0xCollection: an Art Institution for the Digital Age
By Elle AnastasiouMulti-hyphenate Elle Anastasiou serves as the Director of the 0xCollection, a new institution dedicated to bridging the worlds of fine art and contemporary technology. Based in Basel, 0x was launched this year to develop digital art from the present with an eye towards the future, with two major inaugural exhibitions in Prague.
0x began with the decision that establishing an art historically grounded initiative dedicated to our increasingly digital age was not an option, but a necessity. It is not an understatement to acknowledge that in every era, the art world has lagged significantly behind the rapidity of innovation. This is not a criticism, but rather, a simple fact highlighting art’s need for considered reflection and the corresponding time required to facilitate it. My role in directing the 0xCollection emphasises engagement with our present context through a critical lens, both in historiological terms and technically innovative aspects.
In contrast to the few other private and public collections focusing on digital art, my aim has been to steer the 0xCollection towards presenting a dynamic programme highlighting the larger context of digital art. In just our first year, we have worked on consolidating the collection’s identity through a major commission process and presentation of a group exhibition taking the same curatorial theme. Collaborating with Refik Anadol to produce Dvořák Dreams allowed us to reinforce our original collecting impetus – integrating past and future methods of artistic expression – and moreover, to honour how digital art as a realm has developed. From my perspective and that of 0x, the purpose of new media in the current age is to reflect on cultural heritage through new mechanisms, which is precisely why the 0xCollection was established to nurture future artistic legacies.
Through my direction, 0x transitioned beyond another new private collection to a longer-term project with a novel ‘decentralised’ approach. Under the collection’s direction, established curators across different disciplines, institutions and backgrounds will be able to develop exhibitions tailored to their academic specialities, thereby becoming a part of the 0x institution on an ongoing basis. This collation of expertise is central to our strategy and has shaped the planning for exhibitions going forward. Having individual curators join 0x year on year enables us to focus on cultural moments as they continue to unfold. This also permits for expansion through networks of artists and movements which are not grounded in a single private individual. It is my sincere hope and critical aim that this original curatorial methodology can create exhibitions which resonate with people from all backgrounds – providing access and education to any audience. In so doing, we are building an archive which documents and honours digital art through a diverse set of contemporary perspectives.
It was this vision which led me to launch the collection’s public display with Synthesthetic Immersion, a group exhibition featuring 11 works from 8 international artists working at the forefront of digital experimentation. With over a year in the making, the show worked to highlight the translation of various art forms – from literature to sculpture – into various new media formats over the decades. My insistence on an artist-forward approach has been central to 0x’s direction since its beginning, with my overarching goal being the provision of institutional support and historical context for all artists involved, helping them establish themselves in the conventional art market regardless of their institutional positioning.
I came from a traditional art background – from Chinese ceramics and antiquities, through various strains of theory, by way of my parents and then academia. With this traditional foundation and a cross-continental upbringing, I have always looked for ways in which people of my generation – my contemporaneity, let’s say – can find ways to understand art as a reflection of our own age, while understanding of the past and demanding relevance for the future. The 0xCollection was designed to reflect that ideology – and that’s truly why I’ve been able to direct our vision, on both personal and professional levels.
Yet 0x is not solely concerned with precedents, or with what has come before it. Whether through acquisitions or exhibitions, we are already looking ahead to the future of art from both production and curation perspectives. I wish to be straightforward on this point – the manner in which art is produced is facing a complete transformation, through developments in AI, machine learning and related technological tools. Art is now able to be developed using different creative processes than those of the decade, the year, the month before us. Once, we could have said that seismic shifts occurred due to the invention of the camera – as always, the past is not so long ago. But today, we are investigating something quite different, and I find it critical that we abandon technocratic optimism and fear-adjacent pessimism. Instead, we must look onwards, into the necessary for the now.
Indeed, this was the core message I conveyed at the vernissage of Dvořák Dreams, the latest data sculpture in Refik Anadol’s Machine Hallucinations series. Using the narrative of the legendary Czech composer’s life, through 0x’s guidance, the Turkish-American artist produced our first commissioned artwork to reflect its core values of historical preservation and cutting-edge creativity. Presented on the occasion of the Dvořák Prague International Music Festival, both Dvořák Dreams and the Synesthetic Immersion exhibition are now set to go on an international tour in the coming few years.
It is this balance of radicality in approach and ambition for quality that I have upheld as tenets of the 0x approach since my appointment as Director – sentiments which are rather rare to find in the traditional art world, but which I feel are critical to the relevance and futurity of art itself. There are few collectors I’ve encountered who would be so willing to intellectually delve into new media, when the art world still finds it nascent. But 0x began with a uniquely specific focus on curation and investment in the future of contemporary art – and we are fully committed to that vision.
The 0xCollection finds its purpose in the exhibition and acquisition of pieces which highlight the interdisciplinary network of artists and technologists central to the new media movement. 0x was devised to investigate the inevitable entanglement of art history and technical innovation. And as an institution in this space, it is our aim to present artworks alongside the individuals and ideologies which created them, fostering discourse which can extend beyond just a collection. I’m not interested in only curating results, but (I believe more importantly) in curating the process.
Feature image: Lu Yang, DOKU: Hello World, 2021. Still from video courtesy of the artist