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Every printable ASCII character within PATTERN RETRIEVAL is a memory under pressure.
The form is stored once and then deliberately ruined: cells flipped at random until the shape dissolves into static. What follows is not drawing but remembering.
The network has no picture to copy from; it has only the relationships it learned, and it feels its way back down the slope of its own energy until a familiar shape settles out of the noise.
I am drawn to that moment of settling, the passes where tension transforms into resolve.
We tend to think of memory as storage, but a Hopfield network insists it is something more active and more fragile: a basin you fall into, a pattern that reasserts itself only because the parts agree on what they used to be.
There's purposefully a small bias built into the coded recall.
The Lambda (set to 0.35) gives each neuron a quiet pull toward the stored pattern when it isn't sure which way to flip.
But this is because human memory doesn't work in a vacuum.
We rehearse the things we want to keep. We write them out, say them to ourselves, come back to them when nothing else is asking us to.
The Lambda does the same thing for the network. A small lean toward what the pattern used to be, applied every pass, quiet enough that the recall still has to do most of the work.
Not a flaw in the system. The will to remember, written into its core.
Each HTML file is written to Ethereum itself as contract bytecode.
The implementation uses a SeaDrop extension built by @cartyisme that pairs OpenSea's mint infrastructure with SSTORE2, a way of writing data as if it were code.
The storage limit per token is tight, which forces a certain discipline onto the artist. Everything that makes one of these artworks has to fit. The music engine, the CRT shader, the network itself, all squeezed into the same envelope. The constraint isn't incidental. A piece about holding a shape against entropy should probably try to do the same.
Each piece is a single, self-contained HTML file, the network, its noise, and its score all in one place, looping its recall in an endless repeat.
Each HTML file is written to Ethereum itself as contract bytecode.
The implementation uses a SeaDrop extension built by @cartyisme that pairs OpenSea's mint infrastructure with SSTORE2, a way of writing data as if it were code.
The storage limit per token is tight, which forces a certain discipline onto the artist. Everything that makes one of these artworks has to fit. The music engine, the CRT shader, the network itself, all squeezed into the same envelope. The constraint isn't incidental. A piece about holding a shape against entropy should probably try to do the same.
Each piece is a single, self-contained HTML file, the network, its noise, and its score all in one place, looping its recall in an endless repeat.
The collection might be the first-ever to use a single shared SSTORE2 pointer (prerevealMetadata) that all unrevealed tokens fall back to, meaning every token displays the same hidden artwork until individually revealed.
When tokenURI() is called, it checks whether a token has its own pointer set — if so, it returns that token's unique JSON; if not, it serves the shared pre-reveal metadata. This makes reveal flexible: you can unveil the entire collection at once by uploading all per-token metadata in one sweep, or do it gradually token by token.
A token can even be re-hidden by setting its pointer back to address(0), which returns it to the pre-reveal state — until finalizeMetadata() is called, which permanently locks all pointers and makes any still-hidden tokens show the pre-reveal art forever.
The collection might be the first-ever to use a single shared SSTORE2 pointer (prerevealMetadata) that all unrevealed tokens fall back to, meaning every token displays the same hidden artwork until individually revealed.
When tokenURI() is called, it checks whether a token has its own pointer set — if so, it returns that token's unique JSON; if not, it serves the shared pre-reveal metadata. This makes reveal flexible: you can unveil the entire collection at once by uploading all per-token metadata in one sweep, or do it gradually token by token.
A token can even be re-hidden by setting its pointer back to address(0), which returns it to the pre-reveal state — until finalizeMetadata() is called, which permanently locks all pointers and makes any still-hidden tokens show the pre-reveal art forever.
This set of printable ASCII characters are the most ordinary marks we have: letters, digits, and the punctuation we use every day without thinking.
Rendering them on simulated phosphor, behind the curve and glow of a screen that no longer exists, is asking what it costs to hold even the simplest form against entropy.
Each one carries its own small piece of generated music, so that recognition arrives as sound and image together. The instant the static resolves, the Hopfield network briefly sings.
The Allowlist is made up of four phases:
Phase 1: The artist (Asterism) will mint several works in this phase. Some to keep, some to gift, some to fuel the road ahead.
Phase 2: Within the "Frens and Family" phase are people who were there before there was anything to be there for. Who shared things without being asked, gave feedback when it was rough, and stuck around anyway.
Phase 3: Within the "Guaranteed" phase are people from the community who made art for the project, answered pop quiz questions correctly, or connected with the artist on X. Within this phase are also a randomly selected number of wallets from the allowlist form.
Phase 4: Public phase for anyone to mint.
NOTE: All wallets allowlisted before the Public phase have guaranteed mints.
Asterism (Adam Ilenich) is an emerging artist and creative technologist based in New York City, NY.
Each NFT is an onchain HTML file which loops endlessly, offering infinite distinct artworks that settle into the shape the Hopfield network was trained on.
There are five (5) one-of-ones displayed in the "Radar" aesthetic. These were the most difficult images to train the network due to their shape and complexity.
All other NFTs are editions of varying sizes throughout families of characters, separated by color.
PATTERN RETRIEVAL is a work of onchain generative art.
Minting is participation in an art project, not a purchase of a financial instrument.
There is no guarantee of value, utility, or future return offered or implied.
The artist may, at his own discretion, release future work and he will decide how PATTERN RETRIEVAL engages, if at all, with that future work.
