Sigg Foundation, TAEX and Tezos Combine to Exhibit NFTs at Basel Digital Art Mile

The Sigg Art Foundation, Digital Art Mile, TAEX and Tezos are in Basel this year to present nfts in an effort to highlight the growing role of digital art in the global art ecosystem.

Digital Art Mile, an innovative digital art market held in conjunction with one of the world's oldest and most prestigious art fairs, Art Basel, held its first edition this year, marking the official launch party for artists, collectors and nft-minded curators in the exclusive Swiss Enclave.

The event transformed Rebgasse, just a stone's throw from Basel's Messeplatz, into a vibrant showcase of historic and contemporary digital art. It included several internationally renowned galleries, nft platforms, and artists, all of whom were invited to come together to present their collections at various exhibition venues, creating a dynamic intersection of traditional and digital art forms throughout the week.

The first Digital Art Mile, which took place from June 10 to 16, featured several well-known exhibitors such as Objkt, fx(hash), Fellowship, MakersPlace, Cinello, RCM Galerie, ArtXCode, Office Impart, TAEX, Danae, Sigg. Art Foundation, GENAP Collection and Blackdove.

At the stand of the Sigg Art Foundationwhich in turn was founded in 2020 by art collector Pierre Sigg, organized an exhibition with pioneering digital artists Grégory Chatonsky, Justin Aversano, Ben Elliot and Bernar Venet.

Venet's work was presented in conjunction with Sotheby's: EVENT, showcasing a collection of 500 algorithmic artworks, a key theme that encompassed many of the other digital offerings on display.

Chatonsky, a pioneer in incorporating ai into contemporary art, presented a new version of his installation, “Terre Seconde.” Initially exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo in 2019, this installation is generated from millions of data points (images, texts and sounds) obtained from the Internet and offers a dynamic modular structure that reimagines our planet in a familiar yet distinctive way. only.

Complementing Chatonsky's ai-driven approach, American artist Justin Aversano, fresh off a world tour that saw him scour the globe in search of human stories, brought to Basel some of his most unique works, including photographs of twins he collected Worldwide. .

To further enrich the foundation's exhibition, Elliot showed a work called “Metaone”, an ambitious virtual reality project produced by VIVE Arts with the support of the Esther Schipper Gallery in Berlin. “Metaone” delves into a futuristic virtual paradise where history, nature, technology and science merge, offering a visionary perspective on the evolution of creative spaces.

Meanwhile, the Tezos Foundationtech-396e133b6be0″ target=”_blank” rel=””> introduced two main platforms in its ecosystem: Objkt and fx(hash), which explore physical representations of digital art by fostering dialogue and experiencing journeys through revolutionary curation in the generative art space.

The Swiss platform Objkt also hosted the “Matter & Data” exhibition, which features works by 17 international artists. Additionally, Objkt has showcased its collaboration with Analivia Cordeiro, a Brazilian inventor of cybernetic choreography, to present an interactive exhibit where visitors can transform their movement patterns into generative nfts on the Tezos blockchain.

Regina, Silveira, Auriea Harvey, ThankYouX, Oona, Leander Herzog, Zancan and Qubibi are among the other artists represented at the booth, which was supported by Tezos' new head of art at its Trilitech division, Aleksandra Artamonovskaja.

fx(hash), a generative art platform, selects code-based artworks that demonstrate cultural and technological links between digital and physical formats and proposes rethinking them in light of historical and contemporary urgencies. In collaboration with OFFICE IMPART, the platform presented 'Bit Operations', a visual examination of computer fundamentals through bit shifting operations, by Swedish artist Jonas Lund. Lund's project included a long-form generative collection that collectors can access online via fx(hash), as well as select limited-edition tangible works combined with generative production shown during the fair.

Also among the exhibitors, the digital art platform and agency TAEX, featured a captivating digital zen landscape from Krista Kim's Continuum project. Created in response to the distractions of technology, Kim's work transforms digital screens into spaces of mindfulness and contemplation.

The collection, consisting of 10 unique nfts derived from all of Continuum's artwork, invites collectors to interact with meditative images that subtly evolve over time. These pieces reflect Kim's inspiration from the serene garden of Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto, aiming to reconnect viewers with tranquility through digital interfaces.

Meanwhile, the Fellowship took on what was perhaps the most ambitious work on the Digital Art Mile, a nearly 3,000-square-foot event space, to provide a pioneering study of the growth of ai in recent art history. The exhibition “Collaborations with the artificial self.” pays tribute to Harold Cohen, the original father of artificial intelligence in art, and includes the only self-portrait ever created by Aaron's painting machine.

Early work inspired in 2015 on the AlignDraw algorithm by Elman Mansinov, the creator of text-to-image ai, was the precursor to DALL-E and Stable Diffusion.

Works by other artists, including Botto, Mario Klingemann, Helena Sarin and Robbie Barrat, demonstrate how quickly this celebrated technology has revolutionized the digital art environment in the last decade. While TAEX also organized a conference where speakers such as Refik Anadol and Sasha Stiles gave presentations of their work.

In addition to the exhibitions at Rebgasse 25 and 31, the Kult.Kino chamber also organized a variety of conferences daily during the art fair, which covered topics such as generative art, blockchain as an artistic medium and the incorporation of Web3 in the museums. , gave rise to contemplative debates about the role of digital art within the canon of art history.

The European debut of the documentary “What the Punk!” It was one of the highlights of the week, which took place within a program of lectures organized by Yuga Labs and Rug Radio, while to round out the digitally focused events was a video exploring the extraordinary story of Matt Hall and John Watkinson, two Canadian software engineers who revolutionized the industry. world with Cryptopunks and sparked a new cultural movement.