The Great Debate:
Is Phygital Art the Future of Collecting or a Passing Fad?
For decades, collecting art meant owning an object: a painting, a sculpture, a photograph, a print. The work existed in the physical world. It had weight, texture, scale, presence and provenance. Then came the digital turn: NFTs, online viewing rooms, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, blockchain certificates and immersive experiences.
Out of this collision came a new word: phygital.
Phygital art combines a physical artwork with a digital layer. The collector does not only acquire what is visible on the wall. They also acquire an experience, a hidden animation, a sound, a story, an augmented reality layer, a digital certificate, or a second life activated through a phone.
But the question remains serious: is phygital art the future of collecting, or just another short-lived trend from the post-NFT era?
The answer is not simple. Phygital art has real potential. It also has real weaknesses. Its future will depend less on the technology itself and more on whether artists, galleries and collectors can give it cultural, emotional and market value.
Why Phygital Art Feels Like the Future
The first reason phygital art matters is obvious: collectors are no longer living in a purely physical world.
People now discover art through Instagram, TikTok, online fairs, digital previews, AR filters, websites, videos and virtual showrooms before they ever stand in front of the work. Even traditional collectors increasingly encounter art through a screen first. This does not mean the physical object is dead. It means the screen has become part of the viewing ritual.
The 2026 Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report shows that the global art market returned to growth in 2025, reaching an estimated $59.6 billion, after two years of decline. At the same time, online-only sales declined to $9.2 billion, their lowest level since 2019, showing that high-end collecting still depends heavily on physical presence, trust and in-person validation. This is exactly where phygital art becomes interesting: it does not replace the physical artwork. It adds a digital dimension to it.
That distinction matters.
NFTs tried, in many cases, to make collectors believe that a purely digital asset could replace the traditional artwork. Phygital art takes a more balanced position. It says: the object remains, but the object is no longer silent. It can reveal, respond, move, speak, change or unlock something.
This is a more credible proposition for many collectors because it respects the emotional power of physical art while acknowledging the reality of digital culture.
The Collector Is Changing
A new generation of collectors has grown up with screens, games, digital identity, avatars, filters and interactive media. For them, a static image is not necessarily less valuable, but interactivity is normal. A work that has two layers, one physical and one digital, may feel more natural than strange.
Art Basel has recently placed more emphasis on digital and new media art, including its Zero 10 initiative. Reuters reported in June 2026 that Art Basel is embracing digital art as a medium aligned with younger generations raised on digital platforms. The same report noted that digital art represented 3% of the global art market in 2025, up from 1% in 2024. That is still small, but the direction matters.
This does not prove that phygital art will dominate collecting. It proves something more modest but important: digital art is no longer outside the art conversation. It is moving from novelty to category.
Phygital art may become one of the bridges between traditional collectors and digital-native collectors.
The Strongest Argument for Phygital Art: Experience
The strongest case for phygital art is not technology. It is experience.
A painting on metal, canvas or paper can already create emotion. But when a hidden digital layer appears through a smartphone, the collector experiences a second moment of discovery. That moment can be intimate, theatrical, surprising or playful.
This changes the relationship between the artwork and the viewer. The work is no longer only looked at. It is activated.
For galleries, this creates a new kind of demonstration. A visitor sees the physical work, then scans or taps it, then watches it come alive. That moment is highly shareable. It creates conversation. It turns passive viewing into participation.
For collectors, it creates a private ritual. The work has a visible face and a hidden face. The visible layer belongs to the room. The hidden layer belongs to the person who knows how to awaken it.
This is where phygital art becomes more than a gimmick. When the digital layer deepens the physical work, it can create a stronger emotional bond.
The Skeptical View: Is This Just Another Tech Fad?
The skeptics have a point.
The art world has seen many technological promises rise and fall. NFTs are the most obvious example. During the 2021 boom, digital assets were sold as a revolution. Some works reached extreme prices. Then the speculative market collapsed. Many buyers discovered that scarcity alone does not create lasting cultural value.
A 2022 academic study of NFT art markets found that the NFT art economy was highly concentrated, with success often dependent on a small number of buyers and sellers rather than broad democratic participation. Another study on NFT infrastructures highlighted long-term storage and preservation problems for digital artworks, especially when the artwork’s files depend on external systems.
