Let's get digital

One of Tsai's latest works, currently on display at the fair, is Bitcoin – Buddha, Venus and Guan Yu — a piece in which the artist's East-meets-West aesthetic meets high-tech programming to produce a visual composition that changes in response to the swings of the bitcoin market.

"If bitcoin is stable, you will see the image of Venus because she represents calm. If the (price of) bitcoin is high, you will see Buddha. If it's low, you will see the face of Guan Yu, who represents risk," the artist explains.

The piece includes dynamic elements characteristic of Chinese watercolor paintings — lotuses, cranes, doves, butterflies — that change position in real time, based on the fluctuations in the price of bitcoin. As Tsai elaborates, "To (create) programmable art at a high level, you need to coordinate with different teams: coders, a 2D team, a 3D animation team … An artist needs the whole package, which isn't easy."