Generative art · sound · Bitcoin
Resonance
Vibrations, visualized.
Play a sound into a dish of water and the surface shivers into a pattern. A camera looks straight down, with lamps beside it. Wherever a ripple tilts just right, it bounces a lamp into the lens and that spot lights up. That is the picture: 1,000 pieces, each drawn live by one program stored on Bitcoin.
- What it is
- 1,000 moving pictures of sound. Each one is a dish of water with a sound playing into it, filmed from above. Tap one and you hear it.
- How it's made
- By physics, not by hand. The program works out how the water moves for that dish and those notes, then where the ripples catch the lamps.
- What makes each different
- Twelve settings you could set up on a real table: the dish, anything standing in it, the speaker, the notes, how loud, drops or wind, the shape and colour of the lamps, and the backdrop.
- Where it lives
- On Bitcoin. One small program, 57 KB, draws every piece. Your piece is one line of code that says "run the program, piece number such-and-such".
- Why that matters
- No website or server is needed to see it. As long as Bitcoin exists, any wallet that shows inscriptions can draw your piece, with its motion and sound.
A dish, a sound, a camera
Every piece is the same simple setup with different settings. Here it is from the side.
- Camera, straight above, looking down.
- Lamp beside the camera: white or coloured, shaped as a ring, a spot, a softbox, a strip, a window or a row of bulbs.
- Black card, the dark twin of a lamp. It shows up as black.
- Backdrop overhead, black or white.
- Water in a round or square glass dish.
- Speaker under the dish, playing the notes.
a ripple tilted just right bounces the lamp into the camera: that spot lights up. tilted the other way, it shows the black card. flat water is a mirror: it shows the backdrop.
- Water has favourite notes. Nudge a dish of water and it sways in set patterns, each at its own note. A dish has many of them.
- The sound picks the pattern. Play one of those notes and the water falls into that pattern. Higher notes make smaller, busier ripples.
- The dish shapes it. A round dish makes rings and spokes; a square one makes grids. A hole or walls in the dish change which patterns fit.
- The camera sees reflections. Water is clear. What you see is what it reflects: a ripple tilted just right shows a lamp, and flat water shows the backdrop.
- Light on dark, dark on light. Lamps show up against a black backdrop. Black cards show up against a white one.
- It loops. Each note repeats a whole number of times in six seconds, so the loop never jumps.
- You can hear it. The water's notes are too low to hear, so the program plays them higher by whole octaves. Same notes, just audible.
- Pixels, on purpose. 128 × 128 pixels, the grain of an early digital camera.
Every trait is a setting on the table
Each trait is one real setting you could change on the table, and each one changes what you see. Every example shows that setting on a piece that is otherwise ordinary.
Vessel
The dish: round or square. Round dishes ring in circles and spokes; square ones in grids.
Inner boundary
Something in the dish: a hole through the middle, which makes a donut-shaped dish, or glass walls that split it into parts. Water cannot cross them, so the ripples bend to fit each part.
Source
Where the sound comes in: one speaker under the dish (off to the side, in the middle or at the edge), two speakers pushing together or against each other, or a table that shakes the whole dish. Each lets different patterns through.
Notes
How many notes play at once, from one to eight. Each note adds its own pattern and its own rhythm.
Pitch
How high the notes are. Higher notes, smaller ripples.
Volume
How hard the sound shakes the water, from whisper to max. Louder water tilts more, so more of it catches the lamps. It also sets how loud the piece sounds.
Disturbance
Anything else moving the water: nothing, a gentle rocking, a drop, rain, a breeze, or a tap on the dish.
Light
The shape of the lamps or cards: a ring, a spot, a softbox, a strip, a window or a row of bulbs. Each leaves its own shape in the ripples.
Diffuser
A frosted sheet in front of coloured lamps. It spreads them so they overlap, and overlapping colours mix: red and blue make pink.
Tones
How many lamps, each with its own shade or colour, from one to six, or a ring that fades through greys or a rainbow.
Backdrop
What hangs above: black or white. Flat water mirrors it. Lamps show against black; black cards show against white.
Palette is the twelfth trait: the named set of lamp colours, 37 of them. Greys are common, and colour gets rarer the more lamps a piece has. Rank measures how unusual a piece's whole set of settings is; #1 is the rarest. The collection shows every piece, its rank, and how common each setting is.
Stored as code, drawn live
An inscription is a file written into Bitcoin for good. Most inscribed art is a finished image. Resonance inscribes the program that draws the art, and each piece is a tiny file that runs it.
- The program
One inscription, 36 KB: the water physics, the lights, the pixel art and the sound.
- The parent
One inscription for the collection. Every piece is inscribed as its child, which proves it belongs.
- Your piece
A file about 110 bytes long that says: run the program with this number. The same number always draws the same piece.
If this website goes away, nothing is lost. The art lives on Bitcoin.
Not inscribed yet. Each piece is inscribed when it is minted.
Mint
How to get one
The plan: mint on Ordinals Wallet, and you get a random piece. The date will be announced here.
Before you collect
The art
What am I looking at?
A dish of water seen from straight above, with a sound playing into it. The bright shapes are ripples tilted just right to bounce a lamp into the camera. The program draws it live, 128 × 128 pixels, looping every six seconds.
Could this be set up for real?
Yes. Every trait is something you could set up on a table: the dish and anything in it, the speaker, the notes, the volume, a drop or a breeze, the lamps and their colours, a diffuser and the backdrop. The program works out what the water and the reflections would do.
Where does the colour come from?
From the lamps. Each lamp is white or has a coloured filter, a black card shows as black, and flat water shows the backdrop. About half the pieces are black, white and grey; colour gets rarer the more lamps a piece has.
What will I hear?
The water's own notes. They are far too low to hear, a few beats a second, so the program plays them higher by whole octaves until you can. Tap a piece to hear it; tap again to stop.
Collecting
How many are there?
1,000 pieces, plus piece #0, the artist's proof, which is kept outside the 1,000.
How do I get one?
The plan is to mint on Ordinals Wallet. Each mint gives you one piece at random. The date will be announced here.
What exactly do I own?
One inscription in your Bitcoin wallet: a line of code that points to the Resonance program and names your piece. Anything that runs it draws your piece, with its motion and sound.
What makes a piece rare?
Its settings. Each trait is dealt from a fixed deck, so some values are scarce: 15 pieces have eight notes, 12 have a rainbow ring. A piece's rank measures how unlikely its whole combination is; #1 is the rarest.
Were any pieces thrown out?
No. Every piece is rendered through its whole loop and checked for pictures that go dark, freeze, flash or wash out, and for duplicates. All 1,000 pass as dealt.
Permanence
Where can I see and hear my piece?
In any wallet or marketplace that shows inscriptions that load other inscriptions, such as Ordinals Wallet, Magic Eden and ordinals.com. The piece loads the program from Bitcoin, so it does not need this website.
Can a piece change after it is minted?
No. The program on Bitcoin can never be edited, and the same number always draws the same piece.
How can I check a piece is real?
Every piece is a child of the collection's parent inscription. Before the mint we publish fingerprints (hashes) of the program and of every piece, so anyone can rebuild the collection and check.