![[aside], Anna Ridler, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Rhea Myers, Jarred Tarbell, Travess Smalley, Obvious, Nicolas Sassoon, Addie Wagenknecht, Ivona Tau, Leander...](https://artlogic-res.cloudinary.com/w_800,h_800,c_limit,f_auto,fl_lossy,q_auto/ws-artlogicwebsite2295/usr/images/exhibitions/group_images_override/15/goodbye-29.png)
NGUYEN WAHED is pleased to present a series of exhibitions in partnership with the engineering team of the Distributed Gallery collective, co-initiated with Georg Bak and with the support of ChainLink. Each month starting from May 2024 - spring 2026, select artists will be presenting new bodies of work through a bespoke protocol using smart-contract as a medium. These include Anna Ridler, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Rhea Myers, Jarred Tarbell, Travess Smalley, Obvious, Nicolas Sassoon, Addie Wagenknecht, Ivona Tau, Leander Herzog, 0xFFF, Mathcastles and Primavera de Filippi. Each series will have works in the collection of ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and Francisco Carolinum Linz Museum.
[aside] is a protocol (system for organising the buying and selling of digital artworks) with a custom time-lock feature. This temporarily immobilises tokenised assets on the Ethereum blockchain, rendering them non-transferable for a predetermined duration or until a specified event, be it social, natural, economic, astrological. This restricts the ability to trade the NFTs, counterbalancing the narrative of artworks as assets, and forcing collectors to see beyond the commercial value of the NFTs.
By extracting an NFT from market mechanisms, the [aside] protocol restores a stillness outside the flow of exchange. The artworks gain a presence independent of the economic sphere: aside from markets, aside from speculation, aside from value. The use of the [aside] protocol in this project is an experimental practice aiming to usher in a new era in the realm of digital art. The digital world becomes inherently tied to the offline world, with unpredictable global phenomena dictating a collector’s ability to engage with their artwork as an asset.
[aside] links the liquidity of artworks to natural, economic, astral, or social events through the use of oracles. The oracles of ancient Greece were conduits, providing a means of communication between mere mortals and the gods. Oracle technologies in the digital sphere communicate between the decentralized Web3 ecosystem and the ‘outside’ world, connecting on-chain and off-chain infrastructure. Utilising a Chainlink oracle, we will connect the ability to trade artworks with a variety of phenomena, for example the state of a natural resource (forests, fisheries); the economic activity of a country (inflation, deflation); the evolution of financial assets (the stock market); meteorological conditions in a given location; astral events (solar eruptions, planetary transits) observable from Earth; the occurrence of natural disasters (earthquakes, storms).
The [aside] project will be able to radicalise the 'if, then' possibilities of smart contracts by turning NFT economics into a unique sympoietic process, for example:
"The artwork cannot be sold unless 5% of the Amazon basin is reforested.”
“The artwork can only be sold if U.S. inflation falls below 1%.”
“The artwork can only be sold if a magnitude 8 earthquake strikes the silicon valley.”
“The artwork cannot be sold unless Mercury passes in front of the sun.”
“The artwork can only be sold during a super tide of the north sea.”
Until the specified event occurs, the NFT will be ‘locked’ and non-transferable, ensuring transaction security and integrity. The experience of possession is therefore significantly altered by way of being inextricably linked to off chain realities. The NFT will therefore remain with its owner until either the contract's specified duration concludes or a specified event occurs, as discussed in the following section.
Most of [aside] releases will rely on Chainlink Functions. One key aspect of this integration is the ability to trigger the unlocking of NFTs based on the occurence of external events, retrieved through various APIs and fed by Chainlink oracles, such as market price movements, weather conditions (openWheater API), earthquake events (USGS API), and many others.
To do so, [aside] contract inherit Chainlink's FunctionsClient contract, providing a standardized interface for filling requests to Chainlink oracles. This integration allows us to leverage Chainlink's Decentralized Oracle Network without having to manage the intricacies of oracle communication themselves. More information on the protocol is available here.
Project #1 – AI Index
Authors: Obvious & Ivona Tau
Year of creation: 2024
Description: AI Index is a series of NFTs designed by Obvious and Ivona Tau within the framework of the [aside] protocol, whose unlocking depends on public sentiment about artificial intelligence. An algorithm analyzes every hour the positive and negative hashtags related to AI on X, producing a score between 0 (negative) and 100 (positive). At each interval crossed (for example 30–40), 10 unique NFTs unlock automatically and definitively. Inspired by iconic magazine covers, the series explores future imaginaries around AI, ranging from optimistic projections to darker and more pessimistic visions of AI futures.
