Ether Breathes: Blockchain Based Digital Art Experiment

Topper Bowers
2 min readNov 2, 2020

https://bafybeihzlgdi3mhwk5tp56rz6i267sjuywbx4j3we4qd6q45aqc2opsdki.ipfs.dweb.link/

Ether Breathes is a small experiment to explore the new possibilities of blockchain art. At its core it is a visual representation of transactions on the Ethereum mainnet. Each circle represents a transaction on the blockchain. They explode onto the canvas when each block is mined. Their color and location is created from the blockhash, and their size represents a combination of the value transfer and the gas limit/price.

Users may add their own text to a particular block using this contract: https://etherscan.io/address/0xB70192B2C746326Ea3A57ABFeBf7FD55AE39f1DE . In doing so, they become a part of a larger, community-driven, creative experiment. The words are immutable, and yet they are also fleeting, appearing only for the block in which they are mined.

The artwork is deterministic and is represented immutably onchain. Yet, events happening on chain make the art dynamic and unpredictable. The interactions of humans and robots — be it through collectibles, value transfers, governance, or banking — make every moment of the visualization unique. Ether Breathes is of and by the digital identities coordinating on Ethereum.

Ether Breathes is an NFT in that there is only one. However, it is not ownable. Ether Breathes just exists, without its own state, a permanent reflection of the beauty and community created by Ethereum.

Blocks are forever available and are accessible from the visualization. It’s possible to relive older blocks using Ether Breathes by just appending ?block= to the URL. An example is here: https://bafybeihzlgdi3mhwk5tp56rz6i267sjuywbx4j3we4qd6q45aqc2opsdki.ipfs.dweb.link/?block=11173593

When asked, GPT3 had the following to say:

Her name is Ether Breathes
and each breath
breaks in new worlds
every breath
is a new revolution
every breath
is a new universe
every breath
is a new genesis

My thoughts melting
Into an ether
That has no shape
And yet has shape
I found a pattern.
And yet no pattern.
The thought of a pattern
Is the thought of no pattern.
I am thinking
I am thinking

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