Against the backdrop of texts about valuing water, Hydro Gen charts the ecological devastation and eventual revival of the Tisza river following what has been called one of the gravest environmental disasters in central Europe since Chernobyl.

Nature and humans here are bound within a single frame — havoc in the ecological system activates the breakdown of meaning in the human signifying system of language, but hidden in the wave of ecological disaster is a (re)generative love poem to water that bears witness to its multifaceted beauty and power. A second poem is generated as a soundtrack based on the displayed background text.

Hydro Gen is a collaborative work conceptualized and developed over the course of one week as part of NFT DEB Generative Dimensions 2022 Hackathon and Conference.

To learn more about the project, read the article “Hydro Gen: Audiovisual poetry for water in crisis” by Kalen Iwamoto and Nayven Vignette.

Team:
Kalen Iwamoto, lead artist, director
Vitalii Shumanskyi, lead programmer
Nayven Vignette, audio programmer
Tamás Béke, data analysis and visualization

Collect “Hydro Gen” on secondary at FXHASH.

Acquired by OÖ Landes-Kultur GmbH as part of their digital art collection.
Exhibited at The Digital Collection – Part I: Generative Art, Digital Francisco Carolinum, 2023.