Detailed description link: https://mirror.xyz/distributedgallery.eth/AIJwGS0ogpPHWvGP6O_ERCKgNX6vZFydF6D_7ka4ODE
Protocol(s): Work, protocol and oracle deployed on Ethereum
Contract address: 0x177d2674a047a573a22df34055dbfe61ed09e55a
Format/medium: JPG recorded on IPFS and ERC-721 Token deployed on Ethereum
Edition: 1/110
IPFS links or visualization URLs:
Visible on IPFS: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXXfjLm6tsBGiXfhpdQ8nsfTi1yXXSQcv37tjihVk9j4q Visible on OpenSea: https://opensea.io/item/ethereum/0xaee84a39f15b570d59917c0dcf8c230d036a3a6a/108
Project #2 – Ray Marching the Moon: Full & New
Author: Jared S Tarbell
Year of creation: 2024
Description: Ray Marching the Moon: Full & New is a series of 130 generative works by Jared S Tarbell, linked to the [aside] protocol, which locks each NFT according to lunar phases. Five works are released at each new moon and full moon for one year. This protocol links the economic circulation of the work to external phenomena, here astronomical. Tarbell uses the ray marching technique to explore geometries in darkness, between chaos and symmetry. New moon works are in black and white, full moon ones in color.
Detailed description link: https://mirror.xyz/distributedgallery.eth/PJ6DN4XIbOuFoY9031ITDe6ilWuokZd38dmEqb8UyHA
Protocol(s): Work and protocol deployed on Ethereum
Contract address: 0xfca598e0fcfe1ec1305b451c1d60498db511fa70
Format/medium: Image recorded on IPFS and ERC-721 Token deployed on Ethereum
Edition: 1/130
IPFS links or visualization URLs:
Visible on IPFS: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmQvZ2MRqmcq8Ao2sHo6d7ZsqeHLuPu19gCM7FNr1PsDJb Visible on OpenSea: https://opensea.io/item/ethereum/0xfca598e0fcfe1ec1305b451c1d60498db511fa70/128
Project #3 – 10k Drop
Author(s): Rhea Myers
Year of creation: 2024
Description: The 10K Drop project, designed by Rhea Myers with the Distributed Gallery, is a series of 210 generative NFTs, each representing an animation of several falling K letters. These works are locked at mint via the [aside] protocol and will only be unlocked when ETH reaches $10,000. The project interrogates value, belonging and collective trust in the Ethereum ecosystem. It subverts the codes of emblematic PFP collections like Cryptopunks to create a critical work on digital property. The unlocking relies on a Chainlink oracle ensuring the reliability of price data.
Detailed description link: https://mirror.xyz/distributedgallery.eth/DV0RbMljt0tEfifpF2mhKHln19ai5ON5xu0kV3KEmXU
Protocol(s): Work and protocol deployed on Ethereum
Contract address: 0xab9c6fa8afdbd8959901a2594119e29f7cbe3fb3
Format/medium: JPG recorded on IPFS and ERC-721 Token deployed on Ethereum
Edition: 1/210
IPFS links or visualization URLs:
Visible on IPFS: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmYfH2zZweYapyjeE8jm5brrpH2XMPEi7i23Gv4BrjKJz5/202
Project #4 – FELL-CLOUD
Author(s): Travess Smalley
Year of creation: 2024
Description: Fell-Cloud is a series of 36 generative works by Travess Smalley, created from photographs taken in 2012 near the Gunnerkeld megalithic circle, in the English Lake District. Based on the [aside] protocol, each work is locked at creation and can only be unlocked if fog appears at this precise location, between 2 PM and 3 PM (CET). Fog thus becomes both artistic medium and condition of economic existence. The work uses 12 years of meteorological data to visually generate generative mist. Sun elevation and temperature serve as pseudo-random seeds for color variations. Visibility determines the mist, and its speed depends on wind. Each day is thus unique, while remaining anchored in a past meteorological reality. The smart contract uses Chainlink to interact daily with the OpenWeather weather API. This project experiments with an economy dictated by natural phenomena, where weather determines the circulation of value.
Detailed description link: https://mirror.xyz/distributedgallery.eth/BIaS3XZdAHl3ArNkidLI6mpjLavXN31zSC63qrbRjYI
Protocol(s): Work, protocol and Oracle deployed on Ethereum
Contract address: 0x0d723edb5c572d913e288750b7ca5ac14549da14
Format/medium: Moving image and script recorded on IPFS and ERC-721 Token deployed on Ethereum
Edition: 1/36
Status: Work locked; it will only be unlocked if fog appears at Gunnerkeld Circle between 2 PM and 3 PM.
