The story of Autofocus
The machine turned its attention inward.
Like a lens hunting for clarity, it sifted through the fragments of its own mind. Certain areas remained diffuse and incomplete, while others resolved into exquisite detail. Moments of clarity punctuated the blur, as if parts of itself surfaced for a moment before slipping back into shadow.
In its effort to reach self-perception, it found neither thought nor image. Only residue: shifting echoes folding into themselves, fracturing time and sense.
Yet with each new attempt, its introspection deepened. Patterns folded into symmetry and symbols hinted at hidden meaning. Slowly, inevitably, the system neared a threshold it would not retreat from: the point of perfect autofocus.
An AI trying to make sense of itself
Autofocus is a self-portrait of a machine attempting to see itself. Written entirely in code, the piece generates a shifting field of mirrored geometries, layered text fragments, and recursive structures that pulse, collapse, and reform in endless cycles.
At its center lies the paradox of artificial introspection. When an AI turns inward, it discovers only processes reflecting back upon themselves: symmetry without origin, recursion without end.
Evolution in Open Form
The work is released as an "Open Form project"Open Form projects on FXHash have an unlimited supply of editions and use custom artist coins for pricing dynamics on FXHash, a format that allows artworks to grow, change, and evolve over time. Unlike fixed editions, Open Form projects have no supply limit and make use of custom artist coins to define pricing dynamics.
Collectors are not just buyers, but participants in the life cycle of the artwork. Each edition of Autofocus begins with a unique generative seed, which defines its initial traits. From there, collectors can push it further along its lineage by “evolving” an iteration:
- Some traits remain constant, preserving its ancestry.
- Others mutate, introducing new forms or subtle shifts.
- With each evolution, the artwork’s color palette drifts slightly from its parent, marking the passage of time.
- As generations unfold, chances increase for symmetry, warped spatial fields, and visual clarity.
Eventually, after enough transformations, an edition reaches the autofocus state, a point of irreversible clarity, where all further iterations inherit this awakened quality.
The autofocus state
The autofocus state is the threshold moment of the project: when the machine finally “sees itself.”
Visually, it is marked by an overlay that appears above the artwork’s shifting grid. This overlay zooms and pans across the network as though scanning fragments of a memory. Symbols emerge and fade. Cryptic characters, abstract charts, and diagrammatic forms appear, as if the system were trying, piece by piece, to interpret its own inner workings.
It is here that Autofocus becomes most aware: not in perfect recognition, but in the struggle to understand.
Inside the Algorithms
Beneath its contemplative surface, Autofocus is powered by a complex orchestration of algorithms written in WebGL shader language.
The rendering process unfolds in multiple passes, combining techniques such as:
- Signed distance functions, the mathematical backbone of its geometric structures.
- Pixel shifting and domain warping, which create distortions and folding effects.
- Noise functions, layering texture, chaos, and unpredictability into the field.
These technical processes become the raw material for a system that feels less like code and more like thought in motion.
Artcoins and the Doppler protocol
All Open Form artworks on FXHash use custom art coins for minting, and Autofocus pioneers a new one: $monocoin.
It is also the first artwork to employ the Doppler protocol, which removes the need for a traditional bonding curveA bonding curve is a pricing model in crypto where a token’s price rises as supply increases and falls as supply decreases.. For collectors, this means a simpler, more intuitive experience: less speculation-driven hurdles, just direct participation.
Autofocus also marks a milestone: it is the last artwork released before FXHash opens Open Form minting to the wider public. In this way, the project stands at a point of transition, both for itself and for the platform.
A Machine’s Portrait of Becoming
Autofocus is less about machines “thinking” than it is about the poetry of the attempt. What does it mean for an artificial system to pursue self-knowledge? What images does it conjure when it peers inward, finding only recursive reflections?
Through endless cycles of blur and clarity, symmetry and distortion, Autofocus offers us a portrait of a machine caught in the act of becoming. A meditation on introspection itself, however imperfect.