{"id":375932,"date":"2026-04-01T05:43:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T05:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/375932\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T05:43:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T05:43:13","slug":"5-of-the-most-boundary-pushing-artists-at-art-basel-hong-kong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/375932\/","title":{"rendered":"5 of the most boundary-pushing artists at Art Basel Hong Kong"},"content":{"rendered":"

An art collector in his 60s or 70s stands in a gallery booth, staring at a machine-generated image of a mysterious, alien figure in an almost-empty room, flanked by what appear to be two security cameras. The collector looks confused. The collector is confused, according to\u00a0a large, LED display beside the painting, which it decides based on a snapshot of his face captured by the cameras. He\u2019s also interested, amused, and doubtful to varying degrees, with each emotion scored out of 100. Altogether, the screens and cameras form Mirror Stages, an artwork by BottoDAO, presented in the Zero 10 sector at this year\u2019s Art Basel Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

Confused, interested, amused, and doubtful seem like appropriate adjectives to describe the response to Zero 10 as a whole in 2026. This year, the sector of Art Basel dedicated to exploring the intersection of art and technology\u00a0made its Asia debut, following a much-talked-about premiere in Miami (the one with the billionaire\u2019s faces on robot dogs). \u201cDigital is unambiguously the format of the moment,\u201d curator Eli Scheinman told Dazed. \u201cIn all of our lives, there\u2019s an increasing ubiquity of technologies \u2013 algorithms, models, agents \u2013 that reconstruct our relationship with ourselves and what it means to have human agency. Art Basel exists to amplify voices and artistic practices that interrogate those relationships and help us, as viewers of their artworks, resolve some of those questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Technically, BottoDAO might have been the most innovative artist to exhibit at this month\u2019s Zero 10, because Botto isn\u2019t a human artist at all \u2013\u00a0it\u2019s actually a complex system, led by a decentralised group of human participants, who vote on the direction its artworks should take. Online artists and collectors associated with Web 3.0, and the infamous NFT boom and bust, might have been more familiar with this concept going into Mirror Stages, but its arrival at an institutional art fair like Art Basel was a significant moment. <\/p>\n

Scheinman adds that it was important to have a \u201cdiversity of formats\u201d in the exhibition space, with more traditional forms like sculpture, painting, or prints sitting alongside the interactive installations and code-based work. \u201cInteractivity is fundamental to helping some of those who initially encounter Zero 10 with confusion, or not fully appreciating the nuances, to engage directly with the artworks and participate in the art-making process.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some circles, this collision between the IRL and URL art worlds in Hong Kong was hailed as a success \u2013\u00a0maybe even a watershed moment for digital art. But the reaction wasn\u2019t entirely positive. After all, the relationship between art and technology is still a contentious topic. Apps like Sora, the video generation tool shut down<\/a> by OpenAI just a day before ABHK opened to its VIP visitors, have caused widespread panic across many parts of the art world and other creative industries. On the other hand, some online artists called the idea that digital art needs to be validated in places like Zero 10 a \u201cstep backward<\/a>\u201d for the digital-first movement that was supposed to decentralise and democratise art.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Scheinman is aware of the potential contradictions at the heart of the Zero 10 sector. \u201cFirst and foremost, I think that debate is constructive and necessary, and I\u2019m happy to participate in sincere commentary and criticism of the art fair, and what we\u2019re doing at Zero 10,\u201d he says. \u201cMy view, fundamentally, is that opportunities to amplify the voices of the artists operating in this community, and with these tools, that do not try to sanitize their practices and pander to the art fair context, should be celebrated.\u201d In any case, it seems like a good idea to be having these conversations in public, and Art Basel is about as big a stage as you can get in contemporary art.<\/p>\n

Below, we hear from some of the most interesting artists who showed work in the Zero 10 sector at this year\u2019s Art Basel Hong Kong, from monumental sculptures to satirical, AI-generated videos on the future of human intimacy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Pin<\/a>\"AllAll Seeing Seneca, After Jade, The Rabbit Sovereign (2026) at Asprey Studio at Art Basel Hong KongCourtesy of the artist, Asprey Studio<\/p>\n

