Summoning Ritual

The work and its context

Summoning Ritual asks the viewer to recognise something before there is enough evidence to name it. Thin paths accumulate into folds, cavities and luminous membranes. A pair of dark openings may suggest eyes; a central chain of loops may become a spine, a mask or merely a knot of intersecting curves. These readings remain unstable because the image never supplies a literal creature. The five original renderings examined here make that uncertainty productive: each encourages recognition while allowing attention to return to the lines that caused it. ^{1 2 3 4 5}

PZS released the project through Art Blocks Factory in January 2022. The current edition contains 110 works. Its description identifies particles, force fields and symmetry as the means of producing shapes that invite pareidolia, the perception of recognisable figures in ambiguous material. That framing gives the title a clear role without requiring any supernatural claim. The ritual is the gradual arrival of an image and the viewer's participation in deciding what has arrived. The PZS dossier situates the project within the artist's wider work. ⁶

The distinction between a moving artwork and a progressively drawn one matters. Summoning Ritual adds trails toward a finite accumulation. Its code does not continually erase the canvas to send a visible particle around a loop. What the viewer sees is a growing record of journeys. A still preview can show the density of one result, but it removes the earlier, less certain stages through which that density became intelligible. ⁷

Conception and development

In the artist's account, published in December 2021, development revealed that symmetric fields could resemble unfamiliar faces. The slow appearance of those forms initially followed from a technical constraint, then became an intentional part of the work. This is a useful account of discovery within a procedure: the title and viewing experience arose partly from noticing what the system was already doing. ⁸

The same account announced the January release and included recordings of consecutive test mints. Those examples document development and presentation, but are distinct from the five minted tokens inspected for this essay. The artist describes a very small program; the retrieved indexed version contains 5,142 bytes, whereas the post reports 5,143. Without a version history, that one-byte difference should remain an observation rather than evidence of a substantive change. ^{8 7}

The aesthetic consequence of the slow reveal can be assessed independently of the origin story. At first, a few trajectories expose local bends. Later, neighbouring paths collect into something that seems to have a surface. The viewer moves from reading directions to reading bodies. Because nothing in the picture labels those bodies, the result depends on an interaction between the authored field and habits of perception. The artist controls the conditions under which a figure may be imagined, rather than drawing that imagined figure directly. ^{7 1 5}

How the work was constructed

The inspected script runs with p5.js 1.0.0 and uses a square working field of 500 units. Four unsigned integers taken from the token hash initialise a generator whose state advances through bitwise shifts and exclusive-or operations. Subsequent choices are derived from that stream. The program therefore begins with repeatable token-specific decisions, not a new unseeded arrangement on each load. Display scale still affects how densely those decisions are drawn. ^{6 7}

Several influence centres are positioned within the field. Each has a location, radius and strength, together with parameters governing its particular behaviour. The code implements repulsion, attraction, a radially oscillating force and an angularly varying force. These influences modify the direction of a travelling path when it enters their region. Their effects overlap, so a visible curl should not automatically be assigned to one isolated centre. A trajectory can carry the consequences of several earlier encounters into its next turn. ⁷

The construction of paired centres is particularly important. A location is reflected across the field's vertical midpoint, and the associated influence is copied with the appropriate directional treatment. Some branches perturb the reflected partner's position, radius or strength. The result can therefore approach bilateral symmetry without every detail being identical. The script also rejects certain combinations of a small number of forces, narrowing the space of outcomes rather than accepting every initial draw. Symmetry is designed into the conditions, with controlled departures available. ⁷

Paths enter through several schemes. They may begin along an edge, alternate between opposed edges, radiate from the centre or move inward from points around a circle. These are different ways to sample the same kind of field. A centre-emitted composition concentrates many paths near one origin; an edge sweep can establish broad curtains of related trajectories. The initial position and direction help explain why two works using similar force categories can still organise their brightness very differently. ⁷

