Hypersculptures

Hypersculptures are network aware, programmatic sculptures that exist on blockchains. Unlike digital art, which is usually presented as the final output of a creative process, hypersculptures are continuously evolving and open to interaction, composition, and reinterpretation. They are dynamic, living artworks enabled by the medium of programmable blockchains.

What Is a Hypersculpture?

A hypersculpture is a sculpture that exists permanently on a blockchain. These sculptures are implemented as code, enabling perpetual movement and evolution. They are unstoppable as long as the underlying blockchain continues to run. Hypersculptures are a subset of hyperstructures: unstoppable, free, valuable, permissionless, expansive, positive sum, and credibly neutral protocols like Uniswap.

Hypersculptures change according to predefined rules and involve interaction with their network, meaning they are open to expansion by artists, developers, and other hypersculptures. In this way, they function as artworks and creative infrastructure, inspiring new forms of collaboration that leverage the decentralized network they live on.

Levels of Network Awareness

Blockchain art can exist at different levels of network awareness, depending on how and where the media data is stored or executed. A major benefit of increased network awareness is composability, the capability of combining and interconnecting different protocols, smart contracts and applications to create new systems or outputs.

• Level 1: Media Stored Offchain
  The lowest level of network awareness involves a piece of media that lives external to the blockchain, such as on IPFS or Arweave. In this case, the media is hosted externally and linked to the blockchain. The only data that other artist or developers can usually compose with is ownership.

• Level 2: Media Stored on Blockchain
  The second level involves a blob of media data that is stored directly on a smart contract. This level increases network awareness by giving the media contract level retrievability. The media can be composed with but usually requires a browser to meaningfully interpret. Examples include a Javascript program or encoded image data.

• Level 3: Blockchain Computed Media
  A smart contract that dynamically computes the media. Here, the media isn’t simply stored but is generated directly on a blockchain, allowing for full view composability. Other artists or developers can directly build upon the system through smart contract calls without relying on any offchain processes. This enables other smart contracts to interpret and respond to changes. Examples include coordinate, height map, or rotation data for objects in the system.

• Level 4: Hypersculpture
  A smart contract whose execution relies on data from its network, such as user interaction or the state of a composed contract. The media is reactive to external inputs, meaning that the final form of the artwork is influenced not just by the internal logic authored by the artist but also by changes in the broader network. This dynamic nature allows for nondeterministic, evolving pieces that are aware of their network and for the creation of new works and systems that interpret, interact with, or react to the piece and its changing dynamics.

Hyperstructures in Art

Hypersculptures naturally align with the concept of hyperstructures. A hyperstructure, as described by Jacob Horne, cofounder of Zora, is a protocol that runs indefinitely without maintenance, intermediaries, or restrictions, and can be freely used by anyone. Hypersculptures embody many of the same principles, with some important distinctions.

• Unstoppable: The artwork runs as long as the underlying blockchain exists.
• Free to view: There is no fee to view the artwork or its underlying data.
• Valuable: The right to own or interact with parts of the artwork, may be valuable.
• Semi-permissionless: Anyone on the network can compose with the contracts or interact within the defined rules of the system.
• Positive sum: Every contribution may enhance the artwork for the benefit of all participants.
• Network aware: The underlying media responds to changes within its network.

The main difference between hyperstructures and hypersculptures lies in interaction. A hypersculpture may have specific rules for interaction that require the permission of its creator. Permission to interact may be deployed as an artistic gesture or as part of the economic model of the artwork, granting privileged rights to some while still allowing everyone to view or create new compositions that interact with the artwork.

Expansive Creativity

The canonical example of a hypersculpture is Terraforms by Mathcastles, the studio lead by artists 113 and xAltgeist. Terraforms is land art from a dynamically generated 3D world. It is an exploration of interactive, evolving sculpture running on Ethereum. Each Terraform parcel forms part of a larger structure colloquially called the Hypercastle.

Ownership of the NFT grants the right to interact with the system. Collectors etch into the sculpture’s living surfaces, writing into it as a new kind of land art. 113, one of the two creators of the piece, describes it as “individual parcels as fingerpaintable maps of impressionist cities, all summing as a larger singular hypersculpture”. The ability to interact with the artwork in this way means that Terraforms lives and breathes as a whole while evolving based on the contributions of collectors.

Just as hyperstructures like Uniswap provide financial infrastructure, hypersculptures provide cultural infrastructure. They create surface area beyond the original creator’s vision and into the network. Since the data is all stored in the contract, anyone can compose with it or create views of the data, like an SDK, market experience, 3D rendering, or interactive GUI.

Taking things further, an update called Satellites allows a Terraform parcel to “tune in” to a signal from external programs. These signals may come from Mathcastles themselves or from other developers invited to participate in the Terraforms network. This creates a constellation of different contracts that settle data to the piece, pushing how it responds to its networked environment.

These artworks provide a rich surface for network participants to interact with and express new potential for art making and meaning. This expansive nature fosters new ways of seeing artistic software, inspiring a network of interpretations, performances, tools, and artistic gestures to coexist in a dynamic ecology.

Composable Culture

Hypersculptures open up new possibilities for creating art in a networked environment. Artists embrace the idea that their work can be reinterpreted, interacted with, and expanded by others. The data remains open and accessible, enabling anyone to build with, comment upon, or integrate the sculpture into new contexts and ideas, making them important landmarks in a collaborative and evolving cultural network.

These artworks are continuously redefined by their participants and the evolving context in which they exist. They challenge conventional narratives of artistic authorship by inviting contribution, expansion, and recontextualization. This interconnected nature creates a complex and dynamic cultural experience that thrives on and is enriched by network contributions.

This creates composable culture, a network-native approach to art, communication, and collaboration. The ability to build upon and alter hypersculptures means that every participant has a role in shaping them. They are collective cultural artifacts that evolve alongside the world around them.