Proscenium

The work and its context

Proscenium is project 486 on the Art Blocks V2 core contract 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, published under the canonical slug proscenium-by-remnynt and credited to remnynt. The indexed project record reports a completed edition of 400 of 400 invocations, runtime js@na, and the official description: Proscenium is a generative geometry that starts as the snapshot of a world and ends as paint on canvas. It defines a set of instructions to produce a self-painting landscape where the laws of physics are reimagined; paint can bounce like rubber and the land itself is a canvas that collapses from three dimensions down to two. Proscenium's world is adorned with stylized structures, above which formations of paint drops are suspended in the air. As gravity takes hold, the paint falls and bounces across the land. After all the drops have settled or fallen off the canvas, the terrain is flattened, all except for the paint left behind by each bounce. This technique, leaving marks in three dimensions and then flattening down to two, creates a rich variety of shapes that reflect the character of the now invisible world. For many, Proscenium will begin as a stretched canvas print on a wall, perhaps momentarily mistaken for a reproduction of a painting. The myriad hints scattered like breadcrumbs throughout the collection's outputs will guide curious observers down a rabbit hole. It leads through experiencing the live render and ultimately towards a new appreciation of what's possible with digital art and software as a most infinite medium. It's there that Proscenium finds itself: not quite a pure physical simulacrum, nor a pure digital artifact of computers as we know them. It's an enactment of an idea made possible only through software as a multiplier and accelerant on thought itself - the human imagination - and its boundless possibilities. In that way, capturing the essence of paint dripped on canvas belies the work's true nature, painting over the fourth wall. Also known as the proscenium, the fourth wall is the physical space on a theater's stage between the curtain and the audience. The making of the art, the code, and the simulated world with its laws of physics that produce each piece are all obscured by the output image and its opaque printed copies. --- #### Live Render Controls and Settings Press 1 to reset the positions of the Camera and Artwork. Fixed Camera (Default) - Click and drag to rotate Artwork - Scroll to zoom Camera First Person Camera (Press 2 to Toggle) - W, A, S, D to move Camera in any direction - V to move Camera down towards the Artwork - Space to move Camera up away from the Artwork - Click and drag to rotate Camera Render - P to toggle Pause - 1 to reset Camera and Artwork Position - 2 to toggle Camera Mode between Fixed and First Person - 3 to render from Camera Position (!) - 4 to render with Flash Photography (!) - 5 to render without Canvas Texture (!) - 6 to render without All Textures (!) - 7 to render faster without Live View (!) - 8 to render sharpest with 8x Supersample (!!) - 9 to render for Print (!!) - 0 to reset to Defaults (!) (!) Restarts render from the beginning, press again to toggle off (!!) Same, plus these are very large tiled renders, with no Live View, and can take an hour or so 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 0.618034056. Website https://vibes.art.

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. Proscenium is a generative geometry that starts as the snapshot of a world and ends as paint on canvas. It defines a set of instructions to produce a self-painting landscape where the laws of physics are reimagined; paint can bounce like rubber and the land itself is a canvas that collapses from three dimensions down to two. Proscenium's world is adorned with stylized structures, above which for

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 Proscenium 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 proscenium-by-remnynt was retrieved from projects_metadata.script filtered by that exact slug. The UTF-8 payload is 145110 bytes with SHA-256 f2fc7b982429e22928ffd1268595573385ad342567bbc119c5f3d5c994ae4842. Runtime on the project record is js@na. The script was read in full; it was not executed in this research session. ⁶

The stored generator is 145110 bytes, SHA-256 f2fc7b982429e22928ffd1268595573385ad342567bbc119c5f3d5c994ae4842, runtime js@na. Detected source markers: setup, draw, WEBGL, keydown, requestAnimationFrame, tokenData, hash. Named functions include RGBtoSRGB, SORT_CLOSEST_DISTANCE, SORT_EVENTS_REACH, SORT_EVENTS_TIME, SORT_REACH, SRGBtoRGB, createNoise, t, updateRenderSettings. tokenData.hash is read in source. Output then follows the drawing path those functions implement. Token 0 observation: Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1484x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 164,160,146). File size 3127033 bytes. Indexed features: Form Packed; Rift None; Style Bullseye; Density Scarce; Palette Mixed Oils; Pattern Random; Special Overflow; Arrangement Random

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 486 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069 is as follows. First token minted_at is 2024-01-02T22:40:59+00:00. activated_at is 2024-01-29T15:05:35+00:00. start_datetime is 2024-02-14T18:00:00+00:00. completed_at is 2024-02-14T18:21:23+00:00. Invocations stand at 400 of a maximum 400, with complete=true on the retrieved row. ²³

Calculated intervals from those timestamps: first mint to activation is 26.68 days; activation to start_datetime is 16.12 days; start_datetime to completion is 21.4 minutes; first mint to completion is 42.82 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 2024-01-02T22:40:59+00:00, activated 2024-01-29T15:05:35+00:00, start 2024-02-14T18:00:00+00:00, completed 2024-02-14T18:21:23+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 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 4.0'.

Third-party runtime js@na 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

Proscenium #0 is token 486000000 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2024-01-02T22:40:59+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1484x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 164,160,146). File size 3127033 bytes. Indexed features: Form Packed; Rift None; Style Bullseye; Density Scarce; Palette Mixed Oils; Pattern Random; Special Overflow; Arrangement Random Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Form Packed; Rift None; Style Bullseye; Density Scarce; Palette Mixed Oils; Pattern Random; Special Overflow; Arrangement Random. ³⁹⁴

Proscenium #1 is token 486000001 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2024-01-02T22:49:47+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1484x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 103,81,55). File size 4248384 bytes. Indexed features: Form Packed; Rift None; Style Stack Overflow; Density Low; Palette Revelry; Pattern Spiral; Special Overflow; Arrangement LCH Chroma Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Form Packed; Rift None; Style Stack Overflow; Density Low; Palette Revelry; Pattern Spiral; Special Overflow; Arrangement LCH Chroma. ³⁹⁴

Proscenium #10 is token 486000010 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2024-02-14T18:09:35+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1484x2400px, light and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 220,221,206). File size 5776169 bytes. Indexed features: Form Golden Circle; Rift Gradient; Style Akihabara; Density Scarce; Palette Unmixed Oils; Pattern Random; Special Overflow; Arrangement Random Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Form Golden Circle; Rift Gradient; Style Akihabara; Density Scarce; Palette Unmixed Oils; Pattern Random; Special Overflow; Arrangement Random. ³⁹⁴

Proscenium #20 is token 486000020 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2024-02-14T18:12:35+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 1484x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 150,165,130). File size 4130731 bytes. Indexed features: Form Circles; Rift None; Style Monolithic; Density Medium; Palette Sunflower; Pattern Patchwork; Special Overflow; Arrangement LCH Hue Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Form Circles; Rift None; Style Monolithic; Density Medium; Palette Sunflower; Pattern Patchwork; Special Overflow; Arrangement LCH Hue. ³⁹⁴

The AB5D header candidate is token 486000343 (edition 343), 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 1484x2400px, light and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 166,197,187). File size 4265012 bytes. Indexed features: Form Fibonacci; Rift Gradient; Style Cascade; Density Low; Palette Mixed Oils; Pattern Patchwork; Special None; Arrangement Random 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

Proscenium is project 486 by remnynt 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.