Always Has Been
Chapter I: Fenestra Animae
The vast majority of human knowledge now exists online. What we like and dislike is captured and transmitted through social networks, while our financial interests and assets are increasingly moving toward blockchain tokenization.
The internet has driven the mass digitization of nearly everything we do—and everything we have done—culminating in the aggregation and compression of humanity into the latent space of artificial intelligence.
Yet as revolutionary as this technology is, human nature itself has not changed. Despite these advancements, we are no different as a species than we were centuries ago. This creates a paradox: although the world has transformed dramatically, there remains a persistent sense that everything unfolding today has already happened—or, in meme-culture parlance, “always has been.”
This artwork is a commentary on that constancy of human nature. It uses the same digital technologies that have reshaped our world—from websites to social media to crypto to AI—and blends them together to reveal a simple truth: humans are still humans and we as a species have evolved far slower than the world is changing.
The Artwork
Drawing upon major technological advancements since the advent of the internet—from the dot-com boom to the current AI frenzy—the work constructs a unique medium through which a series of alternate realities emerge. It is mixed-media, but of the post-internet age.
The images, videos, and text are generated in real-time using AI. The audience engages with it through a website, access to which is granted via social media participation. Ownership is established through non-fungible tokens.
The work culminates in a materially grounded art form: a physical sculpture that functions as a metaphorical window into the digital realm, rendering a mediated view of our collective selves as seen through the eyes of artificial intelligence.
Components
The Simulation
The Simulation is a custom generative AI framework that creates the artwork in real-time as people interact with it. The Simulation is composed of realities and within each reality are events from history and within each event are moments from that historical event.
The Terminal
The Terminal is an internet portal where people access and interact with The Simulation. It is where new realities are released, how new events are unlocked from that reality and new moments are captured from those events.
The Artifact
The Artifact is the digital form of the artwork. Every reality, event, and moment will be immutably written onto the blockchain and archived on decentralized storage.
The Exchange
The Exchange is where meaning and value are transferred through tokenized markets.
The Relic
The Relic is the physical form of the artwork. Only one Relic can exist for each reality.
Roles
The Patrons
They are the ones who fund culture and get early access. This is manifested through a special patron token and will be the first digital artifact that will be released.
The Evangelists
They interpret, document, archive, and give meaning to cultural artifacts. This is manifested by the leaderboard which represents those that are the most active participants on The Terminal.
The Public
They are those that consume culture. This is anyone who owns a digital token from The Artifact, engages with The Terminal or participates in the conversation about the artwork.
Schedule
Stage I
The EVANGELISTS
January 13, 2026
The first stage is the release of The Terminal, which is how The Evangelists will interact with The Simulation. The Terminal was released in alpha form as the Latent Space Terminal. In this stage a new version of The Terminal will be released along with a series of new realities.
Stage II
The Patrons
February 3, 2026
The second stage is The Patron token mint. It is an ERC-721C token with a maximum of 200 tokens priced at 0.169 ETH. The number of tokens minted will also determine the leaderboard cutoff for The Evangelists. There will be a 10% royalty to discourage trading at this stage. All royalties will be split 50/50 between the artist and a treasury. Those who hold this token will be The Patrons.
Stage III
The ARtifact
February 10, 2026
The third stage is a free-to-claim mint. This is the release of The Artifact, the digital form of the artwork. This stage will release only the event tokens and it will start after all of the realities have been released in The Terminal and The Terminal is closed. Reality tokens will also be minted but held in the treasury and later redeemable in Stage V. The mint is divided into three phases. The first phase is for The Patrons. The second phase is for The Evangelists. And the final phase is for The Public.
Stage IV
The Exchange
February 10, 2026
The fourth stage is The Exchange and starts as soon as the free-to-claim ends. This is where people will buy, sell, trade the event tokens from The Artifact in a competition to collect the most event tokens for a given reality. Those that collect the most event tokens will be able to redeem the reality token in Stage V. Three reality tokens will be held back for a special sale in Stage VI.
Stage V
The Redemption
February 24, 2026
The fifth stage is The Redemption. This is when the redemption window will open for reality tokens. It will be burn-to-redeem, so the collector will need to burn the event tokens they hold in order to redeem the reality token. Once a reality token has been redeemed, then the remaining event tokens for that reality are now open for a burn-to-redeem for 1% of the treasury per event token. The treasury is a global treasury and will exist until depleted. The events in the 3 reality tokens that were held back in Stage IV will be the last events that will be open for burn-to-redeem for 1% of the treasury.
Stage VI
The Relic
SUMMER 2026
The sixth and final stage is the release of The Relic, the physical form of the artwork. There will only be 3 Relics that will be available for direct purchase from the 3 reality tokens that were held back from Stage IV. But if you own a reality token, you are eligible to purchase a Relic at an additional cost, so the maximum number of Relics possible is equal to the number of reality tokens that exist, but requires the extra step of acquiring a reality token before being able to purchase a Relic.
Early prototype of The Relic (2025)