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NOTE: THIS IS NOT CURRENT INFORMATION! To learn more about the current Art Blocks ecosystem please visit https://medium.com/the-link-art-blocks.

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Art Blocks Platform

Cryptographically Generated Outputs for Dynamic Projects

Lay Abstract

Digital art inherently requires artists to transmit inputs into their chosen platform in order to create a desired output. These inputs are often translated via tangible controls, programmable inputs, randomized scripts or interactive hardware (i.e. Xbox Kinect).

Art Blocks is a platform which allows digital artists to have their work react to alphanumeric figures (also referred to as hash outputs) generated bythe Ethereum blockchain. These outputs are generated automatically and are guaranteed to never repeat due to the nature of the blockchain technology.

The result is a platform which gives artists the ability to have work that is in a constant state of change. Additionally, the Art Blocks platform provides artists with an innovative system for user interaction where patrons can send funds to an art installation in order to generate unique yet repeatable reactions from the art.

The Art Blocks platform intends to disrupt the world of interactive and generative art creating a transparent revenue source for not only artists but the entities that host and maintain the art projects themselves. Furthermore, installations operating on the platform will automatically contribute a portion of all received proceeds to a central fund which will be controlled by participants of the Art Blocks platform for commissioning larger scale works of interactive generative art through a tokenized voting system built into the project.

Abstract

Blockchains are tied together by a series of unique cryptographically generated block hashes that are used to validate the data stored within all of the blocks in the blockchain. An example of this hash is 0xd4e56740f876aef8c010b86a40d5f56745a118d0906a34e69aec8c0db1cb8fa3 (this is the block hash for the very first block of the Ethereum blockchain). These hashes are generated in many ways but are generated consistently each time a new block is created or “mined”. The Art Blocks project proposes a platform where a creative can interpret these hash outputs as consistently timed inputs for a project and receive direct compensation from a patron’s interaction with the work.

Motivating New Uses for Blockchain Technology

The nature of Blockchain technology is that of a shared, distributed ledger for recording a history of transactions. This has led to an overwhelming number of projects looking to disrupt legacy financial instruments by exploiting the mechanisms that cryptocurrencies excel at, namely focusing on transactions and value mechanisms. The Art Blocks project is motivated by a genuine desire to demonstrate alternative use cases for blockchain technology. The primary objective of Art Blocks is not tied to the distributed transaction ledgers that operate within a typical blockchain project. The project is instead focused on offering a technological platform that allows artistic contributions from the reliable digital byproduct of the blockchain: consistent and random hashes that creatives can use as inputs for their artwork.

The Use of Digital Technologies in the Creative Arts

Digital artists use various input methods for controlling their art projects. These inputs can be internally generated random strings, ambient noise including beats or other sounds, knobs and sliders on MIDI controllers, accelerometers, timers, light sensors and many other devices that send signals to software that is generating the work of art. When a dynamic art piece is not being manually controlled the artist will often create a “playlist” of sequences to be displayed by the art installation.

Take for example a dynamic and colorful LED based public art installation. As the colors are constantly changing the viewer might assume that the patterns appear random or non-repeating. In fact, the patterns generated are likely pre-programmed and the installation cycles through each pattern in a queue similar to a playlist. Once all of the pre-configured patterns are displayed the “playlist” loops back to the first configuration and the process starts again.

In the above example construction of the work involves the artist meticulously programming various color combinations that are visually appealing based on the artist’s aesthetic preferences which are probably guided by principles of color composition. What if instead of hard-coding specific light compositions the artist instead created a set of rules by which a random input could control the resulting composition and still maintain the aesthetic identity of the artist?

The basic premise of the Art Blocks project leverages this idea simply. The Ethereum blockchain, like any other blockchain, generates a hash for every block that is created and validated. The project aims to encourage an artist to utilize the output hashes of the blockchain as provably random and unrepeatable inputs that control the way a work of art is displayed. The result is a platform that enables decentralized control of artwork because the production of the hashes and control of the blockchain itself does not lie in the hands of any one person or entity.

In the same way that a software application operating on a blockchain is referred to as a “decentralized app” or dApp, the Art Blocks platform is decentralizing the inputs that control a work of art. The resulting “decentralized art” can be referred to as dART and it is controlled by the underlying identity Interface Token [TOKN].

Art is Only the Beginning

The Art Blocks platform was originally developed as a resource for digital/generative artists to use . As a result you’ll see references to artists or connected art projects throughout this document. While we will use these references in order to help explain the mechanics of the platform the implications of the technology apply well outside the art world. There are broad reaching use cases for this platform including video games, gambling, graphic design, manufacturing, advertising, music creation, and even scientific applications.

