More than just a JPEG? Digital Art Fair Hong Kong explores NFTs for data streaming and display

The NFT market exploded onto the crypto scene in 2021 with $18.5 billion in total sales that year, with pixelated art like Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks dominating the market at what were at times astronomical prices for the blockchain-based creations.

Hong Kong’s Xperience Digital Art Fair, which opened on October 20 and runs through December 6 at the Asia Standard Tower, aims to show that there is more to NFTs than just files and pixels. The fair showcases NFTs that use virtual reality and artificial intelligence, as well as tokens that stream real-time data from the physical world to the digital one.

In digital artist Victor Wong’s piece Stand by youHong Kong’s landmark Lion Rock is depicted with weather, cloud cover, tides and sun and moon positions reflecting real-time data from the Hong Kong Weather Observatory.

“The most important thing about art is to connect with the audience, I think, how can I express my thoughts and synchronize with them?” Wong said. “We can use technology to create works of art that have a lot of depth, and that can be constantly changing.”

Another animated artwork by Spanish artist Daniel Canogar is programmed to display and reinterpret real-time financial information from major stock indexes, such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq, as well as data from cryptocurrency and foreign exchange markets.

One of the show’s centerpieces, artist “Jacky Tsai’s 10 years,” is an immersive art space to be sold as an NFT. It uses a projection to display kinetic art by London-based Chinese artist Jacky Tsai, who was named the exhibition’s Digital Artist of the Year.

Tsai also used real-time data in her NFT, Athena and Buddha, which appears as a 3D hologram at the fair. The holographic image alternates between representations of the Greek goddess Athena and the Buddhist goddess Guanyin depending on the real-time exchange rate of the Hong Kong dollar against the euro.

Other notable artists include veterans such as Damien Hirst, who recently set fire to 1,000 artworks he had also embossed as digital art NFT, and Beeple, who sold his first NFT, The first 5000 daysfor $69 million in 2021.

While 2021 was a record year for NFT sales, Digital Art Fair founder and global fair director Gillian Howard said she was hard-pressed to find ten well-known artists working on Web3 projects for this year’s event. Now they have 30 galleries, with 70 artists as part of exhibitions, after receiving 200 applications from galleries, NFT project teams and artists, she said.

“Not only do we have more traditional artists moving into NFTs, we also have galleries and new projects supporting and developing artists who want to start in the space,” Howard said.

NFT sales fell for the fifth consecutive month in September to the lowest level since July 2021, according to NFT aggregation website CryptoSlam. However, Howard hopes that the marriage of contemporary art and NFTs will transcend the wider market.

“A non-fungible token is just a certificate, a way to show that you own something, but the digital art itself should be so much more than that,” she said. “At the digital fair, we want to show and educate people that when you buy an NFT, there should be ways to display it and enjoy it, and that the quality of the art actually matters.”

Furthermore, the use of Web3 technologies in art can help innovate a market that has remained far too traditional, Howard added. “Unlike a 2D painting, digital art can give creators the opportunity to combine aspects such as music, performance art and technology.”

Art patrons can access the digital work displayed at the fair via the recently launched DAFAx.io, a Web 3.0 digital art exchange platform. Last year, the 2021 Digital Art Fair reported a total of USD 8.9 million in NFT and digital art sales.

Auctioneer Sotheby’s, which has its own NFT marketplace, is also hosting an Xperience Digital Art Auction online until October 27, with exclusive access to some of the works.

Other art auctioneers are jumping in, with Christie’s opening its first NFT marketplace in late September. Contemporary art galleries such as de Sarthe, Opera and Unit London all appear in the space.