Prompts Exquisite Corpse

A collaborative, socially transmissible NFT.

Prompts extend the ERC721 non-fungible token standard to enable time-bound, verifiable collaborative authorship.

Every session is a group performance that generates a jointly-owned artifact in the form of an NFT. These event derivatives may then be carried into future sessions, traded and remixed to build up a referential conversation among successive prompt participants.

A Prompt smart contract includes several deployment parameters, duration, max supply, creation limit per account, as well as an allowlist function, which controls who can initiate a session and how collaborators may be added.

While each multi-party session produces an artistic product, the Prompts token extension also emphasizes the performative aspects of art in the making. This project was inspired by Fluxus event scores in which poetic, mundane, or impossible, instructions could be variously performed or imagined. Likewise, we anticipate prompts may contain a multitude of instructions, whether absurd, aesthetic, or practical.

Some imagined prompts include an artwork exchange ceremony, or an election in which the winner receives a signifying NFT.

The first Prompts project, Exquisite Corpse, is based on the prompt: “Create a collaborative drawing with two other people.” Inspired by the surrealist drawing technique, this NFT adaptation composes sequential contributions into a single image—using the blockchain to orchestrate a viral, collaborative artwork.

Creation of an NFT on Exquisite Corpse flows three steps:

1. Initiate – When initiating a prompt session, draw and submit your contribution, add the account addresses of your collaborators and share the session link with them. Once invited as a contributor, you become eligible to initiate one session of your own.

2. Contribute – Once a session has begun, contributors complete their portion of the canvas, along with a price, and submit. Prices may be changed until mint. The final mint price is equal to the sum of all contribution prices, which splits accordingly upon sale.

3. Mint – A session ends and becomes mintable if all contributions have been submitted. Mintable sessions are first come first serve, unless reserved. If the creator of a session sets a reserve address, only that address may mint.

The lineage of collaborative sessions weaves together a growing artist network. The value and meaning of works derives from the referential structure of artist collaborations, and collection of NFT artifacts.

Prompts was created in collaboration with Sam Hart.