In today’s digital age, art holds a singular place where the timeless and the transient coexist, reshaping our understanding of permanence and transience. Digital works, often experienced in screens, interactive installations, or animations, embody a tension: they feel ephemeral, yet their essence—encoded in data—can be stored, replicated, and preserved indefinitely. This paradox defines our time, where moments seem to vanish in an instant while simultaneously being immortalized and infinitely accessible. In a world driven by an unprecedented pace, moments seem to slip away as quickly as they unfold. Yet, paradoxically, we live in an age where nothing is ever truly lost—every action, feeling, and experience is carefully documented, preserved, and immortalized in the vast digital archives that define our era. This contrast between life’s fleeting nature and the enduring trace it leaves behind reshapes how we understand time, memory, and the legacy we create, and as with every era, art not only reflects the spirit of its time but also engages with it, shaping and being shaped by the world around it.

Art bridges these forces, capturing the essence of impermanence—a flicker of light, a fragment of sound, or the motion of an animation—and transforming it into a universal, yet personal experience that transcends time and place in the spectators mind and body. It reveals beauty in what is transient while celebrating the timeless through digital preservation and reinvention.

This dialogue between the ephemeral and the eternal invites us to rethink our relationship with art. It shifts focus from valuing the tangible and unchanging to embracing the adaptable and fluid. Digital creations, with their ability to evolve and respond, draw audiences into an active role, turning each interaction into a singular, unrepeatable moment. At the same time, these works exist in a state of digital immortality—always ready to be revisited, reinterpreted, and reimagined.

In this context, the digital age amplifies art’s capacity to transform. It challenges how we perceive time, encouraging us to savor the present while recognizing its resonance in the future. Art becomes a reflection of our existence, capturing both its brevity and its enduring impact. Through this lens, we gain a deeper appreciation of creativity as a force that connects and inspires us, reminding us of our shared humanity—here and now, and across generations.

Art has always reflected human emotions and experiences. In today’s digital age, it also serves as a bridge between the ephemeral and the everlasting. The works in this collection, which I decided to call it: Timeless and Transient Realities, celebrate that duality, inviting us on a journey where transient moments are preserved, and timeless truths are reimagined through technology.

The exhibition opens with Tracey Emin’s Because of You I’m Here, a deeply personal piece that anchors the collection in raw, unfiltered emotion. This work reminds us that art, at its core, is a deeply human expression—a connection to the tangible before we venture into the abstract.

With Mat Collishaw’s Whispering Weeds and Anthony James ´ Sunset Icosahedron, the narrative shifts toward nature and geometry. These pieces merge delicate organic forms with the precision of digital structures, creating a dialogue that highlights the resilience and beauty of both the natural world and human innovation.

The digital realm comes alive in Aaron Koblin ’s Flight Patterns, where raw data transforms into a mesmerizing visualization of movement. The work has hidden patterns like the invisibles that connect us all, presenting a poetic story of global interconnectedness. Similarly, Bill Viola ’s A Phrase from ‘Illumination’ (2011) and Lindsay Kokoska´s Echoes of Light use light as a fleeting medium, capturing the delicate beauty of everyday experiences.

The collection also explores introspection and memory. Laurence Fuller’s When My Sister Was Lost offers a poignant meditation on loss, while John Sanborn’s Anaphora employs linguistic repetition to examine identity and meaning, illustrating how fragments of the past continue to shape the present.

Themes of transformation and fluidity surface in pieces like Studio Above & Below´s Latent Liquid, which challenges perceptions, and Manuel Tozzi ’s Waving Mountains, whose organic movements evoke the sublime rhythms of nature. Yuma Yanagisawa’s Reverie: Dubai (Landscape) stretches the boundaries of reality, blending surreal landscapes with imagination of real spaces in the world.

This collection is more than a gathering of artworks—it’s an invitation to explore how art and technology intertwine to transform our perception of reality. Each piece reveals the creative possibilities of this connection, where the fleeting gains permanence, and the eternal is reimagined through new lenses.

In the end, these works prompt us to reconsider our relationship with the ephemeral and the enduring, offering a renewed appreciation for art’s ability to inspire, transform, and connect us in the digital age.

by Carmen Ballesta