Cache Coherence

About the work

Consensus algorithms operate by reducing variance, averaging local differences toward a uniform mean. Left unchecked, consensus erases contrast into uniform gray. Balance is not the resolution of difference, but the perpetual friction between consensus and deviance.

Here, the medium is a single 4 KiB virtual memory page: 4,096 raw bytes arranged as a 64×64 grid, visually represented 1:1 on a canvas. Each byte maps directly to a grayscale pixel, without any graphical abstraction.

A pool of autonomous worker threads continuously modifies this memory. Rather than following a central coordinator, workers are guided by 1,024 micro-councils: each council is simply a four-pixel span of the canvas auditing its own local disagreement in a democratic census. When a worker acts, it checks the census tally:

• Consensus: If disagreement across all councils is high, the worker applies a spatial Gaussian filter to smooth values toward equilibrium.
• Deviance: If disagreement across all councils drops and the page stagnates, the worker transposes raw memory blocks or injects sharp black-and-white checkered patterns across the memory page.

The artwork adapts to its hosting environment across three concurrency tiers:

• Tier 1 (Hardware Contention): Workers share a single memory buffer without locks. Multiple CPU cores read and overwrite the same memory page simultaneously, causing real silicon-level data races (unlocked when cross-origin isolation headers are enabled).
• Tier 2 (Mediated Patches): In contexts where shared memory is not allowed, workers run in isolated threads on memory snapshots, negotiating updates through asynchronous patch messages.
• Tier 3 (Sequential Simulation): In sandboxed iframes where workers are blocked, a single thread audits the census and applies both forces sequentially.

Visually, the canvas appears nearly indistinguishable across all three tiers, yet the underlying mechanics differ fundamentally. The browser sandbox mirrors the artwork's theme: modern software and platforms restrict direct memory access to ensure safety, taming raw hardware contention into an orderly, mediated simulation.

Edition: 1/1 on Tezos (KT19wR…eS2T #14) · Exhibition: Searching for Balance · Medium: Vanilla HTML, CSS & JavaScript (zero external dependencies)