ENTANGLED: THE STORY
written by fx(hash) team
On November 22, 2023, Bjørn Staal unleashed a tweet like no other—a mesmerizing web experiment that quickly took the internet by storm, captivating an audience far beyond the creative coding and generative art scene, simultaneously setting a new record for viral brilliance:
Bjørn's tweet showcases a screen capture of two separate browser windows, each one displaying an ethereal orb composed of countless tiny particles. These particles find themselves in a constant state of motion, orbiting and swirling around the circumference of an invisible sphere—programmed to form a turbulent atmosphere. As the windows are dragged around, the orbs reveal a fluid-like nature to them: particles follow the direction of the drag, then rebound and ease back into their original position as soon as the window comes to a halt.
While the particle clouds are in and of themselves already captivating, the two windows are also capable of magically communicating with each other. Each of the orbs extends a tendril that grasps for the core of the other, engulfing it with its own particles and forming an elastic bond. This connection persists regardless of how far apart the windows are positioned. When the windows overlap, something extraordinary happens: the two orbs entangle, intertwining to form a single, multi-layered particle sphere.
It is safe to say that when Bjørn sent out his tweet, he did not anticipate the proportions that it would escalate to. In just a few moments after posting, the world’s first view of Entangled quickly raked in several thousands of likes. Today, it sits at over 10 million impressions—something that is quite unheard of in the generative art niche. And there really must be something magical about Bjørn’s experiment, because not only did it spread like wildfire on Twitter and Reddit, but it also saw a stellar reception on Instagram, where it now sits at nearly 970,000 likes.
Through the traction that Bjørn’s post gained, it would later on culminate in arguably the biggest generative art project of 2024. In Bjørn Staal’s Entangled, web-based interactivity, blockchain technology, and a global audience of generative art enthusiasts come into dialogue. Beyond the conceptual dimension, Entangled is also a first-of-its-kind social experiment in cross-chain market dynamics.
This is the story of Entangled.
Entangling two Communities
Although Bjørn used the #fxhash hashtag to headline his viral tweet, there had been no prior involvement from fxhash that motivated the inclusion, i.e., the team and Bjørn had not spoken about the project beforehand. In an interview with the WTBS podcast a week before Entangled’s onchain release, Bjørn states that what originally sparked his idea was fxhash’s 2.0 launch, the platform’s milestone event that would bring the Tezos and Ethereum blockchains together under one roof.
What makes Entangled a special project, besides the fascinating aesthetics, is the fact that it is the first project to be published on both the Tezos and Ethereum blockchain, incorporating a cross-chain mechanic, as two sides of the same coin. Editions collected on one chain will entangle with other editions on the other chain—only editions that are entangled with each other on the blockchain will also manifest a physical bond between them when viewed side-by-side. In this sense Entangled aims to bridge—and entangle—two chains and their communities:
Both chains arguably played a crucial role in shaping the blockchain-based generative art that we are familiar with today. However, the communities surrounding each one of the chains couldn’t be more different and have been, up until recently, very disconnected from one another. The generative art audience on Ethereum emerged around the curated projects released on Art Blocks towards the end of 2020. In contrast, the Tezos based genart scene picked up momentum with the opening of fxhash, which itself arose from the ashes of earlier Tezos NFT platform hicetnunc.
Bjørn likens the two chains to contrasting cities: Tezos embodies Berlin's underground spirit, while Ethereum exudes the glamour of Los Angeles or New York City.
Symbolically, the title and aesthetics of the project also refer to a notion in quantum mechanics. Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in which two or more particles become linked, so that their states are dependent on each other, no matter how far apart they are. This means that the state of one particle (e.g., its spin, position, or momentum) directly affects the state of the other particle, even if separated by vast distances. This is informed by Bjørn’s long-standing interest in physics.
Bjørn initially intended to release the project for the 2.0 launch on his own—where the screen capture shown in his tweet is essentially a successful proof of concept. The explosive virality and vision certainly changed the scope of the project but one thing remained clear: the artwork was meant for fxhash.
