From AI to NFTs: The first-ever Digital Art Awards celebrates pioneering artists

The boundary-blurring world of digital art took centre shape successful London past night, arsenic nan first-ever Digital Art Awards crowned its winners astatine a ceremonial hosted by Phillips.

The event, which coincided pinch nan opening of a week-long exhibition, celebrated immoderate of nan astir innovative minds moving astatine nan intersection of technology, code, and imaginative expression.

Four unsocial artists - Maja Petrić, Zach Lieberman, Deekay, and Operator - were each awarded a $10,000 USDC (a type of cryptocurrency stablecoin) committee crossed 4 categories, from Moving Image to Experimental.

A 5th grant honoured nan Yawanawá Indigenous organization of Brazil for their groundbreaking collaboration pinch AI creator Refik Anadol connected Winds of Yawanawá, a integer artwork fusing real-time biology information pinch ancestral knowledge.

Backed by HOFA Gallery successful business pinch PhillipsX and Hivemind Capital Partners, nan awards bespeak nan increasing output of integer creation - from sparkling information sculptures to theatre-driven codification experiments.

A person look astatine nan winning artists

Croatian creator Maja Petrić, known for her large-scale ray installations that incorporated AI and real-time biology data, received nan Innovation Award for her mesmerising activity Specimens of Time: Hoh Rain Forest (2025).

The piece, consisting of a postulation of immersive ray sculptures, interactive installations, and video works, was praised arsenic a haunting, high-tech homage to 1 of nan world’s past remaining temperate rainforests.

Central to nan bid are climate-responsive sculptures that glow and displacement pinch unrecorded information connected oversea temperatures, pollution, and power stress, serving arsenic surviving and breathing memorials to vanishing ecosystems.

Winner of nan Moving Image class was Deekay, who's signature style - vibrant, looping, hand-drawn animations pinch large affectional bosom - has made him a cult favourite successful nan NFT space. His breakout work, Life and Death, made waves successful 2022 erstwhile it sold for much than $1 cardinal connected SuperRare.

But it was his thought-provoking animation Hands of Time, that won him a prize astatine nan inaugural Digital Art Awards.

Minimal successful creation but rich | successful feeling, nan 2D video game-style loop poignantly charts nan progression of a quality life: from commencement and puerility done friendship, love, profession success, ageing, and yet death.

Artist duo Operator (consisting of Ania Catherine and Dejha Ti) took location nan Experimental Award for their task Human Unreadable - a live, generative installation merging surveillance tech, choreography and code.

The activity asks urgent questions astir who gets to move freely, who gets monitored, and really integer spaces reflector beingness ones successful ways we’re only opening to understand.

Operator’s investigation into privateness began pinch their 2019 capacity installation On View, commissioned by nan SCAD Museum of Art. The task invited visitors to move done 3 different rooms, each utilizing hidden exertion for illustration facial nickname and sensors to respond to them successful existent time.

American caller media creator Zach Lieberman, a starring fig successful nan imaginative coding community, was honoured pinch nan Still Image Award for his Ripple Study series.

Using custom-built code, Lieberman transforms subtle movements successful quality into poetic integer artworks, inviting viewers to softly contemplate what they see.

In his ain words Lieberman says: "In this work, I americium trying seizure nan emotion of ray connected water. I deliberation there's thing really profound astir really intolerable it is to recreate earthy arena pinch code."

He adds: "It's intolerable to make thing arsenic beautiful arsenic what you mightiness spot retired successful nan world, but it's imaginable to effort to definitive nan feelings you person watching thing beautiful. I effort to bring those feelings into my activity and images."

Finally, nan Yawanawá Indigenous organization of nan Brazilian Amazon received nan Industry Award for their collaboration pinch media creator Refik Anadol connected Winds of Yawanawá .

The artwork incorporates AI and ambiance information to create dynamic, ever-changing visuals, inspired heavy by nan community's ancestral traditions and belief beliefs.

Works by nan 32 artists finalists of nan Digital Art Awards are now connected position astatine PHILLIPS London until 22 May 2025.