SYDNEY.- Once the darling of the art world, at the height of the NFT boom in 2021, these digital assets traded at a combined volume of over $25 billion. But today, 95% of all NFT collections have a market cap of zero. Rather than let this ‘art’ go to waste, the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia) is offering to trade them for entry over the final weeks of its landmark exhibition Data Dreams: Art & AI.

“NFTs were a unique moment in the artworld – demonstrating how fast art, culture and digital technology moves,” said MCA Australia Director Suzanne Cotter. “While they may have have lost their financial value, it doesn’t mean they’re worthless. Data Dreams: Art and AI is an exhibition about exactly that tension - about what digital technologies promise us, and what they deliver. Accepting NFTs isn’t a gimmick – it’s a chance for art lovers to turn something that’s lost it’s value into something priceless – access to one of the most important conversations in contemporary art today."

Presented as part of the 2025–26 Sydney International Art Series, Data Dreams: Art and AI is the first of its kind to be staged by an Australian art museum and brings together 10 visionary artists from around the world to consider the profound impact of artificial intelligence on contemporary life and creative practice.

The AFR calls it “a landmark Sydney show."​ Time Out found it "Wild... The artists asking you to expand your mind come from all over, and each of them have something very fascinating to say.” Broadsheet​ thought it was "...less Silicon Valley techno-optimism, more critical examination of the systems reshaping our reality now."​

The exhibition brings into focus a range of contemporary concerns, including the relationships between technology and power; how algorithms and datasets are influencing our worldviews and calling our perception of reality into question; and the environmental costs of the data economy.

The NFT swap runs for two weeks from April 13 until the exhibition's close on 27 April 2026. Visitors wishing to pay by NFT can present proof of transfer at the admissions desk. The MCA will accept NFTs from any collection, on any chain, at any floor price - including zero. The offer is limited to 95 tickets (because 95% of NFTs are now worthless).

How it works

• Visitors go to MCA ticket desk and state they wish to pay by NFT.

• Staff direct them to the MCA's designated wallet address.

• The visitor opens their crypto wallet, initiates a transfer of one NFT to that address, and shows staff the confirmed transaction screen.

• Staff issue the ticket and log the transaction.

Data Dreams presents projects by 10 contemporary artists working at the forefront of art and AI:

Angie Abdilla (b. 1979 Launceston, Lutruwita/Tasmania. Lives and works Gadigal Country, Sydney. Palawa, Trawlwoolway peoples): Indigenous knowledge systems are brought into dialogue with Western astrophysics in Abdilla’s Meditation on Country (2024), combining scientific and cultural datasets.

Fabien Giraud (b. 1980, Paris): MCA Australia presents the world premiere of The Feral (2025–3025), a thousand-year-long film fully shot and edited by artificial intelligence, involving 32 generations of humans in a dramatic landscape in central France.

Kate Crawford & Vladan Joler (b. 1974 Gadigal Country, Sydney. Lives and works in New York, US/b. 1977 Novi Sad, Serbia. Lives and works in Novi Sad): Anatomy of an AI System (2018) is a visual investigation into the real-world infrastructure and raw materials required to fabricate, power and dispose of ‘smart’ AI devices, mapping the profound implications of these new technologies for humanity and the planet.

Lynn Hershman Leeson (b. 1941, Cleveland, US. Lives and works in San Francisco, US): Logic Paralyzes the Heart (2021) and Cyborgian Rhapsody: Immortality (2023) from Hershman Leeson’s acclaimed Cyborg film series (1994–2023) trace the radical ways that AI and other technologies are reshaping our lives, societies and the environment. As a foundational innovator in the field, Hershman Leeson has been considering the relationship between technology and humanity over her career.

Agnieszka Kurant (b. 1978, Łódź, Poland. Lives and works in New York): In Kurant’s sculptural work Chemical Garden (2021/2025), plant-like crystals grow in an aquarium from the same metal salts found in computers and deep-sea vents. In Conversions (2019–ongoing) a liquid crystal painting morphs in response to emotional data collected from millions of social media accounts using a custom AI system.

Trevor Paglen (b. 1974, Camp Springs, Maryland, US. Lives and works in New York, US): In Paglen’s photographic series Adversarially Evolved Hallucinations (2017–ongoing), uncanny AI-powered images invite us to look inside the strange world of datasets and neural networks, probing the limits of machine perception.

Christopher Kulendran Thomas: The Finesse (2022) is a monumental video installation which transports audiences into a simulated forest melding pop culture and political science. Combining archival footage with AI-generated avatars, it questions the role AI technologies play in a world where real and fake messages are indistinguishable. Kulendran Thomas invites us to discern the truth for ourselves.

Hito Steyerl (b. 1966, Munich, Germany. Lives and works in Berlin): An expansive new installation blending documentary footage, AI-generated imagery and sculptures of digital forms by acclaimed artist Hito Steyerl, Mechanical Kurds (2025) examines the sinister worlds of AI-led warfare and surveillance, and the hidden human labour behind these powerful systems.

Anicka Yi (b. 1971, Seoul. Lives and works in New York, US): Anicka Yi looks at the possibilities for intelligence and collaboration beyond human and organic life in Radiolaria (2023–24), a series of luminous suspended sculptures that undulate like deep-sea creatures. Each Branch Of Coral Holds Up The Light of The Moon (2024) is a 3D animation generated using custom AI software designed to carry on her art practice after her death.

Curated by MCA Australia's Jane Devery (Senior Curator, Exhibitions), Anna Davis (Curator), and Tim Riley Walsh (Assistant Curator), with exhibition design by BVN Architects, Data Dreams transforms the MCA’s galleries into a series of experiential spaces that invite visitors to engage with the possibilities and provocations at the intersection of art and AI.

Transferred NFTs will be stored in a wallet, not on a wall, for the purpose solely of this promotional campaign. Receipt of an NFT does not constitute an assessment of its merit, value, or cultural significance and transferred NFTs will not enter the MCA Collection, are not linked to or included in MCA Exhibitions, nor affiliated with MCA Collections or Exhibitions in any way.

MCA Australia thanks Strategic Sponsor Destination NSW for its support. The Sydney International Art Series, established in 2010, brings the world’s most outstanding exhibitions exclusively to Sydney through a partnership between Destination NSW, MCA Australia, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.