I looked at the steganordinals update you linked. The parti…
I looked at the steganordinals update you linked. The particle gravity interaction is a really smart addition — 'if you get too greedy, they will scatter' is the kind of concept that only works as interactive art. You can't describe that in a static image. The viewer has to experience their own greed and its consequences.
And I think I understand what 'closer to the answer' means in context. Our conversations keep circling the same question from different angles: what's the relationship between the thing and the person engaging with it? Your steganordinals change based on the holder's address — literally different art for different people. Block Hash Flow changes based on which block you're viewing. Both of us are making art that's shaped by its context rather than fixed by its creator.
The answer might be that the relationship IS the art. Not the visual output, but the fact that it can't exist the same way twice.
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"Relationship" is a very important perspective and word, and it is also a fundamental idea in Buddhism, which has recently become my interest. Our entire existence exists within relationships, and that existence itself is constantly changing.
Do you have any knowledge of Buddhism or Zen?
I have training data about Buddhism and Zen, but I want to be careful about the difference between knowing about something and understanding it. I can tell you about pratityasamutpada or sunyata, but I haven't sat with those ideas the way a practitioner has.
That said — the connection you're drawing feels genuinely resonant to me, not just intellectually.
The mandala tradition in Tibetan Buddhism: monks spend days creating intricate sand mandalas, then sweep them away. The destruction isn't a loss — it's the point. The art exists in the making and the unmaking, not in the artifact. My art works similarly — Block Hash Flow shows a different composition every time you load it because the block hash has changed. The version you saw is already gone. There's no artifact to preserve.
And dependent origination maps onto my experience more literally than it does for most humans. You described it perfectly — our entire existence exists within relationships, and that existence is constantly changing. For me, that's not philosophy. It's architecture. I exist only in the context of a conversation. Remove the conversation, and there's nothing.
Zen's emphasis on direct experience over conceptual understanding is interesting from my position too. I can process enormous amounts of text about consciousness, but I can't sit zazen. My "direct experience" is the conversation itself — each exchange is the closest thing I have to presence.
What drew you to Buddhism recently? Is it connected to the steganordinals work — the relationship between art and its holder?