System Calls

System Calls

2025

16 pieces, inscribed June 2025. p5 generative text on Bitcoin Ordinals with parent-child provenance, none of them over 1.2 KB. Listed on ord.net.

System Calls is one sitting’s worth of a single joke: put a line of code and a line of a song in the same sentence and let them finish each other. The braces do the work. Where the fuck the {function} is Drake. {null} out my feelings is Travis Scott. I might {terminate} my ex is SZA doing Kill Bill. The rest come from Kendrick, Khaled, Gunna, Tommy Richman, or from the chain itself: if (!keys) sats = null; is not a lyric, it is just true.

Each piece is a p5 sketch that draws one line of Courier type onto a plain field and then stops. Four of the sixteen flip to black on white. Several colour themselves word by word the way an editor would, so “if” comes out blue and “NGMI” comes out red, and the second line of AI wrote this bar is greyed out like a comment, which is exactly what it is.

They are small because they do not carry their own tools. Every inscription here is around a kilobyte, because all sixteen point at one p5.js library already sitting on Bitcoin and borrow it at the moment they render. What is stored on chain is very close to just the source code.

The line "404: utility not found" in monospace type on black, with "404" in red, "not" in blue and "found" in orange.
404
Two monospace lines on black: "AI wrote this bar" in teal, and beneath it "// and took your job too" greyed out in the style of a code comment.
AI wrote this bar
The line "const light = request()" in white monospace type on black.
console light
The line "console.log('God did.')" in bold black monospace type on a white field.
God did · DJ Khaled, "GOD DID"
The line "if (!parent) NGMI;" in monospace type on black, with "if" in blue and "NGMI" in red.
if no parent
Three monospace lines on black reading "if (trust < 0) {", an indented "inscribe();", then a closing brace, with "if" in blue, the zero in orange and "inscribe" in red.
if trust
The line "million dollar {object}" in gold monospace type on black.
million dollar object · Tommy Richman, "Million Dollar Baby"
The line "msg = encrypted;" in green monospace type on black.
message encrypted · Gunna, "Whatsapp (Wassam)"
The line "Not like us {loop}" in white monospace type on black.
not like us · Kendrick Lamar, "Not Like Us"
The line "{null} out my feelings" in bold white monospace type on black.
null out my feelings · Travis Scott, "FE!N"
The line "ordinals > algorithms" in bold black monospace type on a white field.
ordinals greater
The line "return signal; // not noise" in monospace type on black, with "return" in blue and the trailing comment greyed out.
return signal
The line "I might {terminate} my ex" in bold black monospace type on a white field.
terminate my X · SZA, "Kill Bill"
The line "Where the fuck the {function}" in white monospace type on black.
where the fuck the function · Drake, "NOKIA"
The line "while(alive) {hodl();}" in bold black monospace type on a white field.
while alive
The line "if (!keys) sats = null;" in monospace type on black, with "if" and "null" in blue.
if no keys