The idea of the artist as a public figure is nothing new, but their accessibility remains a refreshing hallmark of the digital art ecosystem.

Scroll through X or Instagram and you’ll find digital artists documenting their studio practices, debating terminology, sharing works in progress, and engaging directly with collectors as well as their artist peers. Walk through Zero 10 at Art Basel in Miami or Hong Kong and you’ll likely encounter artists such as Maya Man, Jack Butcher, Mario Klingemann, or Emi Kusano talking about their work, meeting audiences face to face.

This stands in stark contrast to the mainstream art world, where artists remain largely walled off from their publics, mediated instead through carefully worded gallery statements and the occasional profile. The digital art ecosystem has produced a different kind of hybrid subject: performative, participatory, and perpetually online. In our new interview with Maya Man, she addresses this phenomenon head-on, describing the internet as “a massive network stage” where posting is performance. She’s building a practice while documenting it publicly in ways that would have been unimaginable a generation ago—interrogating authenticity online while sharing the same stage.

The question isn’t whether artists should be so visible, but what this new kind of artistic license makes possible, and what it demands.

— Danielle King, Head of Community at Right Click Save

When Maya Man spoke to Right Click Save about her solo show “StarPower” at bitforms, New York, she addressed the difference it has made for her as a digital artist, in the past year, to be able to present her work in a gallery setting, in performance-lectures in New York and Los Angeles, and at the Zero 10 section of Art Basel Miami Beach. This passage was edited for length in the published interview.

It’s been really special to have these moments of presentation. Both have been at venues where they are in person and I am able to install the work in a very bespoke way that it would be impossible for someone to view looking at their computer.

It has marked a moment in my practice where I realize the value of presenting work in person. I’m an artist whose practice people understand to be very digital, that often runs natively on the internet. The primary medium is software. But it has helped me understand the direction I want to move toward, which is continued physical presentation of large-scale digital works, where I’m able to exercise this process of worldbuilding that I’ve used for “StarQuest“ or to approach it as an experiment in making an ecosystem of works that are all within the same conceptual framing. I’ve found that to be really productive.

I’d like to continue to use that methodology in the future because it’s been really exciting for me to have work span shows and mediums, and most importantly physical spaces. Within this body of work, I’ve also performed “StarQuest“ in New York and in LA. That has also been a lesson in translating my work into a new medium..

But for me, it’s also very much about understanding how to work with an audience’s attention span and how to understand that there are varying levels of attention or just varying time spans that people will spend with your work when it’s a performance, versus a physical show in a gallery versus a website online. Over the years, I’ve gained a better understanding of how to work with all of that to make the best work for each context.

— Maya Man is an artist focused on contemporary identity culture on the internet. Her work examines dominant narratives around femininity, authenticity, and the performance of self. Her exhibition “StarPower” is at bitforms gallery, New York, until May 2, 2026. Her performance-lecture “StarQuest”, followed by a conversation with Christiane Paul, Curator of Digital Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art, will be co-presented by Harvestworks and Roulette in Brooklyn, New York, on May 6, 2026.