groove / Shadow True / 4x4 / Catalyst with a wide -17vmin margin. Header edition 409 is Flux / Overlay / Solid / Shadow True / 5x5 / Riddle. All five tokens exist on the stated contract. Their PNGs stay inside the rounded-square lattice; none draws a literal ouroboros snake.⁵¹⁰

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

Significance and limitations

Ouroboros is a locked Factory edition that puts a spinning rounded-square grid on Ethereum and asks the viewer to read it as a cycle of destruction and re-creation. The stored brief names the grid, the spin, the click, and the metaphor in one paragraph.¹ The script is raw JS with CSS cells, a Random class seeded from tokenData.hash, and a toggleArtText click path. Thumbnails cannot prove spin. The eleven-day close after public start is a pair of indexed clocks, not a reconstructed queue story.²⁵

Limits of this account are specific. Live generator clicks were not performed in the submitted research. Invocation 0's minter role was not read from logs. Individual token prices were not recovered.⁶ shanerichardson.art was used as the official website field; a separate dated Ouroboros essay was not located as a distinct body.³ 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.²⁹

Unresolved questions - What ETH price did each sampled token pay at primary sale? - Who minted token 166000000 on 22 September 2021, and under what project role? - What text does "Click for enlightenment" actually reveal, and does it persist? - Is the grid rotation CSS animation, a JS timer, or only implied by the still's loops? - Why did completed_at fall on 10 October 2021 rather than on the opening night?