Crimson Echo

Crimson Echo is a generative film generated by and stored fully on Ethereum, exploring how stories emerge through permanent acts of individual and collective conscience.

In reimagining what a film could be, one truth echoes through hundreds of voices - each piece telling the same story in its own way. They move with our collective pulse - transforming as our community takes action, as donations flow toward humanitarian relief, as voices of peace get etched into this always-on computer.

Crimson Echo exists as a film stored completely on-chain - pushing against technical boundaries through extreme compression and code, but more importantly, through its embrace of blockchain's native possibilities. While donations are changing children's lives, back in the blockchain Crimson Echo will see fewer scenes of suffering, witness leaves sprouting on a tree of hope, realize a burning figure finding moments of peace. And it will all interweave with the entropy of Chaos Roads - within the same blockchain art universe. This isn't just technical experimentation - it's a demonstration of blockchain's unique capacity to enable new types of art: Art that embraces real-world impact. Art that is collectively governed. Art that remains dynamically connected to other works. Art that connects worlds - where each scene transforms through individual decisions, where a story unfolds through collective governance and action, where humanitarian aid directly shapes artistic expression - a reminder that every act in this network creates ripples beyond its boundaries.

This collection comes to life at the intersection of worlds that rarely meet - where a speculation-driven industry embraces humanitarian causes, where digital art meets activism, where blockchain's permanence confronts this moment’s burning urgency. By inscribing messages of peace into the chain, by making our humanitarian values part of the artwork itself, we're creating something that lives beyond the moment. It's not just a film - it's a testament to when we choose to speak up, when we turn digital spaces into catalysts for real change. Every aspect of the collection, from its mint website to its allowlist mechanics, from the 30 smart contracts that form it to code optimization, are all working towards this purpose.

Perhaps in the echo of our collective voice, future generations will find more humanity than blood.

Allowlist Mechanics

There is no public mint for Crimson Echo. It is a completely free mint for allowlisted participants. There are only two ways to get allowlisted:

• Speak up about Palestinian Genocide and donate to ethevacuations.eth, or

• Own Chaos Roads or ART PONZI from Chainleft

A few Pushers and crypto-leftists who funded the on-chain deployment (a small campaign done in the first week of December 2024) are also in the allowlist. But they’d be in the allowlist anyway as they almost all already qualify for everything above.

Previous work allocation is quite common in the NFT space, but I believe political engagement was not used in the past as a condition to be rewarded. Two reasons for this mechanic:

Awareness

The number one goal of the project has been to increase awareness about Gaza within the crypto community.

At a time when mainstream news organizations are failing to live up to journalistic standards and social media is being hijacked and dismantled by billionaires, collective awareness and attention are all we have.

Crypto is nothing if it’s not “tokenized attention” and if this attention can be used for something meaningful, like raising awareness about a human catastrophe, it is time to do it. I wanted to do this by incentivizing people to speak up about Gaza and calling for a ceasefire. I also wanted to gift people who were doing this anyway (even without my encouragement).

Part of this is of course the film itself, which tells the story of the world closing its eyes to historically the most televised and streamed genocide. But it shapes everything around the film too. The mint site includes abstract representations of bodies of children under 9 who were killed in the last 2 years (at over 10,000), as well as news articles from international NGOs and the UN.

The Bridge

Crimson Echo tries to build bridges.

The obvious one is the bridge between art and politics, which is crucial to my process, and many artists in history. Historically, politics have been a much bigger part of art. It is surprising to see this bridge being ignored more by both traditional art institutions and by the NFT digital art scene.

At a deeper level however, I’ve always wanted to build a bridge between blockchain skeptics and blockchain enthusiasts. I sometimes sit as an outlier within the crypto space as someone who embraced leftist values of collectivism over individualism. On the other hand, most leftists are blockchain-skeptics and consider people like me as “grifters” who want to benefit from the hype, or “useful idiots” who don’t know any better and are used as tools to enhance dystopian libertarian values.

This is the part that speaks to the second group within the allowlist, my previous collectors. Collectors who have collected Chaos Roads or ART PONZI are allowlisted automatically for Crimson Echo. They don’t have to raise awareness.

This immediately brings up the question, why not? If we want maximum awareness, why shouldn’t they also tweet about it?

The reality is most blockchain enthusiasts are apolitical. It’s only marginally better in the blockchain art niche. I don’t expect them to get suddenly political. But if they collect Crimson Echo, these collectors will still engage with a political topic because the experiment itself is political. This is where I want to start building the political bridge for art collectors towards IRL issues. Furthermore, even if they are automatically allowlisted, Chainleft collectors still have to send political messages to the chain, which brings us to the next mechanic:

Mint Mechanics

If you're allowlisted, the mint process in Crimson Echo requires you to send one of three messages on-chain:

• "Nothing justifies genocide"

• "Free Palestine"

• "Ceasefire NOW"

This is more than just a gimmick. I specifically chose to deploy this mechanic and condition these three messages. Reasons:

On-Chain Poll

Firstly, these three messages are similar but demonstrate slightly distinct vectors in one's thinking. I want to understand the distribution of minters' thoughts.