In an interview with Ken Consumer on the Arbitrarily Deterministic podcast—just a day after the tweet had taken off—Bjørn mentions that he would need a little bit of help from the fxhash team to bring the project over the finish line (~min. 57:00), for it to live up to the expectations that had now been set:
This was more than enough reason for the team to pick up the conversation with Bjørn, and instigate a discussion to figure out the best way to bring the project to life.
On browser-based cross-window Experiments
While sharing information and communicating between two browser windows is not a novel task in web development, Bjørn’s creative experiment is arguably a first of its kind. There were a few earlier experiments that incorporated the browser window itself as a creative element, but none in the same way that Bjørn’s exploration makes two browser windows communicate with each other.
A notable early example is Steward Smith’s “Browser Pong” that made quite the buzz back in 2009. In Browser Pong the paddles as well as the ball itself are made out of browser windows:
Maybe the closest example to Entangled, from a technical point of view, lies in a video game setting. Local “split screen” coop/multiplayer games do perform a similar trick, where they display and synchronize the same 3D scene from two different camera angles—but alas they are not browser based.
When it comes to achieving this effect in JavaScript, there’s a couple of methods to programmatically communicate between two windows/tabs:
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Local Storage: Introduced in 2009 with HTML5, it stores data that persists across windows, even after a page is reloaded. It’s useful for long-term data sharing. -
Session Storage: Also introduced with HTML5, and similar to Local Storage, but data is cleared when the session (tab/window) ends. Making it more suited for temporary data sharing during a single session. -
postMessage API: Yet another feature introduced with HTML5, a little earlier in 2008, it allows for sending messages directly between windows, even across different domains. This is useful for cross-origin communication.
Besides that one could also use URL Parameters (Fragments), to pass data into a page by updating and parsing its URL, or via shared web workers. This is simply to say that there might have been earlier cross-browser-window experiments.
In the replies to Bjørn’s tweet, commenters began speculating about how it might’ve been pulled off. Bjørn’s confirms that the main mechanic is in fact achieved by storing the relative positions of the individual windows inside of localStorage, and in that manner synchronising the Three.js scene between the two:
Link to Reply #1 | Link to Reply #2
A technical limitation of local storage is that it’s bound by the Same-Origin Policy. This means that data stored in local storage is accessible only to the pages from the same origin (protocol, domain, and port). Different domains, or even different subdomains (like example.com and sub.example.com), cannot access each other's local storage data. This is why Entangled needs to be run on the same browser and on the same domain for it to work.
When the post started being circulated around, it inspired many others to jump onto the bandwagon with their own creative explorations of the concept. For instance Wes Bos splits up the input feed of a webcam into a number of separate windows, which then act as a sort of mosaic to reconstruct the original feed. Raven Kwok on the other hand recreates Nyan Cat such that each moving part of the animation consists of an individual window:
Link to Wes Bos’ Tweet | Link to Raven Kwok’s Tweet
The massive response to Bjørn’s tweet, and an increasing number of requests for information on how the window trick can be achieved, ultimately prompted a direct response from Bjørn himself—leading him to share a template for creating synchronized cross-window 3D scenes in Three.js:
Link to Tweet | Link to Github Repository
This follow up tweet also sparked interesting discussions with some of the pioneering creative coders of the 2000s, such as Cedric Kiefer, chiming in with early Processing experiments of a similar kind:
Open source code has become a more and more nuanced topic of discussion in recent years, especially in the setting of code based art on the blockchain, where the code can in many cases be considered as the artwork itself. Just a few weeks after, fakewhale.xyz brought out an interview with Bjørn that goes into detail on the entire notion of open sourcing code and how it can be done in an appropriate manner in the artistic setting:
A valuable ROI when publishing code is often that other people will discover issues and propose solutions you wouldn’t have considered yourself, effectively improving your code base for free. When done properly, open-source software is a non-zero-sum game where everyone benefits.
