2023 Web3 Year in Review

As the landscape of digital art continues to rapidly transform, we’d like to take a moment to reflect on the diversity of practices and artistic voices that have found a place within our programming over the past year.

From generative art to text-to-image AI, interactive works and live minting experiences, this year the gallery embraced an enormous variety of mediums, continuing to delve deeper into a genre that defies easy classification. After more than seventeen presentations, spanning both physical and virtual spaces, we remain dedicated to identifying and supporting artists who work with technology in intriguing, unconventional and generation-defining ways.

Through our online programme of month-long exhibitions, we examined the idiosyncrasies that define artists’ work, drawing connections with a vast variety of cultural and art historical themes, from Alex Galloway’s essay Uncomputer to the cultural movement hikikomori sweeping Japan. By providing holistic, engaging and thought-provoking shows, we’ve strengthened our position as a platform for critical discussion around digital mediums, and to this end, we are proud to have collaborated with many industry experts, such as web3 writer Alex Estorick and AI visionary Claire Silver. This year, one collaboration stood out for its unique position at the intersection of history and modernity. We are immensely honoured to have facilitated The Allen Ginsberg Estate’s entry into web3, bringing the late poet’s work to the forefront of innovations in art technologies.

Another pivotal partnership this year was with renowned generative art platform (fx)hash to host the gallery’s inaugural live minting event. Featuring the work of four prominent artists, Elsif, Galo Canizares, Olga Fradina and Iskra Velitchkova, our Mayfair gallery was transformed into an immersive digital art space, where people could experience, mint and collect dynamic works in real-time. As minted outputs were displayed instantaneously, the surprise, spontaneity and sense of community inherent to collecting generative artworks was brought to the fore. The event, situated between the physical and digital, attracted both seasoned web3 collectors and those new to the space, reflecting our founding mission to unite diverse audiences, provide opportunities for education and connection, and unlock exciting new experiences through technology.

Our physical presentations of digital works resonated much further afield through participation in international art fairs in Singapore, Dubai and Hong Kong. As fairs across the world expand each year to accommodate and celebrate the vast variety of digital art practices, the gallery continues to be a prominent player, introducing the visionary artists who make up our programming to new audiences. 

For ART SG in Singapore, we collaborated with acclaimed artist Krista Kim to present an immersive booth with a Virtual Reality experience. Emblematic of her practice, the works on display evoked a meditative state of mind through multidimensional gradients and mesmerising soundscapes, and in an exciting collaboration with Infinite Objects, fair visitors could take one of her hypnotic works home with them in a small, dynamic digital frame.

For the 16th edition of Art Dubai, we curated an expansive group presentation with Zach Lieberman, Iskra Velitchkova, Maxim Zhestkov, Fingacode and Krista Kim. With a focus on the legacy of Op Art, each artist offered a series of vibrantly detailed digital works that played with perception through complex patterns and colour palettes. Following this, at Digital Art Fair Hong Kong, we showcased the generative work of five artists who have played a continuous and pivotal role in our programming over the past few years: Linda Dounia, LoVid, Alida Sun, Melissa Wiederrecht and Che-Yu Wu. 

This year’s highlights from our online programme include After Ginsberg, an exhibition in partnership with the Allen Ginsberg Estate and web3 poetry collective theVERSEverse. As Ginsberg’s pioneering poetry – and the captions on some of his historical photographs – were integrated into a cutting-edge large language model, novel poetic forms emerged that sparked conversation around the poetics and politics of language in the era of generative AI. Providing a platform for discussion around the future of language, literature, and culture more broadly, aligns with the gallery’s mission to critically engage with new technologies, and examine the multitude of ways human and machine relations can be a site of creative impetus. 

Another highlight was Stored Memories, our online solo presentation and print release with award-winning multimedia artist Bryan Brinkman. Merging his motion graphic skills with his passion for art and digital storytelling, Brinkman produced a striking series of short-form animations that playfully questioned how – and why – we create, preserve and reflect upon memory. Marking the gallery’s debut phygital release, one work comprised of an NFT animation with 50 unique hand-signed prints. In 2024, we are excited to continue exploring the intriguing interplay between digital and physical mediums.