Since blockchain is a record of its transactions, we would essentially be doing an on-chain poll on whether someone prioritizes:

A general value of human life taking priority, as well as an acknowledgment of what is happening in Gaza today The justice for what has already happened, and a hope for the future The urgency of the need for a ceasefire, and that we need to save these lives NOW.

Permanent Record of Messages

Secondly, as you know, many anti-genocide voices in mainstream media are silenced. Particularly in the West, mainstream media was overrun with scandals, lies, and obfuscation of not only the history but also everyday massacres.

Sending these messages into the blockchain will ensure that the plight of Gazans is observed and recorded by those of us interacting with this permanent ledger.

We'll use blockchain to add another layer to fight against censorship.

Proof of Humanitarian

Since the blockchain ledger is immutable, we will forever have a record of people who dared to send these messages. These wallet addresses will be recorded in history as people who cared.

These wallet addresses that minted Crimson Echo using one of these messages will always have a special place in my (and many other artists’) heart, even long after the mint date of Crimson Echo. It can be used as a filter for future airdrops or mints by anyone who is using the blockchain.

Ultimately, I want people who value human life equally for all races to mint Crimson Echo.

I consider these messages indubitably humanitarian. I want to connect to the collectors who want to send these messages to the blockchain.

Now let’s take a look at the mechanics within the art.

Dynamic Elements

Art Means Action

Each donation to Palestinian relief funds through Crimson Echo ripples through the artwork, increasing a 'peace' counter that transforms the film's scenes. Corpses fade, leaves sprout, and the flames consuming a revolutionary hero's body dim with each act of giving.

The collection stands as a free mint, channeling all resources directly toward humanitarian relief. Rather than trading artwork for currency, Crimson Echo's focus is making real-world impact through collective action.

The mechanics operate with blockchain efficiency - donations automatically trigger visual transformations while funds accumulate in a secure contract. These funds remain inaccessible to the contract owner, but can be bulk-transferred to the pre-assigned and verifiable relief funds by any participant, creating a transparent path from digital art to humanitarian aid.

The piecewise (mostly quadratic) architecture encourages initial donations. In other words, the lowest amount of donations (multiples of 0.005E) will go a long way in improving your art. But if you can afford, you can donate more, making your art even rarer.

Collective Spirit

Beyond individual acts of giving, Crimson Echo also responds to the sum of all donations made to Palestinian relief funds. When these collective contributions reach certain thresholds, deeper transformations emerge in the artwork. As the community's total aid grows, new symbols of hope materialize - a sun breaking through, rays of light piercing darkness. These profound changes reflect our collective capacity for transformation.

Metaversal Dynamism

Crimson Echo and my previous runtime collection Chaos Roads exist as interconnected entities within the same artistic universe, bound together through dynamic composability. This connection runs deeper than simple interoperability - it creates a living ecosystem where chaos and control flow between works.

At its core lies the getEntropy function of Chaos Roads, a parameter that shapes three distinct art forms while constantly evolving. This entropy now extends its influence into Crimson Echo, creating yet another bridge between the two works. The visual elements in Crimson Echo respond not just to ownership of Chaos Roads, but to the very forces of chaos and control within it.

Collectors who own a Chaos Road can influence their Crimson Echo through controlling their Road's entropy - or they can surrender to chaos, letting both works evolve freely. This creates a dynamic art system where individual choices ripple across multiple works, simulating a mini universe where the fundamental tension between chaos and control shapes every element.

The Art Factory: Democratic Upgrades

Another unique transformation possible in Crimson Echo flows through The Art Factory. As one of the thirty smart contracts powering the film, this contract orchestrates most of the scenes and enables their complete transformation through collector consensus.

Future artists and musicians can propose new interpretations - as 1/1s or generative works, building upon the film's foundational elements like its random seeds, peace counters, and entropy. These new creations can utilize existing visual filters and musical notes, while reimagining entire scenes within the work.

When such proposals emerge, Crimson Echo collectors vote through the multi-signature wallet to potentially replace existing scenes. Each decision affects all versions of the film, making every upgrade a shared evolution of the story.

The Medium & The Format

Generative Film

Crimson Echo is a six-minute movie, or perhaps more aptly defined - a film. Maybe even more aptly defined - a generative animation film where blockchain breathes life into every scene. The work exists at the intersection of narrative and abstraction, where code becomes both canvas and storyteller.

Creating an original story meant weaving abstract generative art with hand-crafted figurative elements - since AI still struggles with SVGs - synchronizing them to sound effects and music within blockchain's strict constraints. This yearlong journey pushed against the limits of what's possible in on-chain art. While pure abstraction might have offered an easier path, the power of recognition - of seeing and hearing familiar figures on the screen - serves as a bridge between traditional cinema and blockchain art.

