Cycles by Material Protocol Arts

Another major protocolic art to start the year, Cycles by Material Protocol Arts is a generative artwork on Ethereum, a self-described network sculpture composed of space and time. The project consists of 512 minted “lenses” arranged into rotating rings, forming a continuously shifting 3D kinetic image. Rather than relying on hosted media, Cycles is computed as a live program, rendered on-chain without external dependencies. Each token is a self-contained, perpetually running visual state. Framed as a meditation on recurrence and change, the work uses rotation and depth to unsettle fixed perception. Cycles, along with Kim Asendorf’s PXL DEX (2025) and Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst’s The Call (2024) at Serpentine, all pointed toward the rise of protocol art as a prominent idea at the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025.