1 of 1 Art Pieces with Han

Artist Spotlight is ARTXCODE's community initiative focused on showcasing talented artists beyond our roster.

Han is most well-known for CryptoCubes, his early generative art collection launched in 2020. If you were around back then you would know how collectible and exciting these cubes were. It’s the end of 2023 and Han hasn’t stopped innovating.

CryptoCube #112 (still), 2020

Han presents a collection of 1of1 art pieces, with the ownership, data, and marketplace functionalities entirely stored on the Ethereum blockchain. Each piece of art exists as a self-executing program, known as a smart contract, making its ownership purchasable directly within the contract itself.

The Artworks

Each piece of art is a unique creative expression by Han, with every piece residing in its own distinct smart contract.

Purchasable Smart Contracts

Each smart contract has built-in functions for ownership acquisition, eliminating the need for external marketplaces.

Immutable

The script of each art piece is embedded in the smart contract source code, which makes it immutable and completely on-chain.

New Approach

No ERC standards; Smart Contract = Artwork

Open Source

Han envisions a future where any smart contract in the Ethereum ecosystem can be monetized. All files are openly accessible on Github.

Read our interview with Han below, where we discuss this project and the dynamic technology behind it.

Can you walk through how you began your career as an artist and what brought you to the blockchain?

My passion to become an artist actually started when I was studying architecture. I attended the 2018 International Venice Architecture Biennale with my video art piece and won several grants and prizes in design and art competitions. My real career actually started when I found non-fungible tokens, I immediately started to prepare my first project. Actually, my career is a bit new. I would say it began professionally four years old.

What brought me to the blockchain was that I became really fascinated with the technology starting in 2016. I was reading and trying to learn every day, checking out the transactions, trying to understand how everything works. Those were the days of exploring and meeting with people in the crypto ecosystem. I started to think that non-fungible tokens are perfect to use in my creative career because I’ve always been interested in things that are digital, especially permission-less ones.

I’ve noticed that a lot of your artworks are built upon a structural foundation. Has your background in architecture informed your artistic practice?

Definitely, because architecture is not only about designing a building, but trying to understand and organize the foundational logic of everything. The book 'Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture' says, “The architect should be versed in drawing, geometry, optics, history, philosophy, music, theater, medicine, and law.” What he is describing in the book is that an architect should have knowledge about many things because they are designing the organization of everything in a harmonious way. So architecture definitely affected my views. My definition of art became: Art is an act. It is not only the final output, it involves the tools you use, the process, and what you are expressing with them.

The real value stands in how you are expressing yourself using your tools. I think an artist needs to push the boundaries of the tools they are using because art always comes after technology. Every time you see a new disruptive art piece, it also brings a new perspective to the newest technology. So I think the process and the tool have the same importance as the final piece. It is really important to express my idea in a beautiful way, but also how I express that idea by creating a new perspective with my tools and medium.

Are there any architectural themes or ideas that you have carried over into your visual art practice?

Actually, yes. I would say Peter Zumthor and Tadao Ando. They were both trained as carpenters. Neither studied architecture, but they understood the logic of things. Ando created his own recipe for concrete and it became his signature in architecture. Zumthor focused on experiences and it became his artistic style. So, there are different ways of understanding architecture.

Personally, I think art is not a noun. Art is the act. An engineer can be an artist with a beautiful bridge that is constructed with precise calculations. A doctor can be an artist doing a surgery that has never been done. A programmer can be an artist writing beautiful software that runs efficiently. This is why we have art of science, art of engineering, art of everything. What matters is the craft, the expressions and the meaning.

Can you give some insight into the tools that you currently use to bring your artwork to life?

The tools I frequently use are Blender and Adobe Suite. For the art pieces, OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL), is the real-time graphic language that we see mostly in games and browsers. I'm creating the art pieces in GLSL and after that converting it to JavaScript to put it inside the smart contract. And of course, the smart contract has been written in Solidity and is also part of the art piece, because writing the logic of functions is part of the artistic act.

I would like to revisit your most notable project to date, Cryptocubes. What does this project mean to you and how has your practice evolved since then?

The initial version of the Cryptocube script was created for my architecture graduation project. I was creating generative spaces. I was always interested in those kinds of unconventional ideas. It was the time I started to learn creative coding. I updated the script and it became the algorithm that created CryptoCubes as we know it today.

CryptoCube #255 (still), 2020

They are digital objects where you can use them in virtual lands. Some people were using them as a gallery. Some of them were used as a building or statue in the metaverse. Then there is CryptoCubesCreators, where each artist uses a specific CryptoCube in their art piece. I collaborated with over 100 pioneering artists and it will continue to do so until we reach 256. The journey of CryptoCubes definitely sparked my career. I met with lots of people around the world and shared meaningful moments. It has a special place in my heart.

