Sunday Read: Whistleblower NFTs
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On Tuesday, December 13, artist Ahmet Öğüt presented Monuments of the Disclosed–a collection of digital sculptures to whistleblowers on the arts platform Artwrld.com. Each of the 99 artworks presented in the collection is a digital monument to one of nine historical whistleblowers and is offered as a “non-fungible token” or “NFT” through Artwrld’s website.
National Whistleblower Center collaborated with Artwrld to make this process a success and is excited to share more information about the project with you. Siri Nelson, NWC’s Executive Director spoke with artist Ahmet Öğüt, Artwrld Partner Nato Thompson, and whistleblower Kimberly Young McLear on twitter. You can listen to that conversation and learn about the project this weekend. Amidst the massive FTX Crypto fraud investigation, Artwrld’s project is an example of a positive way these new digital assets can be used. And, a portion of the project’s proceeds will be donated to NWC!
What is an NFT?
For those unfamiliar with the world of “NFTs,” an NFT is a piece of code that establishes a digital asset, in this case an artwork, as a unique object created and owned by specific individuals. This code is written permanently and securely into a global record of digital transactions known as a blockchain. In the case of Monuments of the Disclosed, all NFTs are offered on the Ethereum blockchain and priced in Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency, Ether.
When the collection dropped, visitors to Artwrld’s website can “mint” a random selection of one of the 99 monuments. To mint an NFT from this project, it is necessary first to set up a cryptocurrency wallet like Coinbase or MetaMask. Once your wallet is created, you can mint an artwork directly on Artwrld’s website and see it displayed on platforms like OpenSea, the world’s largest NFT marketplace. This article is not an endorsement of Cryptocurrencies, Coinbase, Metamask, or Nerdwallet — rather it is solely an explainer for anyone interested in participating in the Artwrld project which NWC is honored to support and be a part of.
How does the project work?
In November, Öğüt and Artwrld launched the public art component of Monuments of the Disclosed. Anyone with a smartphone can visit Artwrld’s website and either click a link or take a picture of a QR code in order to access nine different digital monuments as Augmented Reality (AR) experiences. Once activated, the files launch automatically on your smartphone and appear as monuments placed in the world.
In providing AR-ready digital sculptures, Öğüt invites the public to consider what it would be like to live and work in a world that celebrates these truth-tellers. In placing these sculptures in spots known and unknown, he and Artwrld invite participants to ask, why are there no monuments to whistleblowers?
Honoring Whistleblowers:
In recent years, activists have asked the question who gets honored in monumental form. Most commonly, cities are adorned with statues of military generals, philanthropic merchants and well-connected politicians cast in bronze, concrete, marble and stone. Their towering figures offer an exclamation point in the urban body of what and whose history matters. So clearly the question must be, what about those who question power?
Among those honored in Öğüt’s collection are Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, a former senior policy analyst at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who, during the 1990s, called out an American chemical company for exposing South African miners to toxic levels of vanadium; Filipina journalist Marlene Garcia-Esperat, who was murdered for her efforts to expose rampant fraud in the Phillipines’ Department of Agriculture; programmer, activist and entrepreneur, and Phillip Saviano, who worked with The Boston Globe to reveal the systemic, widespread nature of the Catholic church sexual abuse scandal; among others.
As Öğüt puts it, “In a time when the conversation about monument-making and unmaking are in flux, I wanted to create monuments that spoke to courageous acts of resistance rather than standing for powerful institutions. While each of the nine NFTs represents an individual, the work they risked everything for was for the greater good and so these busts stand for more than themselves.”
Support NWC!
National Whistleblower Center is the leading voice on whistleblower rights and the value of celebrating whistleblowers. We celebrated whistleblowers every July 30th on National Whistleblower Appreciation Day and maintain biographical pages for several whistleblowers. In 2023 we hope to increase the number of whistleblower pages by undertaking a $40,000 project to update and add to our whistleblower profiles. Your donations are needed to help NWC continue to honor whistleblowers. Please consider a $20 donation today.
This Sunday Read was written with the support of the generous and thoughtful team at Artwrld. Visit their project here.
