Art market: Painting by numbers ©Victor Boyko "Art Experiment" at Moscow's Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture Roll over, Rembrandt. Art collecting, like everything from government bureaucracy to healthcare, is going digital. Phillips, which once counted Napoleon and Marie-Antoinette among its customers, became the first big auction house to co-run a sale devoted solely to digital artworks this week. Think video files and pixelating images. The proceeds - $90,000 for 20 works on offer - hardly matched the record $495m clocked up by rival Christie's at its May contemporary art sale in New York. Even so, the event was a reminder that "new" is what attracts hot money in the art market at present. Art indices Top 25% of auction results As data compiled by Art Market Research shows, auction price gains for contemporary (1980 onwards) and modern (most of the 20th century) works have easily beaten those for Old Masters, 19th century art, and even the Impressionists in recent years. Moreover, by late 2012, sale prices for contemporary and modern items had almost returned to the heady levels seen in 2008, before the art bubble burst and prices across the market slumped. Since then, auction prices for these newer creations have slipped, although, at the very top end, exceptional sums continue to be paid. But on a longer-term view - during the past 15 years, say - price gains at the modern end of the spectrum have hugely outstripped those for older masterpieces. The popular explanation is a coterie of new, wealthy buyers from Asia, Russia and the Middle East, who tend to prefer recent work. Their presence is said to have accounted for some of the headline-snatching sale results seen lately, and, in the trophy slice of the market, their influence shows few signs of waning. Key lots in Christie's May event, where nine items fetched $10m-plus, went to people who had never bought there before, according to the auction house. This factor may also explain why sale results have been more sedate at lower price levels. There is always an element of trickle-down (because differentials are watched carefully), but cheaper works have shown none of the giddy swings seen at the top end. Whether such trends reassure art investors as the Frieze fair opens in London next week, and the autumn auctions get under way, is another matter. That prices for newer works have been consolidating, rather than bubbling to new highs, may be healthy. Still, on a one-year view, gains in equity indices, such the S&P 500 index, have trumped all art market segments, hands down.