On collecting digital and new media art
By Nadya Wang

Art Dubai will return for its 16th edition at Madinat Jumeirah from 3 to 5 March 2023. Over 100 galleries from 43 countries will present works in four sections: Contemporary, Modern, Bawwaba and Digital. In this conversation, we check in with Clara Peh, Art Dubai Digital 2023 Curator, who talks about how her practice thus far informs her curation of the section, which returns for its sophomore iteration this year, bridging digital and physical elements in art, and finding ways to familiarise collectors with digital and new media art.

What led you to become the curator of Art Dubai Digital? What were the circumstances leading to the appointment, and what were your motivations for saying yes?

When the team first approached me, they were looking for someone well-versed in both media art history as well as blockchain-based art ecosystems, and would be able to act as a bridge in bringing these worlds together. My curatorial practice happens to focus exactly on these intersections, especially across Asia and the Asian diaspora. I was also fortunate to have been a part of Art Dubai 2022 for the inaugural Digital section, which Chris Fussner curated, and spoke about my experiences in Web 3.0 at the Global Art Forum 15, so there was already a lot of resonances and connections in what the fair was looking for and what I have been doing.

Art Dubai was one of the very first fairs to initiate a dedicated Digital section, demonstrating its commitment to supporting the growth of digital and new media art. Beyond that, I admired the fact that the fair’s directors were open to working with digital-native platforms, artist collectives, and Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) as well as other new formations of working with artists and presenting works. This forward-thinking openness makes it possible for the section to act as a current reflection of how our cultural landscape is shifting, not just in the works but also in who the players are and what the infrastructure can look like. I resonated with this vision, and wanted to contribute towards the building of this section.

Were there artists you were already familiar with and had in mind for Art Dubai Digital from the outset? And what were new discoveries in the process?

There were indeed artists whose work I thought would be great to have at the fair and galleries and exhibitors I reached out to, with the hope of having them in this edition. But there were also many discoveries along the way. It was especially interesting for me to learn about how Dubai, and the UAE in general, have a very strong regional ecosystem around blockchain and crypto art, and to learn about the local artists and exhibitors and how we can bring them in conversation and collaboration with the different international artists.

Ben Mulyo Wicaksono, ‘Srikandi, 2022’, NFT, 4000 x 4000px. Image courtesy of the artist and The Upside Space

How did you make your selection for Art Dubai Digital? What were the criteria you used to arrive at this final curation?

The team and I were thinking about how we can build on top of the inaugural edition, and present a reflection of how the digital and new media art world is expanding. I wanted to work with the brick-and-mortar galleries that have strong media art programmes, as well as artist collectives and digital-native platforms or entities that are discovering and supporting more emerging artists coming into the space.

We were thinking about the content and intent of the artworks as much as we were also keeping in mind how the work would be shown. While digital art has been around since the 1950s and 60s with computer art, collecting digital and new media art is still much less common than it is to have a painting or sculpture installed in a collector’s home. With the section, we want to broaden the collector’s perspective to familiarise the public with how digital art can be collected, installed, and conserved over time, to also deepen the relationship that you can have with digital art in your own home or daily life, and to look at this area of artworks in a more intimate light.

“With the section, we want to broaden the collector’s perspective to familiarise the public with how digital art can be collected, installed, and conserved over time, to also deepen the relationship that you can have with digital art in your own home or daily life, and to look at this area of artworks in a more intimate light. ”

How does your work, until recently as Art Lead of Appetite, and also as founder of NFT Asia and an independent curator working in Southeast Asia colour the way you curate, including how you have curated Art Dubai Digital?

Having worked across these different ecosystems and environments, I am familiar with the translation and bridging work that is necessary to help make digital and new media art as well as NFTs and blockchain more accessible to a mass audience. This is something that I felt was important to keep in mind throughout the curation process, because we want the section to be exciting and cutting-edge but we also want to make sure it is presented in a way that is still welcoming and accessible to a general audience. Having participated in Art Dubai last year, I also had the opportunity to talk to visitors who had come through the fair and get a sense of what they were interested in and looking for.

My different roles and experiences have also helped me to become more flexible and quick to adapt to changes, which is important, as the markets surrounding NFTs experienced major ups and downs this past year. With new technology emerging rapidly, you also need to be able to keep a pulse on how that is shifting the conversation around digital art and think about how we may or may not want to give space to those shifts.

