AVERY LAKE

A Breath Given

CHAPTER ONE · IN PREPARATION

Preparing the breath…

Prelude. This single breath is an artistic opening, not a participant.

Recorded gifts will carry fine travelling points between breaths.

Receive a launch invitation

A Breath Given

AN INVITATION TO GIVE

Make room for
someone else.

Receiving is enough to belong. Giving onward is an invitation. Your place and personal artwork remain yours, whether you give or not.

  1. Choose someone you would like to give a place to. A gift can follow an invitation or be a welcome surprise. Use an eligible Ethereum wallet that does not already hold this Patron Edition.
  2. While the gathering is open, choose Patron Edition → Gift on this artwork’s Networked page.
  3. Enter their wallet address. Review the price and network fee before confirming.

You buy a new edition for them. You do not need one yourself, and any edition you hold stays yours. Their place and your relationship become part of the composition. They can give onward too.

The gift is an edition and a place in the artwork, not a cash payment to the recipient.

Gift on Networked · not open yet

Giving opens with the first qualifying bid and closes with the auction, including extensions.

Receiving carries no obligation

Every qualifying place receives one personal artwork after the gathering closes. You owe no return gift, promotion or further invitation. Self-collectors and bidders can also join without an invitation.

The Patron Edition is nontransferable; giver–recipient relationships are public. If you are unsure whether the gift would be welcome, ask first. These are wallet entries, not verified people or measured breaths.

Where is the Gift button?
An example Networked Patron Edition panel with the Gift button circled
Interface example from another artwork. Its price and countdown do not describe this gathering.

YOUR PLACE

Find your breath.

Revisit its traces: inscription, print, image, binary and tokens.

No wallet connection. Wallets are checked against the recorded gathering. Networked names are optional public labels.

Wallet lookup opens when the first participation record is available.

ACCOUNTS OF BEING

About the work

Artist statement

We receive our first breath before we can ask for it. A Breath Given asks what happens when a gift makes room for someone else. Receiving comes with no obligation to reciprocate.

Handwriting, print, image, binary and tokens hold traces of an experience. Each purchase supports my practice, and each gift leaves a relationship in the composition. The ledger records the exchange; it cannot tell us what moved someone to give, myself included.

“I took a breath” is my original trace, not a statement made on a recipient’s behalf. A gift records a relationship between wallets; it does not measure anyone’s generosity.

A beginning that closes

This first gathering closes with the auction. The recorded breaths continue to move. Every qualifying wallet receives one personal artwork afterwards. Further giving may form another chapter; it is not promised by this work.

An ongoing inquiry

Part of Accounts of Being, exploring what our technologies can record and what remains lived.

Begin the original breath encounter

Answering Circles; or, Networked Circles