In the aftermath that concludes this first chapter of the Entangled Saga, Bjørn takes a humorous stab at the situation by plotting the entire code for the initial version of Entangled, minting it as an NFT (with the plot as a physical component attached to it) and donating all of the proceeds to the maintainers of Three.js, the main library that powers the artwork:
As for the actual full implementation of Entangled, we will see it come to life in the coming weeks as part of fxhash’s VERTEX initiative.
Development of the Custom Project Page
Early discussions with Bjørn sparked the idea for a custom project page; considering that it would be a special type of token bridging between two separate chains, and with it introducing a new type of collection mechanic, it made sense to create a tailor-made interface that would make the exploration of the fully minted collection intuitive and accessible.
Although this page was initially referred to as a “micro page”, it proved to be a technical challenge nonetheless. For one, the webpage/interface needed to provide a way to visualize paired iterations, in the way that they were intended to be viewed, in addition to a collection map that provided a complete overview of the entire state the project, on both chains.
Visualizing Entagled pairs on the page itself, required the interface to simulate two mini browser windows in a nested manner. An initial attempt involved simulating each one as an individual iframe, but that turned out to be problematic in terms of communicating the position of one iframe with the other—as there are limitations on how iframes are allowed to communicate with the containing parent page.
The final trick to solve it was then by simply using a single iframe to contain both draggable mini windows. Inspecting the HTML of the custom mint page can provide a hint at how this is achieved. Bjørn also had to program in a way to display the Entangled Orbs in a less performance intensive way so that the mint page could be run on lower end devices.
As for the visualizer, it was an entirely different beast to tame. Entangled makes for a very unique kind of many-to-many data visualisation problem: how do you provide a comprehensive overview of something that has several hundreds of connections, and that in a compact and intuitive manner? Initial versions of the visualizer had the actual entanglement connections wrap around the exterior of a central circle where each individual node represented a collector's wallet address:
Later it became apparent that it would make more sense to pack all of the links within the interior, and have additional UI elements line the boundaries of the interface. At the bottom of the page sits a UI component that allows for a temporal exploration the collection’s state over time:
Another important issue that became apparent during the development of Entangled was one related to moderation. Generally it is not allowed to re-mint the same project multiple times on fxhash, except for very few exceptions. For instance, if a bug found its way into the minted code, then the project can potentially be hidden from an artist’s profile—under the condition that none of its editions have been minted, or alternatively once all of its collectors have been refunded (naturally the tokens still exist on the blockchain in that case).
The dynamics of this change however in a multi-chain setting. Entangled has a special mechanic attached to it that justifies its existence on two chains at the same time; its Tezos and Ethereum collections are two faces of the same coin. What about projects that don’t have this kind of cross-chain component though? The current state of affairs is that it needs to be clearly stated in the project’s description that there exists another version of the project on another chain. Moving forward there is plans for a special type of interface indicator to reflect this.
From a different perspective, what about projects that are minted on one chain on a particular platform, then minted again on a different chain but on a completely different platform? What should the verdict be in that case? Is it still sufficient to indicate this in the description text, or should it not be allowed? Moving forward, this is something that will have to be discussed collectively as a community, especially considering that other novel forms of projects and cross-chain minting mechanics might emerge in the future.
Post Release and Emergent Market Dynamics
Unarguably, the dual, cross-chain nature of Entangled is a first of its kind, and from a market perspective posits itself as an incredibly daring project. In conversation with Peter Bauman from Le Random, Bjørn states this himself:
I have no idea how it will play out […] to me it is a social experiment, almost a performance piece, that forces these two collector communities to relate to each other.
Releasing generative long-form projects on the blockchain comes with a very special set of woes that require careful consideration. The usual suspects in this situation are “How large of an edition?” and “What pricing is appropriate per edition?”, facets that are generally highly dependent on the current state of the market, as well as the recognition of the artist. While these considerations need to be carefully considered leading up to a release, there is often also a big component of luck involved.