Growing up in Shanghai and New York, All Seeing Seneca presented a series of jade-style sculptures in cast glass, playing with ideas of tradition and ancestry via ancient Chinese objects and imagery (also including digital paintings). \u201cI wanted to explore creating objects that occupy the liminal space between historical artefacts and contemporary sculpture,\u201d the artist told Dazed. \u201cThe pieces are created using a very special machine at Asprey Studio Atelier, so they\u2019re actually a nano glass composite. It\u2019s taking the old and bringing it into the new.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very much a champion of craft, so even though we\u2019re focusing on new technology for art, I still believe that concept and intention is incredibly important. But I do believe that the digital is meant to be championed at the same table, and that\u2019s why I put so much of my soul and time into the digital art space. To create more elaborate and beautiful things, I believe we should use every tool at our disposal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jonas Lund showcased digital devices that decay if collectors don\u2019t regularly interact with them ( a series titled Network Maintenance) as well as The Future of Growth, a comedic, AI-generated video that explores the hyper-optimised future of intimacy, politics, and family relationships. \u201cIt\u2019s short stories, taking the idea of growth maximizing to extreme levels, this neoliberal idea of measuring everything, numbers, numbers, numbers,\u201d he explained. \u201cYou take this to the extreme, logical end destination, and [get] the most obscene situations, but with a funny twist.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Future of Growth is the fourth in a series of films. \u201cThey\u2019re all generated using the best open-source [generative AI] technology available at the time. So they become like time capsules of where we\u2019re at.\u201d About Zero 10, he adds: \u201cThe art world is like a monster. It\u2019s a gigantic conspiracy. But it\u2019s also lovely. I have to say, the vibe of Zero 10 is very unlike any art fair I\u2019ve been to, because the artists are around. There\u2019s a relaxed, non-competitive vibe. It\u2019s much more of a symbiotic meeting between two different communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tokyo-based artist Emi Kusano was trained in street photography, before branching off into AI-generated works. At Zero 10 she presented a series of prints and a sculpture based on her childhood memories and experiences, which also \u201creflect a critical perspective on contemporary technological society and surveillance capitalism\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an artist, I work in collaboration with AI to construct the visuals,\u201d she says. \u201cBut for me, it is never about simply generating images automatically. I combine fragments of my own face, body, and memory with AI processes, and through that, I try to create a strange but very delicate balance between the personal and the synthetic, the emotional and the technological. For me, the most important thing is not whether the technology is new. What matters most is translating something urgent and deeply personal into an artwork.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPresenting my work at Art Basel Hong Kong was a major milestone for me,\u201d she adds. \u201cEven now, the community of people who collect works on the blockchain, especially NFTs, is still heavily centered in North America and Europe. So as a Japanese woman artist, working from a very local and niche Japanese subcultural context, I felt very proud to stand on that stage. It also made me feel that the times are changing. People now understand that many things once dismissed or rejected later become part of art history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Pin<\/a>\"TimTim Yip, Lili (2009) at Asprey Studio at Art Basel Hong KongAsprey Studio<\/p>\n

The Hong Kong-born artist (and Oscar-winning art director) Tim Yip presented Lili, a 4.5-metre-high sculpture depicting a human-like figure from a dystopian future where the inhabitants have been reshaped by their artificial environments. \u201cLili is a long-term project of mine that questions human identity in situations within time and space \u2013 spiritually and physically, Eastern and Western,\u201d the artist said. \u201cIt combines AI with traditional sculpture and photographic content.\u201d It also proved very popular with attendees. \u201cTo join Asprey Studio for Zero 10 at Art Basel this year created an opportunity to face a new age of technology,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

Mirror Stages took the form of a feedback loop, between screen-based images, an audience-sensing system, and a virtual conversation between AI agents based on the audience images, which fed back into the process of image-creation. One of the project\u2019s creators (or its \u201cfather\u201d as he likes to be called) spoke to Dazed, saying: \u201cBotto is governed and steered by a community of humans. Anybody can join the community. But the goal is that the AI gets more and more autonomous, as technology evolves and it gains more capabilities. Initially, it only created still images. Now, at Art Basel, it has this interactive installation where, over the course of five days, it creates 20 works in real time.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the conversation portion of the installation, he adds: \u201cEverybody who was added to that pool of people will, if it makes a profit, get a share of that profit.\u201d How does that share actually reach the humans it captures and turns into AI agents? \u201cOnce you\u2019ve been recognised, there\u2019s a receipt printed out that has your face on it. So you\u2019d better stay at the booth, and get this receipt. It involved the blockchain, so for some people it might be a little bit of a learning curve.\u201d How many people actually bothered to go through this process remains to be seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An art collector in his 60s or 70s stands in a gallery booth, staring at a machine-generated image…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[2273,307,304,305,306,10985,10984,10986,10987,10988,10989,10990,308,93,1424,1043,10982,10983,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-375932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-art","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-dazed","tag-dazed-confused","tag-dazed-confused-magazine","tag-dazed-and-confused","tag-dazed-and-confused-magazine","tag-dazedconfused","tag-dazeddigital","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-fashion","tag-film","tag-ideas","tag-ideas-sharing-network","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}