I initially thought it could be interesting if CryptoCubes had been released on Art Blocks. Adding that generative script to Art Blocks and making a CryptoCube collection there. But the CryptoCubes collection was actually one or two months before Art Blocks, so we didn't have a chance for it. The script is very simple. It is not a complex algorithm like the Tyler Hobbs’ project, Fidenza. I was trying to create my best practice while I was learning.

As an early Cryptopunk, you have spoken about how fellow punks embraced you. Has this sense of camaraderie influenced the Cryptocube community you have built since?

Yes, definitely. Everything started for me in the Cryptopunks Discord channel. The people that I met are still good friends. Some of them became good collectors, and some of them became founders. I learned a lot from them. Everyone was supporting and educating each other. It definitely impressed me when I saw the way LarvaLabs created such a sophisticated art project, CryptoPunks. It is not only those beautifully designed pixel characters but the idea of verifying and transacting these digital personas/ digital identities in a permission-less way. The characters, the marketplace, the community, all of them came together in a beautiful way. I am still influenced by CryptoPunks, from the founders, and the community as well. I want to create things that add value to this ecosystem. The early punk channel sparked so many important projects: Erick “Snowfro” an early Cryptopunk collector who then started Art Blocks.

“I remember having that conversation with him early on. I felt like CryptoCubes could have been on-chain from the very beginning. I think when he and I finally started talking more regularly, it was, you know, they had already released, so it was too late. So, getting those things on-chain was really cool to see. It’s something that I’ve seen happen now with many projects that start with algorithms instead of with photography or digital art. And, just the joy in his eyes when he was explaining it and how excited he was about it. It’s crazy. I mean, it just reminds me of a more youthful version of myself.” – Erick Calderon, aka Snowfro

Then we have Justin Trimble who co-founded Braindrops , and NiftyNaut who founded SwapKiwi. There are many examples. Cryptopunks were also the spark for me to start my project. So yes, the whole community had a big impact on me.

Through your new project, you are investigating two distinct problems that arise for contemporary blockchain artists: on-chain 3D graphics and the traditional NFT mental model. Can you dive deeper into these concepts?

Non-fungible tokens mainly use two standards. One is ERC721, the most used one. The second is ERC1155, which we can say is half-fungible. An NFT collection is actually a smart contract and inside this smart contract, we have different tokens. Those tokens have a tokenURI – meaning the metadata of the token – and the tokenID – meaning the number of the token. Most of the actual images of non-fungible tokens are stored in external services such as IPFS, and Arweave, and their image links are referenced in the tokenURI. In general, the tokens using external services are called off-chain because they include the link of the image, not the actual image. On-chain art is an interesting step forward. The first on-chain art was from LarvaLabs with the Autoglyphs project. This was a very innovative approach that inspired me in particular. It was based on the ASCII format. Then we have Art Blocks, where you can write JavaScript code to create on-chain art pieces and randomize the generating process using the transaction hashes. Then we have Terraforms, Deafbeef, Avastars. I respect all of these projects and their 2D on-chain graphic explorations.

In my project, I am mainly focused on creating on-chain 3D graphics. I am approaching the idea of owning a digital asset with a simple but different idea. Each 1of1 art piece is a self-executing program, known as a smart contract, and these smart contracts have their own internal market mechanisms. Since this smart contract does not use any ERC standards, the art piece script can be inside the smart contract source code, on-chain, eliminating the need for tokenID and tokenURI logic and it won’t be available in any external marketplaces because it has its own standard. Inside this smart contract, the marketplace logic facilitates the buying, selling, and bidding.

The standard non-fungible tokens don't have their own built-in functions for buying and selling. So basically, you're approving your token on a marketplace platform’s smart contract and the marketplace facilitates those transactions. This is also an efficient way because creating a trusted smart contract is important, but it also comes with disadvantages as big marketplaces started to make the decisions on royalties. Because of this, we embedded the marketplace logic inside the smart contract source code. So if you want to buy or sell the art piece, you are actually connecting to the art piece itself. This internal market mechanism created a path to implement royalty logic to enforce a fixed percentage, guaranteeing the creator royalty will be paid. I also want to mention that the wrapper contracts can be a possible threat to trade them in other places so this is why we are working on un-wrappable smart contracts.

In terms of graphics, as I mentioned, I'm creating my art in GLSL, converting it to JavaScript code, and then adding it to the smart contract source code. Everything happens inside the source code which has an approximate 24 kilobytes limit. The marketplace and royalty logics are 8 kilobytes. So, I'm creating my 3D on-chain graphics in 16 kb which is very low-size storage. It brings challenges but also creativity. An optimized render engine that was specifically designed to live on the blockchain.

How do you achieve high-quality resolution using such a small file size?