Due to the cross-chain nature of Entangled more factors come into play:
- Will collectors be willing to pay the same price for editions on both chains? Should both collections of the project have the same pricetag? Why or why not?
- Post release, will the two collections settle at similar floor prices? Or will they be more sought after on one chain in comparison to the other?
In the aftermath it revealed itself, maybe unsurprisingly, that the Ethereum based part of the collection minted out much faster than its Tezos counterpart. In nearly 6 minutes all available editions on ETH had been picked up, and that at a higher pricing tier, compared to the Tezos chain where it took a bit longer. What was actually surprising however, was that collectors on ETH who had picked up several iterations of the project, did not actively seek out their counterparts on the Tezos chain. Maybe this is based on the speculation that an iteration is more easily picked up if both counterparts are not yet held by the same collector.
The Exhibition
The Entangled exhibition took place from September 17th through September 22nd at the Wintercircus in Ghent.
With a background in physical installations, Bjørn’s vision for Entangled incorporated an exhibition right from the start. An early concept involved two robotic arms, each of which would be equipped with a display to physically represent an entangled pair:
Towards the end of January, fxhash got in touch with a venue located in the heart of Ghent that posited itself as a perfect space to host the physical exhibition. Namely, the Wintercircus. Bjørn’s viral tweet had caught their attention, and after a first call it came to light that they actually had a vacant industrial grade robotic arm already available at the venue—this made it the perfect fit for the physical exhibition.
Once an arena for spectacle, the Wintercircus has now been transformed into a big technology hub. Reopening to the public in early September 2024, it made Entangled one of the first installations to exhibit at the beautiful venue. The building sits inconspicuously amidst the building complex that’s grown around it over the past century. Today, its main entrance seamlessly blends with the surrounding stores—it would be easily missed if not for the bold, red letters adorning its top, spelling out "Wintercircus".
The installation is a work of art in of itself: sitting perfectly center in the atrium of the circus, the bright orange multi-jointed human-sized robotic arm is mounted on top a black triangular (equilateral) platform. This triangle masks a metal cross that acts as a fixture and counterweight to hold the arm upright. The arm sits directly behind a large 1.5 square meter LED screen fixed in an upright manner and lining the base of the triangular platform, carrying another identical display.
As might be evident already, these two displays are a physical means to display Entangled pairs—in fact each one of the screens is actually running its own browser window. For 6 days straight, the robotic arm’s duty was to move the second display around the fixed one on a programmed path, showcasing the dynamic nature of Entangled pairs in a physical setting. For the purpose of the installation, the windows communicate their positions via websockets instead of local storage to synchronize their entanglement.
Furthermore, the installation feeds signals into a motion reactive sound-system sonifying the proximity of the two orbs. Depending on how the arm is conducting the moving screen, an ambient drone swells as the orbs get closer to each other, ebbing when they part ways, and comes to a crescendoing halt when the two screens are superimposed. This sound system was put together for the purpose of the installation by music producer Trevor Doherty. Inspired by analogue sonification devices like Geiger counters and metal detectors, the soundscape for Entangled employs tape feedback and granular sampling, evolving in real time based on the positions of the two spheres.
The superimposition of the two displays then also marks the end of one iteration of the 15 minute long motion loop, during which the screens fade to black and a new entangled pair is randomly selected to be displayed.
These robots are generally programmed using proprietary software and Kuka's own programming language KRL, however, an organisation called "Robots in architecture" has built a plugin for the Grasshopper software (a node based programming interface for Rhino) that Bjørn used to virtually simulate and ultimately program the robot. The plugin provides parametric control over the movement of each one of the individual joints, and Bjørn states that learning how to program the arm was arguably one of the most rewarding parts of setting up the installation. Here we would like to extend thanks to Guillaume Van Wassenhove, Roeland Van Haecke, Eli Reekmans, and Stijn Jansen, for the support provided for the setup, configuration and planning of the robotic installation.
