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From Virtual Wallpapers to Emoji Gardens, We Explored Digital Art at Miami Art Week

Check out highlights from the PULSE, NADA, Untitled, and Hypersalon fairs this past week in Miami.
Hypersalon – Claudia Matté + Daniel Temkin + Alma Allaro

When the art world headed south for its annual beachside getaway, the young but tightly-knit digital arts community took advantage of the migration: day by day, slowly gaining traction in the world of contemporary art, a handful of cutting-edge practices made waves at Art Basel Miami this past weekend.

Alternative, satellite, and parallel fairs, like PULSE, NADA, Untitled, and new models, including Hypersalon, benefited from the ambient turmoil, bringing forth digital-based artworks that introduced emerging practices to both large audiences and contemporary art collectors. Over the warm December weekend, The Creators Project explored many of the different spaces showcasing the impressive digital creations. Here's a brief overview of the artwork that made us tick:

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Held underneath PULSE's massive tent, PULSE-Play caught our attention right away. This selection of videos and new media pieces carefully curated by Lindsay Howard, was an exceptional showcase for the digital arts. “PULSE Play has been an incredible opportunity to introduce the contemporary art collectors at PULSE to leading artists working in video, net art, and immersive 3D environment,” Howard told The Creators Project.

From Alexandra Gorczynski's After Dark, via NewHive

“It's a hub inside the tent where visitors are encouraged to lounge on couches, relax, and take in the works – which are also for sale,” she said. “ PULSE-Play, which featured works by Tilo Baumgaertel, Alexandra Gorczynski, Carlo Ferraris, Tracey Snelling, and Idan Levin, made news this week because Zhulong Gallery successfully sold an art website by Gorczynski for $5,000. "The event is exclusively focused on contemporary art, and so it's been thrilling to see them embrace digital as one of the most contemporary forms of art,” Howard added.

While we were previously taken aback by Sara Ludy, Nicolas Sassoon and Sylvain Sailly's Wallpapers project, we didn't hesitate when we got the chance to see the dynamic digital desktops installation in a new display. Presented in a room on the 10th floor of the Deauville Beach Resort, the comfort and intimacy of the audiovisual experience—co-curated by Artsy’s Julia Colavita and East Hampton Shed’s Nate Hitchcock—at NADA offered a brief respite from the fair's madness.

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Our “coup de coeur,” however, was Hypersalon, a collaborative curatorial project between the Brooklyn-based Transfer gallery and the Paris-based gallery, XPO.  “Hypersalon is not a new satellite art fair, it is a new way to support contemporary art in the context of the networked culture we are now living in!” Philippe Riss, director of XPO gallery and co-founder of Hypersalon told The Creators Project.

With regard to the concept and the main inspiration, Riss said that the two galleries “decided to create an intimate salon-style exhibition to discuss and present the work of artists. The word 'salon' has been chosen in reference to the 19th century salons where artists, intellectuals, and mecenes (patrons) met in their living rooms to discuss and debate cultural questions.”

Spread out over the course of a week, this "salon 2.0" presented artist talks, conversations, two exhibition spaces, and one experimental moving image suite—curated by invited special guests—and delighted the audience with its original format, its quality content, and its dynamic and friendly vibe. “Visitors have really been seduced by the rhythm of Hypersalon, the time devoted to the substance and also by the deep engagement and collaboration of the two galleries,” he concluded.

Below, check out some pictures from our quasi-sleepless weekend in and around Art Basel Miami:

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