These lessons matter for phygital art.
A phygital artwork is not automatically valuable because it uses AR, NFC, QR codes, blockchain or animation. Technology can age quickly. Platforms disappear. File formats become obsolete. Links break. Apps stop working. Devices change.
If the physical artwork is weak, the digital layer will not save it.
If the digital layer is superficial, the collector will eventually stop using it.
If the experience depends on fragile technology without a preservation plan, the work may lose part of its meaning over time.
This is the central risk: phygital art can become a party trick.
The Real Test: Does the Digital Layer Add Meaning?
The future of phygital art depends on one brutal question:
Does the digital layer add meaning, or does it only add movement?
If the digital experience is just an animation placed on top of an image, the novelty may fade quickly. The first scan creates surprise. The second scan creates recognition. The third scan may create indifference.
But if the digital layer reveals a hidden narrative, a secret character, an alternate reality, a soundscape, a memory, a collector-only experience, or a conceptual extension of the physical piece, then the technology becomes part of the artwork’s language.
This is where serious phygital art must go.
The digital layer should not be decoration. It should be the second chapter of the work.
A strong phygital artwork must answer three questions:
What does the physical object say?
What does the digital layer reveal?
Why do both need each other?
If the answers are weak, the work is not truly phygital. It is only a physical artwork with a digital effect attached.
Why Traditional Collectors May Resist
Many serious collectors still value permanence, provenance, material quality and art historical legitimacy. They want to know that a work will survive, that its certificate is clear, that the edition is controlled, that the artist has a serious practice and that the piece can be resold or inherited.
Phygital art challenges these habits.
Collectors may ask: what happens if the digital layer stops working? Who maintains it? Is the digital file part of the artwork or just a bonus? Can the work be transferred? Is the experience unique to the buyer? Is the technology documented? Is there a certificate? Is the edition limited? Is the physical object strong enough without the digital effect?
These questions are not obstacles. They are necessary.
If phygital artists want to be taken seriously, they must think like artists and like archivists. They must document the work, define the edition, explain the technology, provide certificates and make the experience durable.
The art world does not only reward novelty. It rewards continuity.
Why Galleries Should Pay Attention
For galleries, phygital art offers something valuable: attention.
A traditional exhibition often struggles to compete with the speed of digital culture. Visitors look, take a photo, post a story and leave. A phygital work can slow them down because it invites interaction. It creates a moment that people want to show others.
This matters because galleries need more than silent walls. They need experiences that bring people into the room, keep them there and give them a reason to talk.
But galleries should also be careful. If phygital art is presented only as entertainment, it risks being seen as decoration for events, not as serious collecting material.
The gallery’s role is to frame the work properly. It must explain the artistic intention, the physical process, the digital layer, the edition, the certificate and the collector experience.
The technology may attract attention. The concept must hold it.
The Market Is Not Ready, But It Is Moving
The art market is not fully phygital yet. It remains conservative in many ways. High-end collectors still prefer physical contact, trusted galleries, fairs, private networks and established names. The decline in online-only sales in 2025 confirms that the market has not simply moved into the screen.
But this does not weaken the phygital argument. It may strengthen it.
The future is not purely online. The future is hybrid.
Collectors want the authority of the physical object and the energy of the digital experience. They want something that can live on a wall, but also travel through a phone. They want an artwork that can be shown in a home, shared on social media, explained in a gallery and experienced privately.
Phygital art sits exactly at that intersection.
So, Future or Fad?
Phygital art as a buzzword may be a fad.
Phygital art as a weak AR trick may be a fad.
Phygital art as “scan this and something moves” may be a fad.
But phygital art as a serious artistic language is not a fad. It is part of a broader shift in how people experience images, objects, ownership and presence.
The future of collecting will not be only digital. It will not abandon the physical artwork. The physical object still carries aura, scale, touch, rarity and emotional authority. But the next generation of collectors may expect that an artwork can hold more than one reality.
The wall will remain important.
The screen will become part of the ritual.
The collector will not only own an image. They may own an experience, a hidden layer, a private activation, a story that appears only when the work is awakened.
That is the real promise of phygital art.
Not that art becomes technology.
But that technology allows the artwork to live twice.
Once in the physical world.
And once in the invisible world waiting behind it.
Patrick Osinski
