Autoglyphs #101

In 2019, Matt Hall and John Watkinson of Larva Labs distributed 512 Autoglyphs to collectors who donated 0.2 ETH ($35) towards http://350.org/, a charitable organization working towards fighting fossil fuel emissions. The aesthetics and system were inspired by procedural art pioneers such as Sol LeWitt and A. Michael Noll. Larva Labs initially planned on releasing a more detailed generative piece but came across complications when attempting to store large amounts of required data on the Ethereum blockchain. These initial attempts would be titled Protoglyphs and eventually released as a 77-edition piece under ProofXYZ.

Autoglyphs would become the first example of generative art stored directly “on-chain”. Snowfro credits the Larva Labs team for “lighting the fuse” of inspiration for him to create Art Blocks which would go on to further inspire a wave of generative art appreciation and education.

Le Random graciously acquired Autoglyph #101 from Anne Bracegirdle, who played a vital role in helping organize Christie’s historical Art + Tech Summit in 2018. Alongside the famous “Lost Robbie’s” being born at this event, Matt and John would speak about the intersection of digital art and the blockchain on a panel with Jason Bailey aka Artnome.