Mapping Recent Shifts in Digital Art via Conference Discourse: AI, XR, the Metaverse, and Blockchain/NFTs (2021-2025)
This study provides insights into evolving trends in digital art for researchers and practitioners, but it is incremental as it applies existing analysis methods to new data.
The paper analyzed five years of conference discourse in digital art to trace thematic shifts related to AI, immersive technologies, and blockchain/NFTs, finding a marked increase in AI contributions, with AI emerging as a dominant theme after 2022 while other areas remained stable or marginal.
This paper presents an analysis of five years (2021 - 2025) of conference discourse across six digital art conferences, aiming to trace thematic shifts associated with the rapid development of emerging technologies, namely artificial intelligence (AI), immersive technologies (including XR and the metaverse), and blockchain technologies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The results indicate a marked increase in AI-related contributions, while immersive technologies maintain a relatively stable share of the discourse, and blockchain- and NFT-based works remain marginal. Overall, whereas immersive technologies and blockchain-related topics exhibit relative stability, AI shows a significant rise after 2022, emerging as a dominant theme within digital art conference discourse.