Within the path routine, the position advances in steps of three working units. The direction is adjusted by nearby influences, and an edge-steering condition can bend the path back toward the field. Travel has a limit, with an additional exit condition later in the journey. This is an explicit numerical construction rather than a simulation whose particles must obey a complete physical model. Terms such as attraction describe the implemented directional rules. They do not establish gravity, mass or a material fluid. ⁷

In the ordinary browser path, the renderer converts each trajectory into a narrow strip of triangles and submits it through WebGL. A small shader supplies the colour. Repeated contributions are combined additively on a dark ground or through reverse subtraction on a light one. Individual contributions are slight; many neighbouring or crossing paths make a stronger band. This accounts for the impression of translucent sheets. No sheet is necessarily being modelled as an object. A surface-like region appears because many trajectories occupy related positions. ⁷

Colour is selected from a small vocabulary of channel combinations, with further sequencing and mutation options. The feature labels describe those choices, but the visible result also depends on blending and accumulation. For example, the inspected #20 carries a White label and a colour-mutation flag, while its observed trails are strongly cyan-white. It would be misleading to override the image with the first label encountered in the metadata. Labels and rendering observations answer different questions. ^{7 4}

The drawing loop processes a limited number of paths per frame until it reaches a target derived from display scale. Keys 1 through 5 change the batch size; the fifth setting was invoked during inspection, after an initial view, to accelerate accumulation. No timed benchmark is claimed. The low, medium and high controls rebuild at different density settings. Those controls were inspected in code, but were not used to produce the five comparisons here. Density depends on canvas dimensions and device pixel ratio, so an archive should not equate one screenshot with a universal count of visible lines. ⁷

A separate headless-browser branch uses segmented two-dimensional line drawing and a faster batch setting. That distinction is why the examples were viewed in an ordinary browser through the official generators. The code's finite target establishes that progressive drawing eventually ceases to add paths; this review does not claim that every captured observation had reached that target. No audio mechanism was found in the artist script. The preserved research record identifies the exact indexed retrieval and its digest, while leaving comparison with a pinned chain retrieval as further work. ⁷

The mint

The collection page dates the release to 7 January 2022. The index records an earlier first token on 21 December 2021 at 15:32:15, followed by activation on 30 December at 21:09:20. The scheduled start is 7 January at 17:00:00; the second token is recorded at 17:27:17. Completion is recorded on 8 May 2022 at 12:26:51. Full timestamps and offsets are retained in the evidence. An early token, a public release and a completion field are distinct events, so the December observation does not replace the January release date. ⁶

Both current minted supply and maximum read 110. The current price setting is 0.1 ETH, and the sales-notes field is empty. These observations do not establish the originally announced maximum or prove that every recipient paid the current recorded price. A launch-era price record or classified transaction history would be needed for those claims. The gap between January and the recorded May completion also should not be converted into a detailed account of sales activity without inspecting the intervening mints. ⁶

The sample itself offers a limited chronological cross-check. Edition #0 has the December timestamp, the three early comparison editions were minted on the January release day, and collection example #44 was minted on 17 January. These are token-level observations, not a reconstruction of the entire edition's distribution. They support a chronology with more than one moment rather than a single undifferentiated launch event. ^{1 2 3 4 5}

Copyright and licensing

The current artwork label is CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Its named Creative Commons deed permits sharing and adaptation subject to conditions including attribution, noncommercial use and ShareAlike for adaptations. The index supplies no separate terms URL, so the deed is linked as the reference for the reported label. Earlier artwork terms have not been reconstructed. Token ownership and permission to reuse the image remain separate questions. ^{6 9}

The p5.js 1.0.0 dependency carries LGPL 2.1. That licence record does not by itself supply a separate grant for PZS's complete artist program. No comprehensive artist-code licence was established in the inspected material. The program was analysed, with retrieval details retained, rather than republished wholesale. AB5D's CC0 dedication applies to the original essay prose, not automatically to the artwork or its software dependencies. ^{7 10}

Close reading of five outputs

The comparison uses editions #0, #1, #10 and #20, selected before inspection, together with AB5D's #44. The ownership query checked all three linked AB5D wallets and also found #82; #44 was chosen for the header before visual examination. Every discussed original was viewed at more than one stage of accumulation. This sample supports a comparison of particular pictures, not a claim about the frequency of features across the edition. ^{1 2 3 4 5}

