Something is shifting in how we talk about digital art, and I think it’s for the better.

The Lumen Prize just announced a major restructuring of their categories, moving away from medium-specific distinctions toward concept-driven and “medium-agnostic” frameworks. In the same vein, Onassis ONX has inaugurated their new art and tech hub in Tribeca, New York, with a mandate to resist siloing practices by tool or technique. Both moves signal the same thing: the art world is catching up to what practitioners have known for years, that the most interesting work doesn’t fit neatly into boxes and often bubbles up from the margins.

Meanwhile, the crypto art community’s ongoing frustration with the X algorithm reached a boiling point this week after Nikita Bier’s (now-deleted) post explaining how each post depletes your daily reach allowance. The revelation that frequent replies—a hallmark of our “gm” culture—might be algorithmically penalizing actual project announcements has many artists rethinking their entire platform strategy. But let’s be honest: it’s still nice to say “gm” once in a while!

— Danielle King, Head of Community at Right Click Save

The Lumen Prize for art made with technology has announced a new approach to entry categories for its 2026 awards. “After speaking with our community,” the prize posted on X, “we’ve designed this year’s entry categories to be intentionally open and medium-agnostic, focusing on conceptual approach: what your work examines, constructs, or invites an audience to experience.”

The three categories are: Legacy Futures Award, Systems & Structures Award, and Experiential Innovation Award, each of which comes with a $5,000 prize. There will, as previously, be one Gold Award Winner for the artist determined to have created the best work across all categories. In 2026, the Gold Award Winner will receive a $15,000 prize. In 2025, as in previous years, the focus was largely on medium, with prizes given for nine different subjects and four special awards

I am loving the cross-disciplinary grace and delight promised by the miniature-scale vignettes and stop-motion animations of “Fútbol Is Life: Animated Sportraits by Lyndon J. Barrois, Sr.” at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA, February 15 to July 12, 2026). The exhibition, mounted to mark the arrival of the men’s soccer World Cup in Los Angeles later this year, features the animator and sculptor Barrois’s inch-high, exquisitely painted, gum-wrapper and glue figures, capturing historic moments from World Cup games for both men and women.

The meandering, narrative-rich titles for Barrois’s “Sportraits” — Brazil’s Ronaldo slips past Germany’s Oliver Kahn to score in 2002 and U.S. Goalkeeper Hope Solo dives for a decisive save against Australia in 2015 — carry a promise that is fulfilled by the exquisite tension of the artist’s scenes, whether static or in short, looping, clips.

In a year in which the World Cup tournament has already been subverted for political self-interest and bombast, there is a saving delight — and a reminder of why sentimental soccer-lovers refer to the sport as “the beautiful game” — in watching the graceful, looping, poise of Barrois’s reimagining of a gravity-defying overhead bicycle kick executed by Pele, the legendary Brazilian soccer player and icon of Pop and street art, at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico.

— Louis Jebb is Managing Editor at Right Click Save