# Such A Lovely Time by petitsapin

## The work and its context

Such A Lovely Time is project 400 on the Art Blocks V2 core contract 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, published under the canonical slug such-a-lovely-time-by-petitsapin and credited to petitsapin. The indexed project record reports a completed edition of 325 of 325 invocations, runtime p5@1.0.0, and the official description: Using single Cyrillic character typography with an inspiration from Soviet era punch cards, technology and mentality to some extent, _Such A Lovely Time_ is part of an ongoing obsession of creating visual complexity from the most basic shapes while retaining a sense of order in appearance. This sense of structure is something that holds true to most of us individuals, communities, nations. However disorganised or frail one may be on the inside one often makes a substantial effort to appear structured, ordered. In other words our orderliness stems from the perception of that very orderliness.  The themes explored in my work are often a bi-product of my echoic memory in which I often pick up on background movie dialogues and tend to remember them by associating a colour and feeling to them. This in turn becomes an artistic direction, drawing inspiration from the sets, colours, location, time period, soundtrack, language and so on. The soundbite and evoked emotions guide the exploration and creation process. More often than not the line from the movie becomes the title for the piece, as is the case for _Such A Lovely Time_.  _Such A Lovely Time_ has a number of simple traits that when combined create intricate compositions. - Three different styles (Grid, Punch Card and Mixed) set the foundation. 	- The Grid style is based on a simple grid of elements with varying levels of density. 	- While the Punch Card style is essentially also a grid, it has a different rhythm to it, at times very sparse with isolated clusters, at other times those clusters and elements are connected together almost resembling sheet music. In some instances the Punch Card can be very dense almost to the point of saturation. 	- The Mixed style is a blend of the two aforementioned and introduces a higher degree of variations and somewhat unexpected results.  - There are 16 palettes, each one of them named after a city. The colours are extracted from personal travel photos to those cities before being fine tuned.  - The Cyrillic glyph is the centre piece of the composition, sometimes bold and in the foreground, at times fragmented and sometimes even hidden, as if an invitation to the viewer to look closer and explore the many layered details.  - The other traits that make up the piece may have less depth in their meaning but add to the overall amount of graphical variations.  Each iteration of _Such A Lovely Time_ is a generative attempt at technical aesthetics.  Created by petitsapin (Dominique McKerl Dautheribes). [^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 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069. Aspect ratio indexed as 1.0. Website http://www.petitsapin.com.

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. Using single Cyrillic character typography with an inspiration from Soviet era punch cards, technology and mentality to some extent, _Such A Lovely Time_ is part of an ongoing obsession of creating visual complexity from the most basic shapes while retaining a sense of order in appearance. This sense of structure is something that holds true to most of us individuals, communities, nations. However

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 Such A Lovely Time 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 such-a-lovely-time-by-petitsapin was retrieved from projects_metadata.script filtered by that exact slug. The UTF-8 payload is 13660 bytes with SHA-256 50ebb51ca7016e28202b5136944ec4ada5eb740db4cc6c79a7d6f91d180521b6. Runtime on the project record is p5@1.0.0. The script was read in full; it was not executed in this research session. [^S03]

The stored generator is 13660 bytes, SHA-256 50ebb51ca7016e28202b5136944ec4ada5eb740db4cc6c79a7d6f91d180521b6, runtime p5@1.0.0. Detected source markers: setup, draw, WEBGL, createCanvas, tokenData, hash. Named functions include r. tokenData.hash is read in source. Output then follows the drawing path those functions implement. Token 0 observation: Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, light and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 236,236,236). File size 8496255 bytes. Indexed features: Grid False; Glyph Н; Style Mixed; Tubes True; Columns True; Palette Utrecht; Mountain False; Cut Glyph False

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 400 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069 is as follows. First token minted_at is 2022-12-16T20:22:11+00:00. activated_at is 2022-12-20T23:37:47+00:00. start_datetime is 2023-01-27T18:00:00+00:00. completed_at is 2023-01-27T18:33:23+00:00. Invocations stand at 325 of a maximum 325, with complete=true on the retrieved row. [^S02][^S04]