IPFS links and visualization URLs:
Visible on IPFS: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmTpxptB1k1nthYMccU4AVMMdK341cnTW1qU9WrVhca28d/32/index.html
Project #5 – What Can Be
Author(s): Addie Wagenknecht
Year of creation: 2024
Description: What Can Be is a series of 100 generative works by Addie Wagenknecht, linked to the [aside] protocol and conditioned on the result of the 2024 American presidential election. The NFTs are divided into two groups: one activates if Trump wins, the other if Harris wins — otherwise, they remain blocked for 4 years. The work extends Believe Me (2017), a critique of the American dream in the post-truth era. The protocol verifies the election result daily via the use of Wikidata API, coupled with Chainlink Functions. The project interrogates the collective production of truth as a condition for art circulation. A true political device, it engages the crowd in a continuous verification process.
Detailed description link: https://mirror.xyz/distributedgallery.eth/H2AuI09SnWBj6kT2-9KKJwCfgzEtqHxqMkDldMxJhSY
Protocol(s): Work, protocol and oracle deployed on Ethereum
Contract address: 0xa254d4babddc2f38911727e928d1f2047fa8d269
Format/medium: JPG and script recorded on IPFS and ERC-721 Token deployed on Ethereum
Edition: 1/100
Status: Work unlocked for the NFTs in group Donald Trump. Due to the election in 2024, the rest is locked until the next American elections in 2028 as it belongs to the Kamala Harris group.
IPFS links and visualization URLs:
Visible on IPFS: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmVmYk7usN939MYp8Jr4HCSrMp4uYVfymARywwwcmG5afi/96Visible on OpenSea: https://opensea.io/item/ethereum/0xa254d4babddc2f38911727e928d1f2047fa8d269/96
Project #6 – Arborithms
Author(s): Primavera De Filippi
Year of creation: 2025
Description: Arborithms is a series of generative NFTs created by Primavera De Filippi within the framework of the [aside] protocol. Each work represents a tree endowed with encoded DNA, capable of reproducing by crossing its genetic code with another tree. The NFTs are locked at creation and can only be transferred after reproduction, thus contribution to the Arborithms ecosystem is a condition of liquidity. The protocol introduces an evolutionary economy: each reproduction requires an increasing tribute, valuing the trees most used by digital cultivators. The project transforms collectors into cultivators, engaging a logic of natural selection on the blockchain. Part of the collected funds serves to pollinate other works like the Plantoids, forming a self-regenerative artistic ecosystem.
Detailed description link: https://mirror.xyz/distributedgallery.eth/xLXKv1vjvSQCPXcMHZe592B7YNndAwgsV3WvqNPkJE
Pollination interface link: https://arborithms.xyz/
Protocol(s): Work and protocol deployed on Ethereum
Contract address: 0x7a5b58e12ed9022ff63f236a77ada9d3d3e8b15c
Format/medium: Visual, rendering and ERC-721 Token deployed on Ethereum
Edition: 1/40
Visualization URL:
Visible on OpenSea: https://opensea.io/item/ethereum/0x7a5b58e12ed9022ff63f236a77ada9d3d3e8b15c/3436529738219447789324154243329811482862618632
Project #7 – The Shell Record: Breathings of the Moon
Author: Anna Ridler
Year of creation: 2025
Description: The Shell Record: Breathings of the Moon is a work by Anna Ridler that associates artificial intelligence, lunar cycles and Thames tide data. Each NFT represents an AI-generated shell from a photographic dataset collected by the artist on the riverbanks, as part of her project The Shell Record (2021). Covered with a black overlay, the image becomes visible only at low tide and sellable at that moment for one hour, twice a day for the next twelve years. This temporal protocol makes the work dependent on the Thames' natural rhythm and slows speculation. It reactivates the history of shells as objects of exchange and explores an economy where a geophysical phenomenon governs liquidity. Each NFT is accompanied by a hand-printed almanac, listing all purchase and resale windows for the twelve years to come, on 92 pages. The almanac is printed with an Edixion 350g cover and Edixion 140g interior pages.
