An art collector in his 60s or 70s stands in a gallery booth, staring at an image of a mysterious alien figure produced by what appears to be two surveillance cameras in a nearly empty room. Collectors seem confused. collector teeth The decision was based on a snapshot of his face taken by a camera, according to a large LED display next to the painting. He is also interested, amused, and suspicious to varying degrees, and each emotion is scored on a 100-point scale. Overall, the screen and camera look like this: mirror stagean artwork by BottoDAO presented in the Zero 10 category at this year’s Art Basel Hong Kong.
Confused, interested, amused, and questioning seem appropriate adjectives to describe the overall reaction to Zero 10 in 2026. This year, following a high-profile premiere in Miami (in which a billionaire’s face was painted on a robot dog), Art Basel’s section dedicated to exploring the intersection of art and technology has made its Asian debut. “Digital is definitely the format of the moment,” curator Eli Scheinman told Dazed. “In every aspect of our lives, there are increasingly prevalent technologies, algorithms, models, and agents that are reshaping our relationships with ourselves and what it means to have human agency. Art Basel exists to amplify the voices and artistic practices that question those relationships, and to help us, the viewers of the works, address some of those questions.”
Technically speaking, BottoDAO may have been the most innovative artist at Zero 10 this month. Because Botto is not a human artist at all. BottoDAO is actually a complex system, led by a decentralized group of human participants who vote on the direction the work should go. Online artists and collectors associated with Web 3.0 and the infamous NFT boom and bust may have been familiar with the concept’s introduction in 2013. mirror stageBut the work’s appearance at an organized art fair like Art Basel was a significant moment.
Scheinman added that it was important to have “formal diversity” in the exhibition space, with more traditional forms such as sculpture, painting and prints placed alongside interactive installations and code-based works. “Interactivity is fundamental to allowing people who may be confused or unable to fully understand the nuances when they first encounter Zero 10, to be able to engage directly with the work and participate in the process of creating a work of art.”
In some circles, this collision between the IRL and URL art worlds in Hong Kong is being hailed as a success and may be a watershed moment for digital art. However, the reaction was not entirely positive. After all, the relationship between art and technology remains a controversial topic. Apps like the video generation tool Sora, which was shut down by OpenAI the day before ABHK opened to VIP visitors, caused widespread panic in many parts of the art world and other creative industries. Meanwhile, some online artists called the idea that digital art needs to be validated in places like Zero 10 a “setback” for the digital-first movement, which was supposed to decentralize and democratize art.
Scheinman recognizes the potential contradiction at the heart of the Zero 10 sector. “First and foremost, I think discussion is constructive and necessary, and I’m happy to engage in honest commentary and criticism about art fairs and what we do at Zero 10,” he says. “My basic idea is that the opportunity to amplify the voices of artists working in this community, and working with tools that don’t try to sanitize their practice or pander to the art fair context, should be celebrated.” Either way, it seems like a good thing to have these conversations in public, and Art Basel is about as big a stage as any for contemporary art.
Below, we hear from some of the most interesting artists who exhibited their work in the Zero 10 category at this year’s Art Basel Hong Kong, from monumental sculptures to satirical AI-generated videos about the future of human intimacy.
All Seeing Seneca, who grew up in Shanghai and New York, has presented a series of jade-style sculptures in cast glass, playing with ideas of tradition and ancestry through ancient Chinese objects and images (including digital paintings). “I wanted to explore creating objects that occupy the liminal space between historical artifacts and contemporary sculpture,” the artist told Dazed. “These pieces are created using very specialized machinery at Asprey Studio Atelier, so they’re actually nanoglass composites. We’re taking the old and bringing it into the new.”
“I’m a champion of craft, so I believe that even if we focus on new technologies in art, its concept and intent are very important. But I also believe that digital should be championed at the same table. That’s why I put so much soul and time into the digital art space. I believe that we need to use all the tools at our disposal to create something more elaborate and beautiful.”
Jonas Lund introduced digital devices that rot if they are not touched regularly by collectors (series Network maintenance) similarly future of growthis a comedic AI-generated video that explores a hyper-optimized future of intimacy, politics, and family relationships. “This is a short story that takes the idea of maximizing growth to an extreme level and takes the neoliberal idea of measuring everything in numbers, numbers, numbers,” he explained. “If we take this to its extreme, logical final destination, [get] It’s the most salacious situation, but with an interesting twist. ”
future of growth It is the fourth movie in the series. “They are all produced using the best open source [generative AI] technology at the time. So they become like a time capsule of where we are. ” About Zero 10, he adds: “The art world is a monster. It’s a huge conspiracy, but it’s also lovely. I have to say that the atmosphere at Zero 10 is completely different from any art fair I’ve ever been to, because there are artists around. There’s a non-competitive, relaxed atmosphere. It’s more of a symbiotic encounter between two different communities.”
Tokyo-based artist Emi Kusano trained in street photography before branching out into AI-generated work. At Zero 10, she presented a series of prints and sculptures based on her childhood memories and experiences, but also “reflecting a critical perspective on contemporary technological society and surveillance capitalism.”
“As an artist, I collaborate with AI to build visuals,” she says. “But for me, it’s never just about automatically generating images. I combine fragments of my face, body, and memories with AI processes, through which I try to create a strange but very delicate balance between the personal and the synthetic, the emotional and the technical. For me, what’s most important is not whether the technology is new or not. What’s most important is to transform something urgent and deeply personal into a work.”
“Presenting my work at Art Basel Hong Kong was a huge milestone for me,” she added. “Right now, the community of people who collect works on blockchain, especially NFTs, is still concentrated in North America and Europe. So, as a Japanese female artist working in the context of a very local and niche Japanese subculture, I was very proud to be on that stage. I also felt that times are changing. People now understand that many things that were once dismissed or rejected later become part of art history.”
Presented by Hong Kong-born artist (Oscar-winning art director) Tim Yip Lilythe 4.5-metre-tall sculpture depicts a human-like figure from a dystopian future where the inhabitants have been reshaped by an artificial environment. “‘Lili’ is a long-term project of mine that questions human identity, both spiritual and physical, Eastern and Western, in time and space,” said the artist. “It combines AI with traditional sculpture and photographic content.”It was very well received by the participants. “Joining Asprey Studio for Zero 10 at Art Basel this year gave us the opportunity to face a new era of technology,” he added.
mirror stage This took the form of a feedback loop between the screen-based image, the audience sensing system, and a virtual conversation between the AI agent based on the audience image and fed back into the image creation process. “The bots are managed and operated by a human community. Anyone can join the community. But the goal is that as the technology evolves and gains more capabilities, the AI becomes increasingly autonomous. Initially, it only created static images. Now, at Art Basel, we have this interactive installation with 20 pieces created over five days” in real time. ”
In the conversational part of the installation, he added: “Whoever is added to that pool of people will receive a share of the profits, if any.” How does that share actually reach the humans who can be captured and turned into AI agents? “Once recognized, it will print a receipt with your face on it. So you better stay in the booth and pick up this receipt. This involved blockchain, so there might be a bit of a learning curve for some people.” It remains to be seen how many people actually bothered to go through this process.
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