The best place to learn about this unique on chain project is [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2xTl5pPHwk). The basic idea here is "on chain land art from a dynamically-generated 3D world". How exactly that works takes 10 minutes to explain in the link above. What interests us here is how the developers have pushed the notion of SVG (scalable vector graphics), which have been used to encode images directly on chain for some time, even further: amking them fully animated in unique and delightful ways. They also made their own custom font - with different shapes and symbols - which is a level of dedication we at Kernel appreciate, having made our own alphabet for [Signature Economies](https://sign.kernel.community). These text characters and shapes are referred to as "biomes" in the code itself, which is an even deeper idea when you truly reflect upon it. The "structural metadata" provided in the name of each token situates it as a part of a larger 3D structure informally referred to as "the hypercastle". You can dive into what that looks like by watching the video above, but here we want simply to notice the immense effects naming your items can have. "There are only one hard thing in computer science: naming things, and off-by-one errors": and the Terraform names are a wonderful example of what can happen by virtue of well-chosen names based on deeper, structural insights into the nature of the work itself. The artwork now has both visible and invisible components - based solely on how they chose to name the tokens - and this is surprisingly interesting! > The collection seems to pose an answer to the question: how does one create a generative art collecti on with 11,000 pieces that feels rich, varied and not repetitive? Oh, and Terraforms are also a functional software tool in which each token can be transformed into a kind of drawing program which overwrites the existing Terrain artwork. This is enable by several different "modes" specified in the contract. >The data-rich, on-chain maximalism of the piece means that there is data available to interpret and visualise, making terraforms almost like an "artwork as an API". Lastly, there are mechanisms baked into the contract which gesture at how long-lived the developers hope it will be. The hypercastle structure will collapse if no-one interacts with it by entering tokens into "daydream" mode. In some important sense, there is no work without participation. >The approach of building a minimalist but beautiful, durable skeleton creates a kind of aesthetic negative space which encourages other artists and explorers to join in and engage with it. Until the fairly recent creation of blockchains and publicly shared but privately ownable computer environments like Ethereum a work of art like this wouldn’t have been possible, and it wouldn’t have been possible for people like us to build alongside it. Through the development of this new technology and the arts and culture around it, new possibilities are emerging and we look forward to exploring them together. Author: cryptowanderer