Detailed description link: https://www.breathings-of-the-moon.art/
Protocol(s): Work, protocol and oracle deployed on Base (Ethereum L2)
Contract address: 0x43C662A35668641cB35f079fA5b35bD812693504
Format/medium: JPG, metadata recorded on IPFS and ERC-721 Token deployed on Base
Edition: 1/15
IPFS links and visualization URL:
Visible on IPFS: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmWQed5sU8UW12BSv38DrgKY4Kcp8SYSgf9uUM3vdaTTgc/13.html
Project #8 – ABO
Author(s): Leander Herzog & 0xFFF
Year of creation: 2025
Description: ABO is a work by Leander Herzog and 0xfff, composed of 150 NFTs integrated into the [aside] protocol. The work explores social dynamics through a unique mechanism: each token possesses its own visual identity, can connect to six others maximum, and unlocks only through interaction with another token. Each connection dynamically modifies the visual appearance of the concerned NFT, making visible the evolution of its relationships in the network. This threshold of six possible connections gives structural value to each link: creating or receiving a connection becomes a rare, engaging act, charged with aesthetic and symbolic consequences. Inspired by Dunbar's number (150), ABO transposes the cognitive limit of human relationships into a digital system, transforming NFT value according to their position in the network. Entirely designed in HTML, CSS, JavaScript and SVG, the work asserts itself as a native web3 social sculpture, where value emerges less from speculation than from interdependence. ABO thus interrogates the conditions of a relational economy in decentralized environments.
Detailed description link: https://abo.leanderherzog.ch/
Protocol(s): Work and protocol deployed on Ethereum
Contract address: 0xab0d17a6abb683d50c62164feced74426b811b4e
Format/medium: Entirely on-chain encoded in base64 on Ethereum
Edition: 1/150
Visualization URL:
Visual stored entirely on-chain in base64 on Ethereum Visible on OpenSea: https://opensea.io/item/ethereum/0xab0d17a6abb683d50c62164feced74426b811b4e/146
Project #9 - Goodbye
In Good Bye, Lauren Lee McCarthy creates a series of images that can only be unlocked and transferred upon her death, at which point each work reveals a unique message—a set of parting thoughts from beyond the grave. The piece comprises an edition of 81 unique images, symbolizing the 81-year life expectancy of a woman in the United States.
To initiate the unlock mechanism following McCarthy’s passing, a small group of verifiers will log into a designated URL with their wallets to confirm her death. Once a majority have done so, the work becomes unlocked and transferable. Through this process, Good Bye extends McCarthy’s ongoing exploration of how blockchain technology can intersect with social contracts, a central theme throughout the Good series.
The title Good Bye—intentionally written as two words—also plays on the phrase “Good Buy,” highlighting the project’s inquiry into speculation and value. Locked until McCarthy’s death, the work is removed from the market for an extended period, prompting reflection on where value resides over time and what is worth holding onto.
The images in Good Bye are generated through custom software that integrates hand-painted artworks as input, merging human and machine labor. The resulting generative compositions—drawing on references to gravestone iconography and bodily organs—form a symbolic language that meditates on life, death, and the increasing systematization of both.
Good Bye is the third work in McCarthy’s Good series, a body of projects reflecting on time, presence, and mortality. The first piece, Good Night (2021), is a 1/1 in which McCarthy sends a nightly “Good Night” text to the holder of the work for as long as she remains alive. In Good Morning (2023), each holder is required to visit their piece daily in order to keep it active.
Artists’ bios
Anna Ridler is a London-based artist and researcher, who is working with systems of knowledge and how technologies are created in order to better understand the world. She is particularly interested in ideas around measurement and quantification and how this relates to the natural world. Her process often involves working with collections of information or data, particularly datasets, to create new and unusual narratives. Ridler work has been exhibited at cultural institutions worldwide including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Barbican Centre, Centre Pompidou, HeK Basel, the ZKM Karlsruhe, Ars Electronica, Sheffield Documentary Festival and the Leverhulme Centre for Future Intelligence. She has received commissions by Salford University, the Photographers Gallery, Opera North, and Impakt Festival.
Rhea Myers is a Canada-based artist, hacker, and writer who has been creating blockchain art since 2014. Her work has been exhibited internationally including at Furtherfield Gallery, or Art Basel. She critically examines cryptocurrency culture through conceptual art strategies and was one of the first artists to engage seriously with blockchain as artistic medium.
Jared S Tarbell is a generative artist and creative coder based in New Mexico. Co-founder of Etsy, he has exhibited at major institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art. His algorithmic works explore complex systems and emergent behaviours through code-based processes.
