DesignCollector Network presents an innovative exhibition exploring the intersections of digital and physical forms (“phygital”) in art as part of the annual event Digital Decade 5, featuring emerging artists working in digital art. This year’s theme of “Cyberia” encourages artists to reflect on the concept of the newborn digital native that is changing our common value systems.
The Digital Decade collaboration and exhibition has been running successfully since 2013. Curated by Arseny Vesnin (Designcollector) and partners, the first round of Digital Decade consists of online Open Calls where selected artists are featured in the exhibition in London.
For 2017, the 5th Edition of “Digital Decade”, DCN teamed up with the leading creative platforms Ello Network and Curioos to bring 35 digital artists together engaged in creating print artworks to take part in a London exhibition. One-third of these artists made a cut from a huge shortlist selected by the prominent Jury during the “Ello x Digital Decade” Open Call. Another addition to the upcoming event is a new challenge made together with the Sedition Art Platform that will feature the work of selected video artists. Also, many interactive and phygital artists joined the exhibition to create an immersive atmosphere.
About Arseny Vesnin
Arseny Vesnin has been exploring and curating the best visual media arts and design since 2003, establishing Designcollector as a leading online media resource for new media art, design, and other creative disciplines.
Since 2013, Arseny has organized the annual initiative Digital Decade, which aims to reveal up-and-coming digital artists. The initiative has taken place in the creative hubs of London, Barcelona, and Saint Petersburg and has presented the work of over 150 pioneering, exploratory, and celebrated artists who work between the physical and digital realms. Designcollector has partnered with organizations such as OFFF, Ello, FutureFest, Sedition and Creative Debuts.
In 2020, the NFT art scene saw a surge in popularity, and Arseny became a vocal member of the NFT community by promoting artists. Arseny collaborated with Sedition to present a special edition of Digital Decade, held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This iteration invited artists to offer speculative and critical comments on how phygital life may change post-pandemic. The works presented ranged from photography, audiovisual collaborations, 3D digital sculptures, and animation.
In 2021, Arseny started to support the leading NFT platform Superrare with curation and editorial efforts. He has onboarded more than 30 artists and conducted several interviews with them. He was dedicated to helping distressed artists onboard different NFT platforms to support them during these challenging times.
In 2022, he was humbled to co-curate “Roads Not Taken” by bringing two promising NFT artists, Jana Stýblová and Pawel Nolbert, to the group show organised by OFFF Festival Barcelona.
In 2023, Arseny focused all his curatorial practice on the new platform @0xCyberia, featuring selected artists and their NFT artworks of different editions. Together with the Blockchain Community Day conference, they delivered the “Artificial Imagination” metaverse exhibition in June and presented it online during the festival days.