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PZS Infodump

Summoning Ritual

Art Blocks project Art Blocks test mints

I made a generative art project that is stored immutably on the Ethereum Blockchain. It will be released on January 7, 11am CT, using Art Blocks factory platform. I defer exaplaining what Art Blocks is, and how it works to an amazing article written by revdancat.

Summoning Ritual consists of a fairly small javascript script (5143 bytes) with dependency on p5js 1.0. It works by producing tens of thousands of particles (30k for every 750 pixels of canvas size) that are traversing force fields generated from the supplied hash value. Each particle leaves a very faint trail. Trails add up, and produce images like this:

When I was developing the project, I noticed that the symmetric fields often look like alien, eldritch faces to me. Seeing faces in images that contains none, is called pareidolia.

The slow process of reviling the image (initially caused by a technical constraint, later an explicit artistic choice) feels like a summoning ritual. I’m finding the process of summoning the picture very addictive to watch.

Summoning ritual requires a WebGL-enabled browser.

The drawing process can take a bit of time, and depends heavily on the canvas resolution, and your GPU. The larger the canvas is, the more rays, and more details are drawn. Here are recordings of 8 consecutive test mints being drawn:

Any similarity to actual deities, living or dead, is purely coincidental.