GLSL is mostly used in games, it's a real-time graphic language. Of course, we have our limitations but I'm exploring the ways of creating much more complex visuals with low data sizes. I already figured out the ways of creating those complex visuals with higher storage sizes, but I want to put the art piece inside the source code of the smart contract because it is much more beautiful in technical terms.

If I wanted to do higher data sizes, I would need to send another transaction to add more storage to the contract, and then another transaction to lock it, to make it immutable. But the way I am currently doing it is everything is being created in one single transaction. The moment the transaction succeeds, the art piece and all logic become immediately immutable as a technical beauty.

What was the catalyst for this idea?

Influence from innovative projects and a passion for creating 3D on-chain graphics. I believe there are not many developments going on in this area. The idea of creating a 3D representation using blockchain technology is really fascinating to me. I'm always interested in those spatial digital worlds because we are going into a future with lots of mixed reality, but we are still in the early stages.

What was your process working through this?

The initial version of the optimized render engine was created when I made CryptoCubes on-chain. So, we evolved the initial script and made it more advanced to create different graphics. I was already creating my own art pieces two or three years ago but they were not on-chain. To build this on-chain infrastructure and start from a strong foundation, I bought back my old SuperRare art pieces from my collectors, and I would like to thank them because they believed in my vision.

The whole idea is to create something that will outlive me. A completely independent art piece that does not need any marketplace. If you want to buy or sell, you will connect to the art piece itself.

CryptoPunks influenced the creation of the ERC-721 standard, do you feel like you’re adding to this story by further innovating on these standards, and protecting against third-party marketplaces circumventing creator royalties?

I'm influenced by many projects. Firstly CryptoPunks marketplace, Art Blocks infrastructure, Manifold’s empowering creator tools, Deafbeef’s unique ideas, Mathcastles innovations, Avastars’s belief in on-chain. All these influences came together to create this infrastructure and I hope it'll be recognized as an interesting idea. A different approach to current ecosystem problems.

In our approach, we are influenced by empowering creators, enabling them to create their own art pieces without external parties. Inside the market functions we have a fixed percentage royalty logic that makes sure creators will be paid. Royalty payment is one of the important paradigms for creators that made NFTs go mainstream. We are automating this process in our infrastructure since we are eliminating third-party marketplaces; an art piece is also its marketplace.

The whole point of blockchain technology is to be permission-less, and borderless, to transact digital assets without depending on third parties. It is really important and I think the solution will come from the code itself since we are using this infrastructure that is created by code. We need to solve this by more automation, by not giving any control to others. The way we did the route in our infrastructure is by setting a one-time royalty by the creator during the art piece creation. The royalty percentage is not updatable. So it makes the collectors sure to always expect the same royalty. It is immutable, no one can change it, even the creator.

But there are other issues still to be solved in royalties. One of them is OTC deals, and the other is wrapper contracts, redirecting the art piece to ERC-based marketplaces. The way we are currently solving this part is, as long as these pieces don't use any standards, none of the marketplaces will be able to index and use them. If you are connecting the art piece, you can be sure that the royalties will be paid, and when the un-wrappable development is finished, we will be 100% sure they will be immutable.

I’m curious about the dynamics of this project, can you explain the mechanics of the proposed sales?

Actually, there's not a sales mechanic. The whole idea is based on infrastructure. I'm going to start to create and release my own art pieces. When I feel confident about a piece, I’m going to deploy it to the Ethereum blockchain. There will be time to wait for bids from collectors, after some time I'm going to accept the highest bid. But of course, I want to make decisions for myself. When there are two high bids, I want to choose between those collectors if the second bidder is much more supportive of my art and career, I want to pass on the first bidder. There’s no structure.

What is your ultimate goal with this project, and how do you see your practice developing in the future?

My goal is a completely immutable peer-to-peer on-chain art piece. One art piece that doesn't need any external things, even any marketplaces to be sold. You can just connect to the art piece directly and everything is there. Once I deploy it to the blockchain, no one has control over it. I believe it will outlive me, and it is fascinating to think of my artworks appearing in the digital world in this sense, completely abstract but verifiable and purely digital.

In the long term, we also want to create a tool for Blender that exports the Blender scene to JavaScript code to create on-chain pieces. Creating on-chain pieces for 2D and 3D artists who are not familiar with coding is a difficult task compared to generative artists who are coding native. They need to work with someone who can code. It takes a lot of time and effort. One of our long-term goals is to create that Blender tool so artists can create on-chain art pieces by just exporting it from Blender. All they will need to do is put the exported JavaScript file into Algo service and deploy their art piece contract. The smart contract will be open-source to put the Javascript on the smart contract. We will also open-source some of the services we create, but it is important to remember that creating a service requires effort and time. So this is a much bigger goal and funds will be needed to sustain and develop bigger ideas.

Explore the 1of1 art pieces.