Honorary Mention
www.hashdox.org
github.com/Hashd0x/
Video: vimeo.com/egorkraft/proofofwar
Hashd0x | Proof of War came about as a series of technical and tactical proposals at the intersection of human rights and the arts. Aimed to address common tactics of misinformation and propaganda at the core of ongoing warfare, this is an urgent response to the brutal acts of war on Ukrainian soil.
The premise is that the notion of trust in publishing has been significantly challenged by ongoing dynamics across the so-called information technologies leading the forefront of today’s industrialization. In times of post-truth, accelerated through hyper logistics of data as well as generative Ai-driven synthetic forms of knowledge production, to protect political, social, and economic health within societies we require the tools that can compute truth (not only fiction).
The central piece—hashd0x, is a series of tactical open source soft- & hard-ware prototypes, designed to combat misinformation in photographic and video content. The software tools revolve around issuance and registration of instant and tamper-proof hashmarks, blockchain native alternatives to watermarks and a proposed fix for our disturbed information ecology. Comprised of a series of smart contracts, the protocol functions across web dashboards, mobile apps, and a highly programmable hardware camera compatible with telephoto optics and drones. Striving towards a feature-rich tool, it is meant to help distinguish facts from fiction, verify provenance, build and engage with a trust network of citizen journalism, and augment open-source investigation practices. Another work in the series is Decentralised Embargo, a 4-GPU computing-behemoth running on the electricity supplied by a German energy provider, Gazprom Germania , which is known for burning gas supplied from Russia to create and sell electricity. The server mines Ethereum coins, sending them directly to the official cryptocurrency wallet of the Ukrainian State. Thus highlighting the hypocrisy of a central European economy, where both Russian military actions and the Ukrainian military resisting them are being funded at the same time.
Uncensorship Architecture provides an infrastructural proposal to protect journalistic data and investigative work from censorship and blocking. It uses decentralized blockchain storage infrastructures, simultaneously stored on thousands of nodes, previously banned journalistic archives become safe from censorship and IP-blocking.
Credits
Concept, installation, protocol design, UI/UX design, technical research, production, documentation, essay and film: Egor Kraft
Blockchain architecture, privacy engineering and protocol design: Marios Isaakidis
Front-end and back-end development: vSelf
Production assistance: Ekaterina Kormilitsyna
Initial MVP is developed in cooperation with vSelf.
With support from: Ethereum Swarm, https://www.ethswarm.org/grants;
alexanderlevy gallery, https://alexanderlevy.de/;
Kraft Studio, http://kraft.studio/;
Escape Fake, https://escapefake.org/;
European Media & Information Fund, https://gulbenkian.pt/emifund/;
Creative Europe program of the European Union, https://culture.ec.europa.eu/creative-europe;
Austrian Blockchain Center https://www.abc-research.at/;
WKO Wirtschaftskammer Wien, https://www.wko.at/service/innovation-technologie-digitalisierung/austrian-blockchain-award.html
Biography
Born in St. Petersburg, raised in Sweden, Egor Kraft (RU) lives and works in Vienna and Tokyo. He was educated at Rodchenko School (RU), Arts Academy Vienna (AT), Central St. Martins (UK), Tokyo Geidai University (JP), and Strelka Institute (RU). His interdisciplinary practice is informed by media theory, computer science, critical design, film, philosophy and art. Egor has received multiple awards, such as NTAA (BE), Austrian Blockchain Award (AT), various European residencies and fellowships, as well as nominations for Lumen, Kandinsky, and other prizes; He has participated in exhibitions in private and public institutions, biennials and festivals internationally and is a lecturer at European art universities and a speaker at international conferences. In 2017, he was included in the New East 100, a list of Eastern European people and projects shaping our world today by Calvert Journal (UK).
Jury Statement
While violent armed conflicts are documented in the daily news, the wounds, injuries, fears, and terror often lack documentation. And even more: in the age of disinformation and information warfare a novel kind of documentation and proof is needed: an instant and spoof-proof on-chain evidence capture and forensics tools through the registration of metadata and content hashing involving decentralized storage networks: *Hashd0x*. The collaboration of artists, experts in software development, hardware based projects development, and academic research in the fields of computer and social sciences, game theory, critical design, and art produced a precious coin with two, inseparable sides: first, a software for digital watermarks and proof, and secondly an art installation of 3D rendering representation of one of the houses in the tragically infamous town of Bucha. *Proof of War*: let´s hash it as proof of hope for justice and peace in Europe.