Asprey Studio at Art Basel in Basel 2026
16-21 JUNE 2026 | Booth Z3 | ZERO 10 | EVENT HALL, MESSE BASEL, BASEL, SWITZERLAND
Asprey Studio returns for its third presentation within Zero 10 at Art Basel, the fair's initiative dedicated to art of the digital era. Following successful presentations at Art Basel Miami Beach and Hong Kong, Asprey Studio presents Matter and Signal, a solo new generative digital and physical project by acclaimed artist-engineer 0xDEAFBEEF (b. 1981) at booth Z3 at its debut in Basel.
Enquire below for the full brochure of presented artworks.
DEAFBEEF
0xDEAFBEEF (b. 1981) is a generative artist, musician, engineer, programmer, and blacksmith, creating work with a minimal toolset. With over twenty years of experience across music, electrical engineering, computer graphics, and metalworking, his practice merges programming with handcrafted processes. His work reflects a belief that blacksmithing — where artisans create their own tools and systems — bears strong parallels to computational creation.
The sculptural works reflect a commitment to traditional handcraft while engaging with advanced digital technologies - elements that resonate with Asprey Studio’s longstanding expertise in precious metal craftsmanship. This dialogue between material and immaterial processes defines the Studio’s approach to contemporary art-making, realised at its atelier in Kent, where silversmiths, goldsmiths, sculptors, and digital animators work side by side.
Synth Poem: Oscilloscope (2021-26)
Forged iron sculpture paired with generative code digital artwork
128 unique (1/1) digital tokens in this collection. 3 physical sculptures available
At the core of the presentation are Synth Poems by 0xDEAFBEEF, a series of on-chain generative audiovisual works, each paired with one physical sculpture (Oscilloscope) in forged iron by the artist himself.
Each digital Synth Poem piece is created at the moment of minting from a unique hash, producing distinct combinations of tempo, timbre, pitch, and structure. While primarily sonic, each work is accompanied by
a visualisation derived directly from its audio signal, referencing early vector displays and oscilloscope imagery. The physical sculptures are inspired by analogue oscilloscopes, a type of electronic test
instrument introduced in the late 19th-century that graphically displays varying voltages of signals as a function of time. The series draws a direct lineage to mathematician and artist Ben Laposky (1914-2000), who in the 1950s used an analogue oscilloscope to manipulate electronic waves into visual forms he called
“Oscillons” - with one exemplar being part of the V&A collection in London. By photographing these transient signals, Laposky created some of the earliest examples of electronic visual art. The presentation includes two original Laposky prints (pictures above), situating 0xDEAFBEEF’s work within this historical trajectory.
GLITCHBOX (2021-25)
1/1 artwork. Forged iron, electronics, generative code
Not for sale, but open for special commission
Another central element of the installation is Glitchbox, an interactive sculpture derived from the artist’s generative token series. With the digital minted in 2021, the work was paired with a handforged iron sculpture by the artist in 2025.
Conceived as a programmable audiovisual instrument with handcrafted forged iron elements, Glitchbox allows participants to manipulate parameters — analogous to the knobs and switches of a modular synthesizer — to produce evolving audiovisual outputs. These interactions are recorded immutably on-chain, positioning the artwork as a dynamic and participatory system rather than a fixed object. By contrast, forged iron joinery carries associations with labour; hammer marks remain visible as proof of process, introducing individuality and material presence into generative systems.
“Invited to dive into the LACMA archives, I was immediately drawn to the chronophotographic work of Muybridge. In the 19th century, he developed new techniques to enable serial photography of people and animals in motion — images with an enigmatic quality that have been widely influential.” — 0xDEAFBEEF on his Chronophotograph collection
Chronophotographs (2023)
1/1 Platinum-Palladium photographic print paired with 1/1 digital artwork
267 unique (1/1) digital tokens in this collection. Only one print per token
This collection references Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) and his 19th-century experiments with motion capture through sequential photography. As Muybridge used multiple cameras to document phases of movement, 0xDEAFBEEF translates this logic into blockchain-based systems.
Blockchain, like chronophotography, is a time-based medium, with new blocks added approximately every twelve seconds. In the Chronophotograph series, the block number at the moment of observation seeds the procedural generation of images, producing snapshots of forms across phases of motion — digital chronophotographs embedded in time.
This collection encourages reflections on the perception of time, consensus reality, photography and blockchain as markers of time, as sources of objective truth, and their limitations therein.
Chronophotographs are each unique, randomly generated at the time of “observation”. The collection size is theoretically infinite — but our lifespan is finite.
HASHMARKS (2023)
Forged iron sculpture paired with digital artwork and photographic print with iron forge scale residue as pigment
100 physical Hashmarks produced. 6 available
Hashmarks is a series of forged iron sculptures paired with digital artworks and prints. The project consists of 100 unique hand-forged works, each cryptographically linked to a corresponding digital token and connected to a site-specific intervention in Patagonia responding to the movement and geological transformation of glaciers.
In computing, a hash functions as a fixed-length alphanumeric fingerprint generated from data. Here, that principle is translated into physical form: each sculpture is uniquely forged and engraved on the reverse with a cryptographic code that can be revealed to redeem its corresponding digital token.
Each work exists as a 1/1 piece, establishing a direct relationship between material gesture, encoded information, and digital ownership. The series explores how information is recorded and transmitted through time, where geological traces, handcrafted marks, and cryptographic systems all operate as forms of irreversible inscription.