In #0, grey-black and cobalt paths gather on a white field. An early observation shows a central knot of folded contours surrounded by broad pale intervals. The lower edge carries a heavier blue arc, while much of the upper region remains relatively open. Later, dense blue and black bundles strengthen above and at the right, creating a lopsided sequence of nested enclosures. The pale regions have not been painted as solid shapes; they remain available between the accumulated paths. Their apparent solidity is produced by the increasing weight around them. ¹

This makes #0 especially useful against the project's invitation to see faces. Its central folding can suggest a membrane or a coiled interior more readily than a stable pair of eyes. The image does not fail when it resists a facial reading. Instead, it demonstrates that the field has a formal life beyond the title's creature imagery. Thin contours can appear delicate while their collective density becomes almost heavy. The viewer can move between the scale of a filament and that of a large enclosing mass without either reading cancelling the other. ¹

In #1, the dark ground makes accumulation behave like illumination. A bright white-yellow crossing occupies the centre. Pale lavender arcs spread laterally, while golden bundles descend toward paired low curls. As more paths arrive, an upper V becomes more emphatic and the central crossing brightens. Bilateral organisation is immediately persuasive here, but it suggests several possible figures: wings, a mask, or an illuminated junction. The work's strength lies in holding those suggestions at the point where none becomes a fully illustrated object. ²

The dark spaces above the central arch are as important as the bright lines. They prevent the composition from becoming an evenly distributed glow. The eye is drawn toward the centre, then carried outward through the curves, then returned by the paired lower turns. This is a structure of attention produced through repeated trajectories. Compared with #0's nested interiors, #1 projects outward. Their shared mechanism does not imply a shared spatial mood. ²

In #10, pale cyan and muted red paths occupy a light field. Tall lobes and pinched contours repeat around a broad central enclosure. Later accumulation gives the red and cyan regions more weight, yet large light intervals remain. Small cusps along the sides interrupt the otherwise expansive forms. The image appears airy even when its fine mesh becomes dense, because the light ground continues to participate inside the structure. A partly completed sweep was still visible in one observation, so this reading concerns the observed developing image rather than a certified final frame. ³

In #20, cyan-white ribbons produce two large rounded dark cavities beside a narrow central construction. Early on, that centre consists of linked loops. Later it becomes much brighter, retaining dark oval openings while the side cavities acquire stronger rims. Below them, stacked arcs can suggest ribs. The resemblance to anatomy is compelling, but it remains a viewer's comparison: the script specifies forces and trails, not ribs or eyes. The difference matters because the same curves can become folds, smoke or decorative scrolls when attention shifts. ⁴

AB5D's #44 builds red and magenta trails on black. In its earlier state, the incomplete sweep distributes weight unevenly. A later view reveals paired dark upper cavities and crossing magenta ribbons below, with fine red paths filling the surrounding field. Some ribbons look almost planar, as if translucent fabric had been stretched between bends. Yet close attention repeatedly returns them to bundles of lines. The temporal comparison is particularly instructive: a temporarily uneven image can become strongly balanced as the sampling proceeds, so the symmetry of a field should not be judged from a single early frame. ⁵

Significance and limitations

Summoning Ritual makes recognition into an event rather than a fixed attribute of an image. Its compact procedure produces paths; accumulation encourages those paths to be read as surfaces; symmetry invites the surfaces to become figures. The sequence gives the viewer room to participate without making the artwork an empty prompt for arbitrary interpretation. The curves, concentrations and gaps remain specific enough to sustain close comparison among editions. ^{7 1 2 3 4 5}

The outstanding research concerns are historical and reproducibility questions: original sale terms, intervening mint activity, a pinned chain comparison, and rendering differences across devices and density settings. A larger visual sample could test the range of force combinations without mistaking these five works for a census. What the present evidence establishes is the relationship between a finite drawing process and an open-ended act of looking. The paths stop accumulating; the possible readings need not stop with them. ^{6 7}