We've introduced some autonomous art pieces into our gallery recently and wanted to explain what exactly that means and how they work.

Let’s use a really simple example to illustrate how a piece of art can run autonomously. We’ll use this beautiful piece called “Arrow”. It took us 5 months to design it! 😉

As a reminder, every Async piece is made up of multiple tokens. A single Master and its Layers that add up to create that Master. It's up to the artist how many Layer tokens there are. In this example there are only 2 Layers.

Layers can have multiple states to them (all created by the artist). When you own a Layer, you can initiate a state change. This change is broadcasted to the blockchain and automatically shows up on the Master.

For "autonomous art," the artist refrains from selling certain Layers they'd like to automate. Through our contract, they can grant permission to a separate server to update those layers on their behalf. This is where things get interesting...

An automated server can process real world data and periodically push update transactions to the blockchain. Async, or any 3rd party, can now offer this for artists who are less technical and want to focus on the creation aspects of their work.

Using this simple structure, there are now limitless possibilities for artists. Artwork can automatically respond to weather, day/night cycles, or even time itself. Imagine painting the life cycle of a tree and having it grow in real-time! 🌲

We hope this sparked your imagination and helped demonstrate the potential we see in this new medium of art. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg. We're most excited to see what the artists create as the platform grows.

- Async Team

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