We deeply value the community and collaborative tenets of web3, and are proud to have worked with numerous partners to curate expansive online group shows. The Perfect Error, curated by AI expert Luba Elliott, brought together nine artists to trace history and unique applications of the ascendant technology and for E-motions, we were honoured to include renowned artist Claire Silver as both a curator and creative contributor. 

To further critical conversation around digital mediums, for our exhibition The Pixel Generation, Right Click Save published a series of articles on the aesthetic and politics of pixel art, and to coincide with Frieze week, the gallery teamed up with GrailersDAO, a renowned community of generative art collectors and artists, to present Uncomputer. Drawing on Alexander Galloway’s eponymous essay and the pioneering work of Marcel Duchamp, the exhibition contextualised some of the most prominent artists working with algorithms and blockchain today: Mathcastles, Melissa Wiederrecht, Kim Asendorf and Roope Rainisto to name a few. 

By partnering with diverse curators and collectives, the gallery seeks to strike out into new terrain with the themes, subject matters and artists we present, and offer shows that are as much about celebrating pioneering talents as they are about discovering new ones.

Alongside our programme of online exhibitions, this year we are proud to have presented physical shows with pioneers in the web3 space, including Tyler Hobbs and Maxim Zhestkov. As their works – ranging from detailed pen plotter drawings to hypnotic audio-visual projections – took over our Mayfair gallery, we nurtured our position as a space between the physical and digital, encouraging prolonged thought on the intersection between the two. 

Mechanical Hand spotlighted Tyler Hobbs’ paintings on canvas and drawings on paper alongside selected digital works to explore the tension between analogue and digital, man and machine. Seeking out softness and imperfection, Hobbs brought a human touch to generative processes.

Simulation Hypothesis took viewers on a conceptual journey through Maxim Zhestkov’s large-scale hypnotic projections and more intimate digital sculptures. Through these works, Zhestkov explores humanity’s desire to create, build, and alter the world and articulates AI not as an adversary, but as a descendent of human consciousness and as part of the process of creation.

To end an incredible year, we presented a collection with AI collaborative artist Heliodoro Santos. Infusing familiar landscape scenes with the intricate and eerie effects of artificial intelligence, Santos illuminates the liminal space between human and machine vision. To bring in the holiday season and to thank our community, with every mint, we’re airdropping an additional work. You can mint and learn more about the collection here, which will be available into the new year.

As 2024 approaches, we look forward to more art fairs, phygital releases, physical gallery shows and highly-curated online presentations, and to kick off the year with incredible momentum, we will integrate the Art Blocks Engine into our blockchain platform. This new on-chain tool will facilitate long-form generative art drops for our artists and collecting community, and we are thrilled that its debut will be with none other than Stefano Contiero, an Italian-Dominican self-taught artist who’s work in the medium has captured global attention. 

Further forthcoming projects include physical presentations of computer-based artworks with pioneering creative coders Zach Lieberman, Casey Reas and William Mapan. Each of these solo shows will delve deeply into their practices, process and underlying artistic philosophies, and explore the profound impact they have had on today’s landscape of digital art. Osinachi’s first online solo presentation and print release with the gallery will encompass a standout series of three new artworks that playfully examine the intersection between identity politics, technology and environmentalism. A very special project with Tyler Hobbs is also in the works, alongside his debut monograph, one of the first to focus on the work of a generative artist.

Ultimately, throughout the ebbs and flows of the wider ecosystem, we remain steadfast in our mission to elevate both established and emerging figures in digital and new media art. By curating spaces – both physical and virtual – we aim to deepen appreciation of digital practices for web3 and traditional audiences alike, and provide a platform for critical discussion, connection, education and discovery. 

We are so excited for another exceptional year exploring and supporting the global community of artists, technologies and organisations who are driving the future of digital art. Unit London’s ethos is built on the belief that art is for everyone, so whether you are web3 native or have no experience in the space, we’d love for you to participate in our diverse programme of events. 

We look forward to welcoming U in 2024!