Calculated intervals from those timestamps: first mint to activation is 4.14 days; activation to start_datetime is 37.77 days; start_datetime to completion is 33.4 minutes; first mint to completion is 41.92 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 2022-12-16T20:22:11+00:00, activated 2022-12-20T23:37:47+00:00, start 2023-01-27T18:00:00+00:00, completed 2023-01-27T18:33:23+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. [^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 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. [^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

Such A Lovely Time #0 is token 400000000 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2022-12-16T20:22:11+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, light and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 236,236,236). File size 8496255 bytes. Indexed features: Grid False; Glyph Н; Style Mixed; Tubes True; Columns True; Palette Utrecht; Mountain False; Cut Glyph False Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Grid False; Glyph Н; Style Mixed; Tubes True; Columns True; Palette Utrecht; Mountain False; Cut Glyph False.  [^S04][^S05][^S09]

Such A Lovely Time #1 is token 400000001 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2023-01-27T18:27:59+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 246,244,242). File size 6568084 bytes. Indexed features: Grid True; Glyph Д; Style Mixed; Tubes False; Columns False; Palette Beirut; Mountain False; Cut Glyph False Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Grid True; Glyph Д; Style Mixed; Tubes False; Columns False; Palette Beirut; Mountain False; Cut Glyph False.  [^S04][^S05][^S09]

Such A Lovely Time #10 is token 400000010 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2023-01-27T18:29:35+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 216,194,186). File size 10308830 bytes. Indexed features: Grid False; Glyph Л; Style Punch Card; Tubes False; Columns False; Palette Meknes; Mountain False; Cut Glyph True Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Grid False; Glyph Л; Style Punch Card; Tubes False; Columns False; Palette Meknes; Mountain False; Cut Glyph True.  [^S04][^S05][^S09]

Such A Lovely Time #20 is token 400000020 on 0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069, minted 2023-01-27T18:29:47+00:00. The canonical token page returned HTTP 200. The inspected media-proxy PNG is a static frame. Inspected media-proxy PNG is 2400x2400px, light and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 201,182,176). File size 11968596 bytes. Indexed features: Grid False; Glyph Ґ; Style Punch Card; Tubes False; Columns False; Palette Beirut; Mountain False; Cut Glyph False Indexed features returned for this V2 token: Grid False; Glyph Ґ; Style Punch Card; Tubes False; Columns False; Palette Beirut; Mountain False; Cut Glyph False.  [^S04][^S05][^S09]

The AB5D header candidate is token 400000132 (edition 132), 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, light and muted or near-neutral (mean RGB 189,188,186). File size 7473631 bytes. Indexed features: Grid True; Glyph А; Style Mixed; Tubes True; Columns False; Palette Vorkuta; Mountain False; Cut Glyph False [^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

Such A Lovely Time is project 400 by petitsapin 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? [^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. [Such A Lovely Time by petitsapin collection page](https://www.artblocks.io/collection/such-a-lovely-time-by-petitsapin). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S02]: Art Blocks Hasura index. [projects_metadata record for such-a-lovely-time-by-petitsapin](https://artblocks-mainnet.hasura.app/v1/graphql). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S03]: petitsapin. [Such A Lovely Time on-chain artist program](https://artblocks-mainnet.hasura.app/v1/graphql). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S04]: Art Blocks Hasura index. [tokens_metadata for sampled Such A Lovely Time token IDs](https://artblocks-mainnet.hasura.app/v1/graphql). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S05]: Art Blocks. [Canonical token pages for sampled Such A Lovely Time outputs](https://www.artblocks.io/token/1/0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069/400000000). 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]: petitsapin. [Such A Lovely Time official description](http://www.petitsapin.com). 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 Such A Lovely Time tokens](https://media-proxy.artblocks.io/0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069/400000000.png). Accessed 2026-09-19.
[^S10]: Art Blocks. [Live generator renderer for Such A Lovely Time](https://generator.artblocks.io/0x99a9b7c1116f9ceeb1652de04d5969cce509b069/400000000). Accessed 2026-09-19.