LONDON.- Last night Moniker Art Fair 2016 opened its doors to a sold-out crowd of collectors, art enthusiasts and the culture-curious for its preview night.

The fair, now in its seventh year, has established itself as a key satellite event of London Art Week, showcasing emerging contemporary urban talent. Visitors engaged with numerous installations throughout the building, including an 18-metre digital ‘playground’ created by Maser, a virtual reality Oculus Rift life-after-death journey by Jose Montemeyor and the sinister noir studio of Colin McMaster.

Works were sold directly off the printing press with Jealous Gallery creating the first of several signed, limited-edition runs with Toaster during the preview. Josh Stika, Jess Wilson and Word to Mother are among the print runs scheduled for the forthcoming weekend and local artist Adam Dant will be signing books from his series of sketches inspired by East London with TAG Fine Arts.

International galleries from as far as The Philippines and Iran are exhibiting over 100 artists across the fair, working in everything from vinyl and virtual reality to paint and perspex. As well as browsing their work in real time, guests used the MAF2016 App to get a behind-the-scenes look at the artists and their methods; selected works are scanable and allow visitors to step behind the canvas and access supporting audio and video material, a world first for art fairs.

Fair director Tina Ziegler comments, If you’re going to break through to the new breed of collectors and stir aspiration in art lovers, you need to allow them new levels of access not only to the works themselves, but the artists and the inspiration and technique too. We’ve removed that barrier with subversions of regular fairs this year: our MAF2016 app allows access to hidden content as you scan individual pieces; the artists themselves are not only on hand to talk, but to create on-site; and of course the art we’ve curated allows new levels of immersion in itself.

Many of the artists featured will be present throughout the course of the fair, on hand to sign limited edition prints, discuss their work with visitors in ‘open studios’ and speak at The Art Conference, which shares its programme of keynote talks with Moniker in the Brewery building.

Max Zorn kicked things off during the preview, creating his unique, striking tape art for onlookers while they made the most of the on-site bar and Mexican cuisine. Zorn commented, I was operating out of Amsterdam, and my art along with the techniques I used to create it was picked up on a viral video which had over a million hits. That changed things, and allowed me to leapfrog traditional routes into selling my work and finding a fanbase. Working at the fair itself is a little odd to begin with: when I’m creating my art there’s always that moment that I discover whether or not a piece is going to ‘work’. Doing that under a microscope almost feels like being back in school and having your teacher standing behind you! But this is the best way for people to understand the work that goes into my art.