Hi Zcash community,
I’m Ania Shestakova/4ni4, an independent researcher and sound artist working at the intersection of ZK privacy, biometric sovereignty, and agentic networks. I’m applying for a $1,000 travel & participation stipend to attend Devcon 8 Mumbai (Nov 4–5).
What I’m doing at Devcon 8:
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Curating and running operations for the Music Hub (setup, ops, programming).
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Performing DIFFUSION Opera — a 5-act autoethnographic sound work exploring ZK privacy and biometric sovereignty in the age of surveillance. The piece draws on Berger, Deleuze, Russolo, and Attali, and frames zero-knowledge cryptography and cypherpunk ethos as a form of acoustic and biometric resistance, continuing the lineage explored in my Devcon talk The Emancipation of Noise: From Aesthetic Subversion to Data Defense.
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Speaking on the privacy/social track at the Agentic Hub and contributing to the Creative Hub.
Why this matters for Zcash:
DIFFUSION Opera translates ZK privacy narratives into a format that reaches audiences beyond the technical community — artists, curators, cultural researchers.
The Music Hub is one of the few spaces at Devcon where privacy is explored not only as a protocol feature but as a cultural and embodied practice. I’m the only performer explicitly framing ZK privacy through sound at this year’s event.
What I’m requesting:
$1,000 total — $500 for round-trip flights to Mumbai, $500 for 5–6 days of on-the-ground living costs. This is logistics support only, not a performance fee. I’m covering the rest personally.
Background:
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Recall Labs founding team
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Indie DevEdu
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Artist in the Ludwig Collection (shown alongside Andy Warhol, MUMOK Vienna 2022 Collaborations | mumok )
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Currently developing a book and research project on biometric sovereignty and ZK privacy (in discussion with a publisher)
Links:
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DIFFUSION Opera + bio + CV: [Google Drive link]
Act I on SoundCloud -
Devcon steward confirmation for Music Hub role: available on request
Update (Oct 13):
Quick update for the Zcash Community Grants committee regarding the Music Hub setup & deliverables for Devcon 8:
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Schedule Confirmed: The program for the Music Hub is now live. DIFFUSION Opera is scheduled for Nov 3 at 11:25 AM — placed specifically during the morning acoustic hours to ensure optimal sound dynamics, vocal delay clarity, and frequency balance for the ZK-privacy sound piece.
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Explicit Zcash Focus: Beyond the live performance, I will be documenting the experience and publishing a post-event essay on Substack exploring ZK-privacy narratives, acoustic sovereignty, and the cypherpunk ethos, explicitly crediting Zcash Community Grants support.
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Audio Deliverables: A live recording/remastered version of the DIFFUSION Opera performance from Mumbai will be shared directly with the Zcash community post-event.
Looking forward to the committee’s feedback!
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