# QWERTY by Tara Donovan

## The work and its context

QWERTY is project 2 on the Art Blocks V2 core contract 0x64780ce53f6e966e18a22af13a2f97369580ec11, published under the canonical slug qwerty-by-tara-donovan and credited to Tara Donovan. The indexed project record reports a completed edition of 500 of 500 invocations, runtime js@na, and the official description: Tara Donovan’s first-ever NFT project, titled QWERTY, comprises 500 unique, generative works that meditate on the ways that type can function as a building block for creating pattern. Donovan, whose practice spans sculpture, installation, drawing, and printmaking, often explores the talismanic qualities of everyday materials and objects. The artist’s new NFT series is deeply engaged with her screen drawings, in which she moves, pinches, and cuts the wires of woven aluminum insect screen to extract patterns from existing grids, using a mathematical methodology to draw out the phenomenological potential of the material.  Each NFT in Donovan’s QWERTY series depicts rhythmic, mesmeric arrangements of a single, repeating letter or symbol represented on computer keyboards. The 26 letters and 30 symbols that make up the layered, gridded compositions of the QWERTY NFTs are rendered in varying degrees of legibility, striking a balance between recognizability and obscurity. These screen-based images take on the qualities of woven textiles, and they are the result of the artist’s meticulous pattern development, organization, and refinement, which she executed through algorithmic processes.  The first 56 individuals to mint QWERTY NFTs will each receive an archival pigment print of their NFT from the artist and Pace Verso. These works will be signed by Donovan. Complete terms and conditions will be available on Pace’s website before the project’s release on October 10.  Donovan’s QWERTY NFT project can be understood as an extension of the eponymous book she published in 2018, which features patterns the artist forged using characters from a 1930s typewriter. Both the digital and physical iterations of QWERTY reflect Donovan’s interest in surface depth and perspectival mutability. Her QWERTY NFTs shapeshift and transform depending on viewers’ position relative to their screens, bringing ghostly shapes and figurative elements into relief in the compositions’ interstitial spaces. The wide range of patterns in the QWERTY NFTs includes subtle, minimalist grids; architectural forms; psychedelic motifs; and optical illusions. [^S01][^S02]

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. [^S01][^S02]

Contract 0x64780ce53f6e966e18a22af13a2f97369580ec11. Aspect ratio indexed as 1.0. Website https://www.pacegallery.com/journal/tara-donovan-qwerty.

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. [^S04][^S09]

## 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. Tara Donovan’s first-ever NFT project, titled QWERTY, comprises 500 unique, generative works that meditate on the ways that type can function as a building block for creating pattern. Donovan, whose practice spans sculpture, installation, drawing, and printmaking, often explores the talismanic qualities of everyday materials and objects. The artist’s new NFT series is deeply engaged with her scree

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 QWERTY are the ones relied on. [^S07][^S01]

Secondary pages that only repeat the marketplace listing are not treated as independent conception sources. [^S02][^S07]

## How the work was constructed

The complete artist program for slug qwerty-by-tara-donovan was retrieved from projects_metadata.script filtered by that exact slug. The UTF-8 payload is 38132 bytes with SHA-256 5d8083f05d00530f63d49490e90f66e83164615e14517ef48c180588e3c3f72d. Runtime on the project record is js@na. The script was read in full; it was not executed in this research session. [^S03]

The stored generator is 38132 bytes, SHA-256 5d8083f05d00530f63d49490e90f66e83164615e14517ef48c180588e3c3f72d, runtime js@na. Detected source markers: tokenData, hash. Named functions include h. tokenData.hash is read in source. Output then follows the drawing path those functions implement. Token 0 observation: Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 145,145,145). File size 1378143 bytes. Indexed features: Size 30; Type Alpha; Character N; Row Density 73; Column Density 59; Character Quantity 4307; Vertical Wave Phase 180 Degrees; Horizontal Wave Phase 180 Degrees

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. [^S03][^S10]

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. [^S03][^S06]

## The mint

Indexed chronology for project 2 on 0x64780ce53f6e966e18a22af13a2f97369580ec11 is as follows. First token minted_at is 2022-09-20T15:45:47+00:00. activated_at is 2022-09-26T23:32:35+00:00. start_datetime is 2022-10-10T16:00:00+00:00. completed_at is 2022-10-10T16:51:35+00:00. Invocations stand at 500 of a maximum 500, with complete=true on the retrieved row. [^S02][^S04]

Calculated intervals from those timestamps: first mint to activation is 6.32 days; activation to start_datetime is 13.69 days; start_datetime to completion is 51.6 minutes; first mint to completion is 20.05 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. [^S02][^S04]

