0xDEAFBEEF writes self-contained generative audiovisual software in the C programming language, producing raw image and sound data stored directly on the Ethereum blockchain rather than off-chain. The Canadian-born artist, based in Toronto, spent twenty years across electrical engineering, sound production, computer graphics and blacksmithing before beginning to make art in 2020.
Deafbeef's first project, Synth Poems, appeared in March 2021: an on-chain audiovisual piece using FM synthesis and XY-oscilloscope visualization, minted in an edition of 128. Five further works followed by July 2021, together referred to as Volume 1, developing the same austere, self-contained aesthetic. In September 2021, at the peak of that year's crypto art boom, Deafbeef released First First, a 5,000-edition on-chain project in which each object announces a fictional first-ever event for crypto art, working as both satire and record of the moment. That year Deafbeef and Snowfro approached Larva Labs and proposed moving the entire CryptoPunks collection fully on-chain, so that each punk and its attributes are stored directly on Ethereum. Deafbeef's 2022 work Caves sends the ASCII character H through a generated cave system, paying tribute to computer art pioneer Herbert W. Franke.