Travess Smalley is a New York-based artist who uses technology as a means to move drawing, painting, collage and sculpture into and out of the digital realm. He is interested in how code and systems can construct, transfer and disrupt images. Born in Huntington, WV, Smalley studied painting at Virginia Commonwealth University and earned his BFA from the Cooper Union in 2010. His works have appeared in exhibitions at the International Center of Photography, Kunsthal Rotterdam and Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit and is included in the collections of High Museum of Art and the Hood Museum.
Obvious is a French collective founded in 2017 by Hugo Caselles-Dupré, Pierre Fautrel, and Gauthier Vernier. In collaboration with the University of Paris-Sorbonne, they created in 2023 an artificial intelligence research laboratory: Obvious Research. Supported by the French National Research Agency (ANR), the aim of this initiative is to develop new AI-based artistic tools in open source. Now emblematic figures of AI Art, their international reputation has led them to exhibit in some of the world's most prestigious museums, including the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg (Russia), the Haus der Kunst in Munich (Germany) and collaborate with the K11 Foundation in Hong Kong as well as with the Paris National Opera. Ivona Tau is an AI artist who creates deeply personal narratives through machine learning. Her work has been featured at Ars Electronica, Kate Vass Galerie, and various international venues. She explores memory and identity through neural networks trained on intimate datasets.
Addie Wagenknecht is an American artist and researcher living in New York City and Liechtenstein. Her work explores the tension between expression and technology. She seeks to blend conceptual work with forms of hacking and sculpture and deals primarily with ideas relating to pop culture, feminist theory, and hardware. Previous exhibitions include Centre Pompidou, The Istanbul Modern, Whitechapel Gallery and The New Museum NYC - among others. She has collaborated with CERN, Chanel, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Google’s Art Machine Intelligence (AMI) Group. Her work has been featured in numerous books, and magazines, such as TIME, Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, Art in America, and The New York Times.
Leander Herzog is a visual artist based in Switzerland, creating images with code since 2006. His focus is generative art and abstract animation on the web, exploring the contrast between the simplicity of algorithmic systems and the complexity of their emergent properties. Herzog’s work has been exhibited in public institutions and galleries, including Transmediale with DAM Projects (Berlin), Kunsthaus Pasquart (Biel), Kunsthalle Zürich, Modal Gallery (Manchester). Previous artworks have been acquired by museums and institutions such as ZKM Karlsruhe, HEK (Basel) and Francisco Carolinum Linz.
0xFFF is a digital artist and developer creating experimental blockchain protocols. Their curatorial work has been featured at Rhizome World, and Basel Social Club. They approach smart contracts as artistic medium, designing participatory systems that transform ownership into performance.
Primavera De Filippi is an artist and legal scholar at Harvard University, exploring the intersection between art, law and technology, focusing specifically on the legal and political implications of blockchain technology. Her artistic practice instantiates the key findings of her research in the physical world, creating blockchain- based lifeforms that evolve and reproduce themselves as people feed them with cryptocurrencies. Her works have been exhibited in various museums, galleries and art fairs around the world including: Ars Electronica and Francisco Carolinum, Linz; HeK Museum of Digital Arts, Basel; Furtherfield Gallery and Kinetica Art Fair, UK; Centre Pompidou, Grand Palais, Palazzo Cipolla and Biennale di Venezia, Italy, and Fort Mason Center For Arts & Culture, San Francisco.
Lauren Lee McCarthy is an artist examining social relationships in the midst of automation, surveillance, and algorithmic living. She is a 2024–26 Just Tech Fellow and was the 2022–23 Stanford Human Centered AI Artist in Residence. She has received grants and residencies from Creative Capital, United States Artists, LACMA Art+Tech Lab, Sundance, Eyebeam, Pioneer Works, Autodesk, and Ars Electronica, and her work is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her work SOMEONE was awarded the Ars Electronica Golden Nica and the Japan Media Arts Social Impact Award, and her work LAUREN was awarded the IDFA DocLab Award for Immersive Non-Fiction. Lauren's work has been exhibited internationally, at places such as the Barbican Centre, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Haus der elektronischen Künste, Seoul Museum of Art, Chronus Art Center, SIGGRAPH, Onassis Cultural Center, IDFA DocLab, Science Gallery Dublin, and the Japan Media Arts Festival.
McCarthy is also the creator of p5.js, an open-source art and education platform that prioritizes access and diversity in learning to code, with over 5 million users. She expanded on this work in her role from 2015–21 on the Board of Directors for the Processing Foundation, whose mission is to serve those who have historically not had access to the fields of technology, code, and art in learning software and visual literacy. Lauren is a Professor at UCLA Design Media Arts. She holds an MFA from UCLA and a BS Computer Science and BS Art and Design from MIT.
