Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Visitors to Art Basel Hong Kong this month will experience a pop-up store in the Encounters section that promises to turn art fair convention on its head and fox prospective buyers. As part of a special immersive art installation, collectors and curators can browse and buy works created by a digital avatar known as Doku, the brainchild of the Chinese artist Lu Yang.
Doku, which Lu has developed since 2020, is genderless, ageless and nationality-free, explains the artist over email. “All works are digital creations made by Doku in a virtual world through a method akin to meditation,” adds Lu. “The pricing of these works is within the range typical for an emerging artist making their debut.”
Doku’s pop-up is presented by the Hong Kong-based De Sarthe gallery in collaboration with Coma gallery in Sydney. At the store, collectors can buy Doku’s AI-created artworks in the form of blind boxes — 108 unique digital pieces called Concept Void.
But there’s a twist. “Collectors will be unaware of exactly what they are buying until the transaction is complete, turning the act of purchasing art into a novel game of chance and discovery,” says a statement from De Sarthe (the gallery adds that prices will be revealed on the opening day).
In the centre of the store, a video explaining Doku’s role as an artist will be shown. “The installation not only challenges the established norms about what art is, who creates it, and how it is valued, but manifests these concepts via active participation from its audience,” the gallery says.
Crucially the Doku project highlights how AI is encroaching on the art world, requiring collectors to take a leap of faith and invest in AI-generated works. “AI tools help me improve work efficiency,” Lu says, “and all of my works have used numerous CG-related [computer graphics] software.”
Whether the market is ready for such a move is debatable. Jo Lawson-Tancred, author of AI and the Art Market, says that art with AI-generated elements has a zeitgeisty appeal that is helping it become a particularly fast-growing category within digital art. “However, as in the case of Doku, AI art still needs evidence of a human artist’s creative intent if it is to succeed in the traditional art market,” she adds.
In recent years, Tokyo-based Lu, who was born in Shanghai in 1984 and studied at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, has built up a dedicated fan base through his innovative multidisciplinary work, straddling subjects such as technology and spirituality.
To enter Lu’s world, you can visit his website (luyang.asia), a blaze of retina-burning avatars, animated deities and demons that also reveals Doku in various iterations, such as “Doku Hungry-Ghost”: a mesmerising 2022 video in which the dead-eyed, crazed digital idol performs a traditional Indonesian dance against an apocalyptic backdrop. This maximalist, head-spinning approach to life and art is driven by the artist’s deep interest in Buddhism.
“Buddhist wisdom has greatly benefited my life, so it naturally influences my work as well,” Lu says. “My focus is primarily on Buddhist philosophy, other related philosophies, and various life sciences that explore the essence of humanity, such as neuroscience and brain science, which can be found in my past works. Anime and video games are just pathways I’ve found to connect contemporary audiences with the perspectives I care about.”
In a bid to find out more about Doku’s motivations, an in-person conversation with the avatar was requested. In response, De Sarthe said: “Lu as the medium will enter a state of meditation, receive energy from the universe and allow Doku to possess and write through him.”
During this (rather contrived) exchange, conducted via email, I question why we should take Doku seriously as a digital being. “I can’t control the external world, and that external world includes your judgments of me,” replies the avatar.
The Art Basel Hong Kong intervention marks Doku’s debut as a bona fide artist. And so we veer off into a discussion about the purpose and commercialism of art fairs. “Participating in such a gathering as a virtual being,” the avatar says, “isn’t it akin to being part of a performance art system?”
Alexie Glass-Kantor, curator of the Encounters section, thinks the Doku installation poses interesting questions for visitors. “At a fair where transactions are traditionally framed by authorship, provenance and exacting eyes, this installation rewires the rules,” she says.
desarthe.com; Booth EN9 Encounters, Booth 3C08, artbasel.com
Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning