Interview - Cardano NFTs #044: Dyana

Written interviews with NFT projects on the Cardano blockchain
Link to the interview on my Medium

This week’s Cardano NFT project is creating a community centered around the practice of meditation called the Holistic Network Nation: Dyana.

The previous guest was a project minting 1.111 handmade NFTs layering existing art of 100 years or older with modern interpretation of human characteristics.

This initiative is a point of reference for NFTs on Cardano and every week or two we will invite someone to answer some questions and give us an update directly from within the Cardano community.

Hey, glad to have you here. Please introduce your team, where are you from, what are your backgrounds?

We are a Duo of multi disciplinary artists from France. I studied literature and film making, then created art within the mediums of photography, short movies, interactive theatre, and web.

During the past ten years I have also been teaching meditation and Tai chi. These competences have been naturally merging over time in digital meditative art.

Hypathie has a master of art history, she also creates multimedia art, and in addition explores sculpture and physical works.

What is Dyana? How are you utilizing NFT technology and why Cardano?

Dyana is an interactive art form that imagines a new type of organisation, that we call a Holistic Network Nation. We use NFTs to record meditation concepts and digital art into the blockchain. This enables to broadcast the key themes of meditation, and provides an innovative way of practicing it. There is something special and inspiring about holding meditation concepts as NFTs. The NFTs act as keys to access other parts of the experience.

Cardano was the best balance we found between safety, durability and other parameters that make a good blockchain in our view. It is very important for us to publish on a blockchain that we will be working for a very long time. We believe that people entering the space should have affordable transaction fees while having the maximum safety in their usage of the chain.

One of the first things I did when exploring Cardano was to be involved in Project Catalyst, and I was amazed by such an innovative organisation. We later have been funded in order to make a meditation project, and we thought deeply about how to make our approach unique. This is how Dyana was born, it probably wouldn’t have been possible without Cardano and its community. Even if it’s only the beginning of the project, we are very grateful to be at this point already.


Three examples of NFTs from the Dyana project

What are the benefits of meditation? How has this practice improved your life?

Meditation is a great tool to improve mind clarity, focus, and well being. Charles Hoskinson also said that it can be useful to improve the resilience of Cardano.

I would say that for me the greatest thing it gave me is the ability to cultivate happiness regardless of the circumstances, just for the joy of being here and now, in this amazingly rich world. It is really a practice that transforms my state of being, makes me more free and opens my creativity. It enhances my capacity to adopt new skills and behaviours. It makes me a better person and a better father.

At a deeper level, meditation can be a fascinating adventure of self knowledge, as we explore the very nature of consciousness.

In the end I like to always come back to the essential part, which is the joy to be alive, and the capacity to really enjoy the present moment in daily life. I was actually surprised by the level of happiness that one can develop in this process.

What is a network nation, what place art and meditation culture can have in it?

A network nation is a type of institution beyond states, which brings people together around common themes and interests. It is important to understand that in our case we are looking to promote peace and harmony, so this organisation is not positioned against the states, but rather as a complement, in order to offer additional possibilities. We think that blockchains can be used for these kinds of structures, and this intuition has recently been confirmed by academic researchers.

We begin to imagine it as an interactive art form, because it is a vast subject and we want to have the time to develop it with the community. In any type of society, culture is really the glue, so it has a tremendous importance for such a project. Culture is where we create common values, share narratives and objectives. In this context we can see meditation as a specific form of culture that invites to cultivate non-duality, happiness, and kindness. We believe this can have a positive impact on Cardano, but also be a field of democratic experiments that can eventually inspire the nation states.

In Dyana the culture is a fusion of eastern and western philosophies and practices. It is a place to develop enlightenment, new forms of democracy and freedom.


Three more NFTs from the Dyana project

Great contribution. Any final thoughts? Where can people stay in touch?

Thank you for this opportunity to make a written interview! Those who are interested can find all the information and links on the website.

We will be minting our NFT collection in June. It is called Dyana : Awakening Seeds and it will give collectors access to this whole experience. The term awakening here is used for spiritual enlightenment, and also as a symbol for the birth of Dyana. It is the awakening of a whole nation that we imagine together, by asking ourselves which type of world we want to create. In Dyana the philosophy is holistic because we develop the knowledge of our connection with everything. Nothing is out of it. There are no borders, either mentally or physically.

Be welcome to join our Discord, improve your meditation practice with us, and be part of a deeply transformative adventure!

Disclaimer: The opinions and views of the people interviewed are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Cardano Foundation or IOG. Moreover, this content is for educational purposes, it doesn’t constitute financial advice.