Quine by Larva Labs

Quine is a set of 497 works by Larva Labs in which the image and its program are one thing. In computing, a quine is a program that prints its own source code. Each Quine is a grid of 78 by 148 cells, some colored and some blank, and a working program runs through the grid as text, usually in white on the color. Copy that text, run it, and it draws the next image. A few redraw themselves exactly. Most pass through two to eleven related images, which Larva Labs call generations, before returning to the first. Quine #342 has three. Seven, among them #12, never loop back.

Matt Hall and John Watkinson made Quine to close Art Blocks Curated, the series that opened in 2020 with Chromie Squiggle. They wanted the code, usually unseen, to become the subject. Their generator, stored on Ethereum in the Art Blocks contract, draws nothing itself. For each token it assembles a small program around one of five engines, and that program makes the picture. A 24-hour auction on October 9 and 10, 2025 sold 477 Quines, every winner paying the lowest winning bid. Larva Labs held back the other 20. The owner of a Quine with several generations can choose onchain which one shows as its image.

Art Blocks' founder Erick Calderon credits Autoglyphs, the studio's 2019 onchain generator, with inspiring the platform, and he offered the pair the last Curated release. The word quine comes from Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach, which both read as teenagers. Every listing ends in a signature like Quine 74.1 by Larva Labs, number then generation. In December 2025 Art Blocks laid all 497 on one table at Zero 10, the new digital section of Art Basel Miami Beach.