Hackathon

In November, during weekly meetings and an intense day of the finale, you will be developing solutions to the global natural water crises through an art project with an actual visual outcome. You will work with a group of scientists and creatives led by a pioneer digital artist. The work will be minted on a blockchain as a collective creation, exhibited, and auctioned in the spring of 2023. Our campaign will gain worldwide visibility due to the sheer nature of the subject and the generous support of leading institutions and organizations..

A recovery case study, “Tisza Red Mood”

NFT DEB Generative Dimensions invites scientists, engineers and artists to Tisza, one of the major rivers of Central and Eastern Europe. In early 2000, there was a sequence of serious pollution incidents originating from accidental industrial discharges. The first, in January 2000, occurred when there was a release of sludge containing cyanide from a Romanian mine and killed 2000 tons of fish. The second, from a mine pond at Baia Borsa, northern Romania, resulted in the release of 20,000 m3 of sludge containing zinc, lead and copper in early March 2000. A week later, the third spill occurred at the same mining site at Baia Borsa.

This series of incidents were described at the time as the most serious environmental disaster to hit central Europe since the Chernobyl disaster.

NFT DEB Generative Dimensions commemorates the Tisza river revival after the cyanide pollution catastrophe. The theme is about endangered surface freshwaters. This disaster illustrates the threats to our waters.

We aim to provide original solutions to a large-scale climatic issue by studying the phenomena of natural waters' rebirth through data and creative action.

The hackathon will challenge participants to invent creative and sustainable NFTs for water-related social and ecological causes.

An inspiration

the English translation of the poem titled “Tisza” by one of Hungary’s outstanding 19th-century poets, Sándor Petőfi, is shared here:

The Tisza

When in the dusk a summer day had died,
I stopped by winding Tisza's river-side,
just where the little Túr flows into rest,
a weary child that seeks its mother's breast.
Most smooth of surfaces, with most gentle force,
the river wandered down its bankless course,
lest the faint sunset rays, so close to home,
should stumble in its lacery of foam.
On its smooth mirror, sunbeams lingered, yet,
dancing like fairies in a minuet;
one almost heard the tinkle of their feet,
like tiny spurs in music's ringing beat.
Low flats of yellow shingle spread away,
from where I stood, to meet the meadow hay
where the long shadows in the after-glow
like lines upon a page lay row on row.
Beyond the meadow in mute dignity
the forest towered o'er the darkening lea,
but sunset rested on its leafy spires
like embers red as blood and fierce with fires.
Elsewhere, along the Tisza's farther bank,
the motley broom and hazels, rank on rank,
crowded, but for one cleft, through which was shown
the distant steeple of the tiny town.
Small, rosy clouds lay floating in the sky
in memory-pictures of the hours gone by.
Far in the distance, lost in reverie,
the misty mountain-summits gazed at me.
The air was still. Across the solemn hush
fell but the fitful vespers of a thrush.
Even the murmur of the far-off mill
seemed faint as a mosquito humming shrill.
To the far bank before me, within hail,
a peasant-woman came to fill her pale;
she, as she brimmed it, wondered at my stay,
and with a glance went hastily away.
But I stood there in stillness absolute
as though my very feet had taken root.
My heart was dizzy with the rapturous sight
of Nature's deathless beauty in the night.
O Nature, glorious Nature, who would dare
with reckless tongue to match your wondrous fare?
How great you are! And the more still you grow,
the lovelier are the things you have to show!
Late, very late, I came back to the farm
and supped upon fresh fruit that made me warm,
and talked with comrades far into the night,
while brushwood flames beside us flickered bright.
Then, among other topics, I exclaimed:
"Why is the Tisza here so harshly blamed?
You wrong it greatly and belie its worth:
surely, it's the mildest river on the earth!"
Startled, a few days later in those dells
I heard the frantic pealing of the bells:
"The flood, the flood is coming!" they resound.
And gazing out, I saw a sea around.
There, like a maniac just freed from chains,
the Tisza rushed in rage across the plains;
roaring and howling through the dyke it swirled,
greedy to swallow up the whole wide world.

(Translated by Watson Kirkconnell)

See previous year’s artworks