Austin Lee, ‘Mirror’, 2022. Image courtesy of the artist.

Quayola, Effets de Soir #H_011_T2, 2021, Courtesy the artist and AKTHR x Aorist.jpeg — Quayola, ‘Effets de Soir #H_011_T2’, 2021, Image courtesy the artist and AKTHR x Aorist.

Could you talk about how the works interact with each other? Is there a conversation that goes on among them, and/or is there an overarching narrative that you are writing with this curated section?

There are a few main threads that connect the different artists and exhibitors together throughout the section. A big topic of exploration is the relationship between digital and physical, such as in the paintings of Austin Lee (whose work will be presented by Lian Foundation), as his airbrushed paintings combine digital technologies with painting and sculpture, or in Andreas Reisinger’s (AKTHR x AORIST) ‘Take Over: Dubai’ series, which will see his digital, fantastical creations in dialogue with actual landmarks in the city. This also extends into how artists are approaching the mergence or divergence of the physical versus virtual realities, whether it is through the use of AR/VR experiences or in developing new works that imagine us really moving into and living in the metaverse. I think this is also an exciting thread that connects this section with the other parts of the fair.

Another important narrative we wanted to zoom in on is how artists are reinterpreting pasts and histories and developing speculative futures through digital mediums. Artists such as Ahmed El Shaer (Wizara), Orkhan Mammadov (Art in Space), Brendan Dawes (Gazelli), and Linda Dounia Rebeiz (Afrofuturism) are thinking about how they can relook at visual languages and cultural practices of their heritage and breathe new life onto them in their work. Simultaneously, artists like Krista Kim (Unit) and Soliman Lopez are building out these visions and imaginations of a future that is much different than ours, but in a way, holds up a mirror to our present times and prompts us to reconsider our current relationships with technology.

Brendan Dawes, 'Persian Dreams - Dynasties', 2023, video file, NFT, 1 min. Image courtesy of Gazelli Art House.

If appropriate, is there any limitation to the section, such as something that you wanted to include but could/did not?

There are definitely limitations to navigate around when curating for an art fair. It is important to keep in mind that art fairs work with galleries and exhibitors. It can be a significant cost for exhibitors to take part, which naturally rules out the possibilities of working with more experimental and independent spaces, especially when there are already so few gallery programmes dedicated to digital and new media. That said, I am glad we were still able to bring in a few collectives and young programmes and illuminate how they are contributing to the ecosystem.

Could you talk about one or two particularly exciting presentations that you are most looking forward to having visitors experience?

I am excited to experience Soliman Lopez’s ‘Olea’, a multi-room immersive installation that the artist is presenting alongside his collaborators. The project creates a new type of olive oil which has been infused with the DNA of a smart contract stored on the blockchain, bringing together ideas of biotechnology and techno-political structures. The presentations consist of audio-visual works, physical installations, and even a robotic arm, so I believe it will be a thought-provoking work for visitors to experience.

What do you wish for visitors to take away from the presentation, in the context of the fuller Art Dubai?

I believe Art Dubai Digital will provide a look into some of the most exciting artists who are working with technology right now, serve as an invitation to the wider public to develop a stronger relationship with digital and new media art, and prompt further conversations around the future of art and technology as we look ahead.

How do you think the experience of visiting Art Dubai Digital will differentiate from the rest of Art Dubai, but also contribute to the overall experience?

In the context of the wider Art Dubai, I hope the visitors will find that many of the themes and questions that are being raised by artists across the different sections are also resonant in that of the works shown in the Digital section, and that just because these artists are working with technology and new media, does not mean their works can only be viewed in a bubble.

The interview has been edited.

As a part of our Art Dubai 2023 preview, click here to read our conversation with Vipash Purichanont, curator of Art Dubai Bawwaba 2023.

The 16th edition of Art Dubai will run from 3 to 5 March 2023 at Madinat Jumeirah. Read more about the fair here. A&M is proud to be an official media partner of Art Dubai 2023. Subscribe to our e-newsletter here by 11.59pm (GMT+8) on 26 February 2023 to receive a discount code for tickets to the fair in the next issue we send out.

A&M Editor Nadya Wang will also be moderating the talk “Collecting in a Shifting Global Cultural Map” with Teo Yang and Charif Ben Romdane on 3 March 2023. More information here.