Text by CLOT Magazine
Supported by Karel Komárek and directed by Elle Anastasiou, The 0xCollection is an initiative of new media and time-based art by contemporary artists in Basel. With a decentralised approach to collecting and curating, they aim to engage around contemporary artistic and technical innovation. As Elle Anastasiou says, we have committed ourselves to building a new collection that operates as living organism — an ecosystem presenting art at the forefront of technological innovation, encouraging active dialogue while preserving the artefacts of today. The primary aim of this Collection is to provide a new media vocabulary for audiences in the now by honouring both the histories and futures shaping this cultural moment.
The 0xCollection began as a single acquisition and has developed into a network of artists, academics, technicians, theorists, gallerists, curators, collectors and beyond, united by a single intent – to develop digital art from the present for the future.
We named the Collection 0x -’hex’- short for hexadecimal code. This alphanumerical system is a language used computationally to translate machine-legible binary into outputs more comprehensible to the human eye. With 0x, we are able to encode colour, representation and memory in a manner which humanity can greatly understand. Elle Anastasiou continues.
They premiered its international exhibition programme in Prague on September 7, 2023, with DVOŘÁK DREAMS, a new immersive installation from Refik Anadol. DVOŘÁK DREAMS has been developed over the last two years with LA-based artist Refik Anadol, using his signature algorithms trained on original data, music and records from throughout Dvořák’s life, sourced from within the Czech Republic and abroad. Until October 16, 2023, at the Arts Space at Bořislavka, The 0xCollection presents Synesthetic Immersion, an exhibition highlighting the work of eight leading digital artists —Ryoji Ikeda, Sougwen Chung, Carsten Nicolai, QUAYOLA, Nancy Baker Cahil, Lu Yang, Libby Heaney, and Daito Manabe— whose creations translate one art form into another through interdisciplinary technologies.
Synesthetic Immersion explores synaesthesia in a poetic and neurological state. The artworks demonstrate the transformation of an input perceived by one sense into an output in another. A colour can have sound in this hybrid mechanism, or an artwork can directly induce sensation.