The robotic arm itself had visitors mesmerized—while the fixture that holds the large LED screen appears to be quasi immobile, levitating in space, and dutifully keeping the screen on its path, the joints of the arm engage in an intricate dance. Bjørn explains that the robotic arm has to be programmed in a way to avoid certain problematic positions in which it could potentially become blocked. In technical terms these positions are referred to as singularities. During the actual installation the arm would occasionally make sudden whirring sounds, marking certain states that almost approached such singularities, where the joints quickly spin around their axis to avoid the position.
Bjørn also considered making the motion of the arm itself generative (as Bjørn had previously worked on installations that featured generative motion patterns), but for safety reasons this would have been too risky. A final note here is that the motion of the arm was made deliberatly slow, to further accentuate the meditative nature of the artwork.
Over the course of the weeklong exhibition, hundreds of visitors came to see the installation. Maybe intentionally, or just in passing by, but always stopping for at least a brief moment to observe the artwork. The platform is strategically oriented in such a manner that visitors coming in from the main south entrance of the circus would be met by the backside of the installation, requiring them to traverse the space to see what the screens would reveal.
The installation faces an auxiliary room lining the central hall hosting a secondary part of the exhibition featuring 3 mini installations. One of them is a large screen solely dedicated towards exploring the Entangled collection map. A track pad mounted right in front of it allows visitors to open up individual pairs and play around with them in their browser-native form.
Right next to it we find a row of pedestals, each presenting a Sony CRT TV displaying an individual edition of Entangled, with the intent to highlight the beauty of the artwork in its un-entangled state. Infrequently, and at random, two adjacent screens would still present an entangled pair however. Lastly, the north wall of the room is adorned by three curated Entangled prints, each showcasing a superimposed perfect pair to highlight the additional aesthetic quirks that present themselves in that scenario.
Over 400 people gathered for the private opening on the launch day of the exhibition, attending the panel featuring Bjørn, part of the fxhash team, as well as the organizers in charge of Wintercircus. The exhibition then opened to the general public the next day:
At the end, it is difficult to capture the aura of the space only with words. When empty, during the quieter hours, and without the ambient drone playing, the venue had an almost otherwordly atmosphere to it. With the gentle meditative hum of the robot echoing off around the concrete hall, a strange contrast comes to life between the futuristic bright orange robot and the ancient burgundy concrete building; seemingly out of place, but also as if it was always meant to be there.
With the exhibition coming to an end, fxhash concludes a big chapter in its history. We are incredibly happy to have helped in bringing Bjørn’s vision to life, and to have contributed to a pivotal project in generative art history.
The Future of fxhash VERTEX
To conclude, a few words about fxhash VERTEX, and what it means for the future of blockchain based generative art.
The idea of a “residency” type program had already been floating around internally a couple of months before conversations with Bjørn started. The vision of fxhash has always revolved around innovation in the context of blockchain based generative art, to push boundaries, and elope from the traditional collection models and minting schemes that have established themselves over the past couple of years.
Entangled posited itself as a perfect first project to align VERTEX with. Entangled brings several interesting aspects to the table: not only is it a unique artistic project, but is also a social experiment in cross-chain dynamics, and furthermore has an educative dimension by contributing to open source culture. In this way it is a fundamental and pioneering instance of blockchain based generative art, that we’ll still be talking about for years to come.
VERTEX seeks to highlight these kinds of projects. Such that artists engage in a dialogue with fxhash as a platform, and as a team of experts, to collaborate and bring to life unique generative visions—with the important distinction that VERTEX is not equal to “fxhash curated”, but rather an exploration of what fxhash can be as a platform.
This way fxhash can move forward as a living, breathing, and evolving eco-system that continuously re-invents itself.
Acknowledgments
Exhibition Curation & Production: fx(hash) x Wintercircus | Robotic Installation & Production: Guillaume Van Wassenhove, Roeland Van Haecke, Eli Reekmans, Stijn Jansen | Videography and Photography: Jack Belisle | Sound: Trevor Doherty