Hash Input Process

Standard hash creation with blockchain technology affords a backbone that artists can build off of. There are various methods in which an artist could interpret a block hash as an input. One simple method is in utilizing an associative array function which creates a sequence out of all of the possibilities that could be present in a hash and then assigns a numeric value to them. The resulting associative array would be a numerical range from 0 to 57 where a capital “A” results in a zero and the number 9 resulting in an input of 57 as in the example below:

Figure 1. Conversion of a hash string as an input for a project.

The resulting associative array can then be mapped to various functions in the project as shown in the Figure 2.

Figure 2. Sample of a proposed project using a hash as an input for a project.

The Art Blocks Foundation and the community will offer support for artists looking to explore ways of interpreting the block hash to suit their needs. Ideally over time there would be a sizeable repository of code snippets shared by the community pertaining to the various platforms that the digital art community uses.

In Defense of Art Blocks

Digital art has never been easier to create than with the tools of today; there are thousands of digital artists and digital art works that exist or are being worked on today. Why would another tool need to be created? Why would artists be interested in utilizing a blockchain’s block hash to fuel the content of their work? The answer lies in the interactivity opportunities established by the Art Blocks project.

First it should be noted that any artist can currently use the hash output of any of the thousands of blockchain projects out there as the inputs for their work. The Ethereum blockchain is really no different than the others in terms of the simple mechanics of blockchain technology. Every time a new block is generated a new hash is created from the information contained in that block. In the Ethereum blockchain this happens approximately every 15 seconds.

What makes the Art Blocks platform unique is that it incorporates Ethereum Smart Contract technology that allow artists or art galleries to directly receive funds from a patron’s desire to interact with the work of art and see a representation of his or her own hash interpreted by the connected art project. This will occur in the form of what is called an Art Node.

What is a Smart Contract?

A smart contract is a computer protocol intended to digitally facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract. Smart contracts allow the performance of credible transactions without third parties. These transactions are trackable and irreversible.

The Art Blocks platform will incorporate various Smart Contracts to effectively create a transparent ecosystem of interactive art installations.

The Contracts

There are three main contracts in place on the Art Blocks platform. The first is the Interface Token [TOKN] contract which simply mints and distributes utility tokens for the public to be able to interact with Art Blocks enabled projects. Next are the Art Node contracts that will be individually deployed on demand for artists interested in connecting their work to the Ethereum blockchain. Finally, the Art Fund contract will collect funds for an annual art commission voted on by TOKN token holders.

The TOKN Token Contract

The Interface Token is being deployed concurrently with the Art Blocks platform but has independent functionality as well. Interface Tokens, also known as TOKNs, are simply ERC721 compliant utility tokens that store a Token ID, a previous block hash of the Ethereum blockchain (that corresponds with the Token ID), and a short “phrase” specified by the owner as a human friendly identifier for the token.

Interface Tokens will be made available for purchase to anyone interested in interacting with an Art Blocks enabled project. Upon purchase, tokens will be minted on demand and sent to the purchaser already loaded with a unique hash and the identifier phrase of choice.

Think of the Interface Token as a unique and transferrable identification on the Ethereum blockchain. While it is perfectly fine to use an Ethereum address as identification on Ethereum, that address itself cannot be transferred to another user without giving up the private key. This results in the new recipient of an existing Ethereum address to “trust” that the previous user will destroy their knowledge of the private key. Since there is no way to effectively guarantee this, and since there is potential for holders of Interface Tokens to want to transfer tokens to other users, the Interface Token provides an identity for Art Blocks connected projects, as well as other Ethereum based projects, to assign attributes to a transferrable identity on the blockchain.

Once an Interface Token is minted it cannot be destroyed and it is important to note that users will not “spend” or send their tokens to Art Blocks projects. Instead the Art Node will simply query the Interface Token contract when receiving ETH from an address to source the hash associated with the participant’s Ethereum address. If the Art Node finds an Interface Token, the output of the Art Node switches to the hash stored on that Interface Token for a specified amount of blocks. If the Art Node contract receives ETH from an address that does not own an Interface Token it will simply consider the funds a donation and continue passing along the block hash from the Ethereum blockchain.

Art Nodes

An Art Node is an individually deployed Ethereum Smart Contract that is wholly owned and controlled by the artist that acquires the contract from the Art Blocks team.

Once an artist is in control of an Art Node they will indefinitely have complete control of the Art Node using programmable settings built into the contract itself.

The Art Node contract is a switch with one simple output. This output is a hash for an Art Blocks connected project to use as a random input. When there is no interaction with an art project, the Art Node is considered idle and simply passes through the automatically generated block hash of the Ethereum blockchain.

Art Node contracts will have a corresponding contract address that patrons can use to send funds (in ETH) to a connected Art Project. When an Art Node contract receives funds from a user who’s sending address is in possession of an Interface Token, the Art Node will “switch” from passing through the Ethereum block hash to passing along the hash stored in the user’s Interface Token for a predetermined amount of time.

