Refik Anadol Spotlight

How does AI interpret and transform traditional art?

While the steady rise of AI has been worrisome for the future of some artists, Refik Anadol has been embracing AI to generate beautiful digital creations. Anadol utilizes artificial technology to create digital art in tune with our increasingly modern era. Born in Istanbul, he has explored and experimented with different approaches to data narratives – a written summary of a set of data that draws conclusions to explain or show the meaning of the data – through the intersections between art, science, and technology. Anadol currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California, where he operates RAS LAB and Refik Anadol Studio, developing new data narratives he can interweave into his digital art. Ahead of the curve in an environment where AI usage is becoming more common than not, he is branching beyond traditional art or technology forms to create beautiful intermixing of art, media, and design. 

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Anadol has been focusing on “what it means to be human in the age of AI.” He repurposes real-time data or millions of images to generate his extraordinary creations. The data ranges from real-time weather, temperature, and humidity to invisible Wifi and Bluetooth signals or uses images of Earth landscapes, galaxies, and people. His recent features have included repurposing his AI data sculpture Machine Hallucinations for the 2023 Grammy Awards stage and his Unsupervised exhibit in the MoMa. 

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Machine Hallucinations: Space and Nature Series, 20223 Grammy Awards

Refik Anadol

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Machine Hallucinations – Nature Dreams was a set of four data paintings, the result of seven years of AI research and transforming AI outputs into data pigmentation. Anadol refers to the data pigmentation as a “type of aesthetic output of machine dreams,” including but not limited to nature, galaxies, cities, and culture. The mesmerizing, hallucinatory show of swirling magentas and violets was curated by datasets of more than 300 million publicly available images of nature and space. Machine Hallucinations was initially designed specifically for KÖNIG GALERIE, centering around real-time environmental data collected from the city of Berlin. The data paintings projected onto the side of the St. Agnes tower produced a fascinating mixture of technology, art, architecture, and science on display for all of the city to admire. 

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Machine Hallucinations: Nature Dreams, St. Agnes tower

Refik Anadol

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Unsupervised is a major 24’ x 24’ media installation that continuously generates three of Anadol’s works in real-time. Anadol utilized AI to “machine dream” more than 200 years of art at the MoMa by training a machine-learning model to interpret all of the publicly available data of the MoMa. The model reimagines the past, present, and future of these traditional and modern artworks on display and outputs them into a mesmerizing digital art show. Anadol is “trying to find ways to connect memories with the future” and “make the invisible visible.” 

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Unsupervised, MoMA

Refik Anadol

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