Early explorations considered fragmenting the narrative across multiple pieces, following a familiar path in blockchain art. Instead, Crimson Echo exists as a complete film for each participant - a shared story told through hundreds of unique lenses. This venture into generative cinema, beginning with an early four-minute version deployed silently on Ethereum in 2023, ventures into uncharted territory. It stands as a testament to what becomes possible when we reimagine the boundaries between art and blockchain.

Compressionism

I talked a lot about Compressionism over the last few years. I consider it to be a great followup to the demo scene’s desire to do more within limits. I highly recommend reading my article on it.

Now, we stored a film on-chain. On Ethereum mainnet. A media that is absolutely not designed to be stored on-chain, is now on-chain.

This was made possible by extreme measures of optimizations for every single character of the ~73,000 character code. SVG and CSS optimizations, wrapped within an optimized JS, wrapped within an optimized HTML, all built within a further optimized Solidity.

This is a 6 minute, dynamic movie, that’s sized at only ~91 kb.

Pushing the Boundaries of In-Chain

The optimizations in Crimson Echo were not limited to the storage. Users don’t typically pay for the “read calls” happening within the blockchain. RPC providers like Alchemy or Infura cover this for users. But they only cover to some extent, Etherscan covers up to 30,000,000; while OpenSea covers a little more. If you exceed these limits, your art doesn’t get displayed. We have seen many projects where the over-calculations within the chain lead to undisplayed art.

So it was important for me to optimize not only the storage but even the functions running within the blockchain as much as possible.

This had to be also balanced against wanting to have an original art on the collection page of marketplaces, where I had to build another artwork from scratch because these pages don’t accept HTML, leading to more function usage within the smart contracts.

Originality

All art is derivative, and yet, some art is more original than others. I have nothing against derivatives, but personally I started to find them boring. This is one of the biggest differences I have seen in the NFT space as opposed to the traditional art space: Immediate derivatives have become almost the primary means to make art in the NFT space (pepes, pixelated punk derivatives, etc). I wanted to keep some originality in my work here, even though there are clear cases of inspiration that can be found in all art, including my work.

CC0

All art in Crimson Echo is CC0. If, in the future, other art pieces will go into the film, they will have to be CC0 too. This is because we would like to abolish all property, including intellectual property from the film to have it accessible to all. We shouldn’t limit access to art if our main goal here is bringing attention to genocide using art.

Performance Considerations

Films are not supposed to be made with pure HTML, vanilla JS and SVGs. Films are not supposed to be stored on chain. But here we are.

A large amount of work went into ensuring that Crimson Echo will work in all devices, operating systems, and browsers. Still, the performance and video quality will always be better in desktop, Chrome-based browsers due to better and more efficient memory usage. Here are some of the issues others and I have observed during tests:

• Firefox is not very consistent in audio quality

• Safari is a little too outdated to render everything in their full speed, where you might have FPS issues

• Safari also requires the viewer to actively view the film for a better experience

• Earlier iPhones sometimes have memory leak issues when rendering HTMLs, I advise you to close other apps / tabs to have a better experience

To be clear, art is still visible and audible in all browsers and in all modern devices. Your browser just needs to handle the memory usage, so for a better experience, I prefer viewing the film in a modern browser on desktop.

Special Thanks To:

Pushers: Who have been a breath of fresh air helping us avoid the speculative NFT space and focus on the beauty of concepts that can be brought into blockchain art by pushing the boundaries, who also funded some of the deployment cost of the 30 contracts.

Crypto-leftists: Who, much like Pushers, who not only funded some of the deployment cost of the 30 contracts but also have been crucial in helping me keep my sanity during 1.5 years of a genocide that the majority of the crypto space was either supportive or apathetic to.

Jonathan Mann: Whose music is an inspiration, who continuously spoke out about the Palestinian Genocide, who let me use his hauntingly beautiful Human Shields song in my film. As of mint date, he’s the only artist besides myself whose work is featured in Crimson Echo.

Tokenfox: Who’s been a champion in on-chain art movement, always supported me and others, and reviewed multiple Crimson Echo contracts and came up with some optimization suggestions.

Teto: Who’s an outlier in the NFT space with his kindness and thoughtful perspective in art, who gave me great ideas throughout building the film, and also gave important ideas for the mint site too.

NFTYGifY: Who came up with a more efficient solution for the donation mechanism, and has previously released his own innovative collection ChekorX where he donated part of the fees to Palestinian Childrens’ Relief Fund.

Joshua Dávila (TBSocialist): Who, as an outspoken, smart and selfless writer, podcaster and builder, have consistently defended blockchain enabling certain use cases for collective action (he literally wrote a book about it!), inspired the rest of us, and always supported me.

OMZ: Who have been extremely supportive, especially mentally, since the beginning of the genocide, as well as speaking up and donating his time and resources for the people who need it the most.

Natrix: Who has been always an inspiration through her speaking up for justice and her provocative art, but even more so with her “Black and White and Red All Over” piece, which led to me creating a scene in a similar theme.

CaptainY: For lending his time and resources in testing, especially on those pesky iOS visualizations!