Art Nodes will be customizable and allow artists to transparently control:

• How received funds are distributed — Funds can entirely go to the artist, or in a public art installation the artist might split the received funds with the municipality in order to help pay for maintenance of the installation.
• Price per block — The amount of ETH that a user must send to “purchase” the interpretation of the hash stored on his/her Interface Token for the duration of a single block on the Ethereum blockchain, or approximately 15 seconds.
• Maximum consecutive blocks — The maximum number of blocks that a user can purchase in one transaction. This allows multiple users to interact in case there is a crowd.
• Jukebox functionality — The artist will be able to set parameters for participants to bid and outbid each other for the opportunity to interact with the project.

By sending ETH to a connected art project, a user is projecting their proprietary hash onto the project essentially “owning” the result for a moment in time. This is reproducible as the art project will react to the same hash in an identical way upon each interaction. Users are guaranteed that no other user can generate the same result from each art installation potentially creating a secondary market for Interface Tokens that produce more favorable results from art projects.

Any art project that is connected to an Art Node can receive and react to ETH sent from anywhere in the world. The artist will simply make the contract ETH address (or corresponding QR code) available and anyone with an Interface Token and that ETH address will be able to send ETH to interact.

Art Fund

An exciting use cases for blockchain technology is the voting mechanism that can be transparently established for participants in a network. The Art Blocks Art Fund contract will receive a small portion of all proceeds sent to Art Blocks enabled installations. The Art Blocks foundation will conduct a yearly “Call to Artists” to submit proposals for the use of those funds collected through the platform. Anyone that holds an Interface Token and has interacted with an Art Node will get to vote on the selected proposal based on their weight of Interface Tokens and the funds will automatically be transferred to the applicant with the winning proposal in a decentralized manner and without any intervention of the Art Blocks team.

Interactive Generative Art

To describe the operation of an Art Node we use the example analogy of a jukebox:

Users put coins into a jukebox and are given control to select from a set number of options. Users use these credits to select their songs. They can select as many songs in a row as they have credits. Their selections are sent to a master queue of song selections that play in order. Some modern jukeboxes have a feature where you can pay more to jump to the front of the line.

The Art Node will act in the same manner. Patrons will send funds into the system, in the form of the ETH cryptocurrency. Instead of playing a song they are requesting that the Art Node diverts the hash input to the art project from the most recent block hash from the Ethereum network to the hash stored in their personal and provably unique Interface Token. The Art Node will create a queue of patron Interface Tokens (easily identified by the “nickname” stored when minting the token) and those patrons that want to see their hash interpreted by the connected project earlier can send additional ETH to jump to the front of the queue.

The patrons would be sending the ETH to the art project using a standard Ethereum wallet or the Art Blocks mobile app that will maintain a database of that patron’s Interface Tokens as well as their ETH balance. The Art Blocks app will show the queue of Interface Token holders waiting to be displayed by the art project and alert the patron when his or her address is being displayed. Patrons can send funds repeatedly and are guaranteed (through the inherent mechanisms of blockchain technology) to be the only person that can ever create that specific input and therefore reaction by the art project that is connected to the Art Node.

Consider this akin to throwing a coin into a fountain or more-so like giving some money to a street performer that reacts every time you throw coins in a hat. A patron is in essence the owner of a unique “edition” of the artist’s work for the duration that the hash stored on their Interface Token is being displayed.

Project Interaction

Art projects can be connected to the output of an Art Node in many ways but essentially the art project will be making calls to the node output on the Ethereum blockchain. Artists that purchase Art Node contracts will be provided with an endpoint accessible through the worldwide web so that any art project that is connected to the internet can receive the output hashes of the artist’s specific Art Node.

This means that art projects can even exist exclusively online where an artist designs a visual environment similar to a screen saver where patrons from all over the world can access the web site and send ETH to the project’s Art Node address and the project would eventually display the patron’s personal hash.

Conclusion

Art Blocks aims to create a real world use case for blockchain technology by harnessing mechanisms that are inherent to a blockchain for use by anyone interested in a random input for their work. Using Art Nodes as an automatic input switch and ETH cryptocurrency as a value transfer mechanism, the Art Blocks platform will allow artists to directly and immutably benefit from a patron’s interaction with a work of digital art.

Maintaining ownership and control of digital art requires loosely followed and hard to monitor licensing agreements or watermarks. Through the evanescence of a constantly changing visual (or audible) component, the Art Blocks platform reduces the emphasis on each specific iteration generated by the art installation and instead focuses on the artist’s ability to interpret randomness in an appealing way. This lends itself to a revolutionary way of assigning value to digital art and paves the way towards a completely new medium of expression and compensation for digital artists.