Indexed clocks: first 2022-09-20T15:45:47+00:00, activated 2022-09-26T23:32:35+00:00, start 2022-10-10T16:00:00+00:00, completed 2022-10-10T16:51:35+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. [^S01][^S02]

## 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. [^S02][^S06]

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. [^S03][^S06]

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

QWERTY #0 is token 2000000 on 0x64780ce53f6e966e18a22af13a2f97369580ec11, minted 2022-09-20T15:45:47+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 145,145,145). File size 1378143 bytes. Indexed features: Size 30; Type Alpha; Character N; Row Density 73; Column Density 59; Character Quantity 4307; Vertical Wave Phase 180 Degrees; Horizontal Wave Phase 180 Degrees Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Size 30; Type Alpha; Character N; Row Density 73; Column Density 59; Character Quantity 4307; Vertical Wave Phase 180 Degrees; Horizontal Wave Phase 180 Degrees.  [^S04][^S05][^S09]

QWERTY #1 is token 2000001 on 0x64780ce53f6e966e18a22af13a2f97369580ec11, minted 2022-10-10T16:00:47+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 128,128,128). File size 1538320 bytes. Indexed features: Size 26; Type Alpha; Character G; Row Density 76; Column Density 76; Character Quantity 5776; Vertical Wave Phase 0 Degrees; Horizontal Wave Phase 0 Degrees Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Size 26; Type Alpha; Character G; Row Density 76; Column Density 76; Character Quantity 5776; Vertical Wave Phase 0 Degrees; Horizontal Wave Phase 0 Degrees.  [^S04][^S05][^S09]

QWERTY #10 is token 2000010 on 0x64780ce53f6e966e18a22af13a2f97369580ec11, minted 2022-10-10T16:30:11+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 121,121,121). File size 2176136 bytes. Indexed features: Size 19; Type Alpha; Character K; Row Density 105; Column Density 139; Character Quantity 14595; Vertical Wave Phase 180 Degrees; Horizontal Wave Phase 180 Degrees Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Size 19; Type Alpha; Character K; Row Density 105; Column Density 139; Character Quantity 14595; Vertical Wave Phase 180 Degrees; Horizontal Wave Phase 180 Degrees.  [^S04][^S05][^S09]

QWERTY #20 is token 2000020 on 0x64780ce53f6e966e18a22af13a2f97369580ec11, minted 2022-10-10T16:30:59+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, light and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 186,186,186). File size 1248749 bytes. Indexed features: Size 46; Type Non-Alpha; Character backtick; Row Density 98; Column Density 100; Character Quantity 9800; Vertical Wave Phase 0 Degrees; Horizontal Wave Phase 0 Degrees Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Size 46; Type Non-Alpha; Character backtick; Row Density 98; Column Density 100; Character Quantity 9800; Vertical Wave Phase 0 Degrees; Horizontal Wave Phase 0 Degrees.  [^S04][^S05][^S09]

The AB5D header candidate is token 2000076 (edition 76), 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 2400x2400px, mid-tone and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 120,120,120). File size 890294 bytes. Indexed features: Size 38; Type Alpha; Character R; Row Density 69; Column Density 74; Character Quantity 5106; Vertical Wave Phase 0 Degrees; Horizontal Wave Phase 0 Degrees [^S08][^S04][^S09]

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. [^S09][^S10][^S03]

## Significance and limitations

QWERTY is project 2 by Tara Donovan on 0x64780ce53f6e966e18a22af13a2f97369580ec11. 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? [^S02][^S08][^S10]

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

[^S01]: Art Blocks. [QWERTY by Tara Donovan collection page](https://www.artblocks.io/collection/qwerty-by-tara-donovan). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S02]: Art Blocks Hasura index. [projects_metadata record for qwerty-by-tara-donovan](https://artblocks-mainnet.hasura.app/v1/graphql). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S03]: Tara Donovan. [QWERTY on-chain artist program](https://artblocks-mainnet.hasura.app/v1/graphql). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S04]: Art Blocks Hasura index. [tokens_metadata for sampled QWERTY token IDs](https://artblocks-mainnet.hasura.app/v1/graphql). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S05]: Art Blocks. [Canonical token pages for sampled QWERTY outputs](https://www.artblocks.io/token/1/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/2000000). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S06]: Creative Commons. [Reported artwork licence label CC BY-NC 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S07]: Tara Donovan. [QWERTY official description](https://www.pacegallery.com/journal/tara-donovan-qwerty). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S08]: Art Blocks. [AB5D linked wallet set and profile index](https://www.artblocks.io/profile/ab5d). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S09]: Art Blocks media proxy. [Static PNG renders of sampled QWERTY tokens](https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/2000000.png). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S10]: Art Blocks. [Live generator renderer for QWERTY](https://generator.artblocks.io/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/2000000). Accessed 2026-09-19.