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Refik Anadol Studio, co-founded in 2025 by Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkiliç, has a flagship store in a Frank Gehry-designed development in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, and an immersive AI art & NFT museum called DATALAND at Grand LA. is launching. .
Dataland will feature an immersive AI art experience, taking immersion to the next level with the gallery’s AI-powered scents and establishing a new model of artistic expression at the beginning of the digital age. AI artist Refik Anadol explains:
“While we have not yet revealed the details of DATALAND’s artistic programming, there will be many opportunities to physically and virtually share/exhibit AI artists’ work so that people who cannot travel to LA can access AI artwork. You can also purchase AI artwork NFTs minted on Ethereum-based platforms and many other sustainable chains for exciting arts and culture activities.”
Refik Anadol Studio announced the launch of DATALAND during NYC Climate Week. The week will be celebrated for the first time across New York City and will be held in parallel with the United Nations General Assembly, which brings together world leaders to address the world’s critical challenges. Dataland’s first exhibit will be prepared using the Large Nature Model, an open-source AI model based solely on natural data, to create an unprecedented immersive AI-powered digital environmental artwork. The studio initially presented such an installation at the 2024 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and later at the United Nations in New York during the 2024 UNGA to promote environmental awareness. announced. United Nations Under-Secretary-General Melissa Fleming agreed:
“Refik Anadolu’s artwork is a testament to the beauty and fragility of our natural world. It is a clarion call to world leaders. We must use our ingenuity and initiative to take action to protect our planet before it is too late.”
The award-winning studio collaborates with leading technology companies, groundbreaking researchers, and cutting-edge thought leaders to produce projects that are screened in more than 70 cities across six continents. Experienced by millions of passionate fans. These exhibition venues include several United Nations Climate Change Conferences, MoMA, Pompidou Center Metz, Serpentine Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria, Venice Architecture Biennale, Hammer Museum, Arken Museum, Casa Batllo, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Daejeon Includes museums, Istanbul. Museum of Modern Art. Nevertheless, Refik Anadol Studio is, as Refik describes it, “a forward-thinking and innovative museum that supports the fields to which I have dedicated my career: art, science, technology, and art. We chose Los Angeles as the perfect city to launch.” This is AI research. ”And he continued:
“LA has long been a forward-looking city for art, music, film, architecture, and more, so it felt natural to open DATALAND here. Having a permanent space to develop a new paradigm of what a museum can be by fusing cutting-edge technology fulfills one of my biggest dreams. It’s almost incredible to be able to do that in a building designed by one of my heroes, Frank Gehry.”
Dataland uses millions of photographs and other records from partner museums such as the Smithsonian Institution and the Natural History Museum in London to create the installation. “We already have three major collaborations with museums in progress and are very confident in joining forces around the world,” Refik added.
AI art, NFT, and museum history
“I’m looking forward to learning more about DATALAND,” said Christiane Paul, Digital Art Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, at the Rhode Island School of Design’s AI Discussion April 11-12. We explained AI art history in detail at an annual symposium. 2024, inviting artists from all over the world. She explained that AI art has an interesting history of intertwining technology and creativity and continues to evolve, pushing the boundaries of what is possible at the intersection of technology and creativity.
Whitney Museum of American Art Digital Art Curator Christiane Paul discusses AI art history
Early beginnings: 1950s to 1970s. The roots of AI art can be traced back to early experiments in computer-generated art, in which artists and computer scientists collaborated to create visual, abstract compositions using early computer algorithms. One notable example from this era is the Whitney Museum’s exhibition curated by Christiane Paul that traces the evolution of Harold Cohen’s AARON, the first artificial intelligence program designed to create drawings and paintings. , captured with David Lisbon. AARON was first exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1972.
Algorithmic advances: 1980s to 2000s. During this period, advances in algorithms and computing power have enabled more complex and diverse works of art, and AI art has gained recognition in academic and artistic circles.
Dataland is home to the City of Los Angeles, which was founded in 2002 as the home of the Gray Area Foundation, a cultural incubator with a mission to foster, sustain, and apply cross-disciplinary collaborations that integrate art, technology, science, and AI. It worked. , and the humanities—toward a more just and regenerative future. The foundation moved its headquarters to San Francisco in 2005.
The deep learning revolution: The 2010s. The advent of deep learning has revolutionized generative adversarial networks and other machine learning techniques, making it possible to create highly sophisticated and realistic artwork. AI art began to be displayed in NFT format in galleries and museums, and auctioned off at prominent auction houses, raising questions about creativity and authorship.
In 2014, digital artist Kevin McCoy issued the first-ever art NFT.
Four years later, in 2018, Christie’s Art Auction House became the first auction house in history to sell an AI artwork. Christie’s also hosted the first blockchain-themed Art + Tech Summit. The second edition in June 2019 focused on artificial intelligence and art. Since then, blockchain, NFTs, and AI have become hot topics in the art world and intersected in unexpected ways. Under the direction of digital curator Christian Pohl, the Whitney Museum of American Art became an early collector of NFTs in 2018.
Mainstream Adoption: The 2020s. The availability of AI art tools to the general public has democratized the creation of AI-generated images. This era also saw debates about NFTs, their market bubbles and crashes, copyright, their impact on traditional artists, the ethical implications of AI in art, and more.
In Germany, the Intelligent Museum is ZKM’s practice-based research and development project. The Karlsruhe Arts Media Center and the Deutsche Kunsthalle received support in 2020 from the Digital Culture Program of the German Federal Cultural Foundation. This program explores new avenues of museum communication and outreach that connect museums with today’s AI technologies, making museums a place that: A social space where experience and experimentation, art, science, technology, and public discourse come together. One of the best-selling AI-generated NFT artists on display at ZKM is a program called Botto, invented in 2021 by a computer engineer and a German artist named Mario Klingemann, to create AI art NFTs. To date, Botto has created over 75 NFTs and generated over $3 million in revenue.
New York City’s Museum of Modern Art is investing in a new major endowment established by the William S. Paley Foundation ahead of the opening of Refik Anadolu’s Unsupervised, the first AI art show curated by Michelle Kuo. became the beneficiary. Supporting MoMA’s ambitious goals in digital media and technology and delivering new AI art/NFT acquisitions. Henry Kissinger, then president of the William S. Paley Foundation, said:
“I know how deeply my friend Bill Paley cared about the Museum of Modern Art and was committed to its development. , will continue his vision for MoMA.”
Despite this, MoMA has so far taken a cautious approach to NFTs. Other than the announcement that artist Refik Anadolu provided data for an algorithmically generated work and acquired “Unsupervised” into its permanent collection in October 2023, the museum is not involved in any other AI art or NFT projects. Not yet.
In Singapore, last year’s Notes From the Ether exhibition, curated by ArtScience Museum’s Deborah Lim and guest curator Clara Che Wei Peh, was an exciting glimpse into the future of digital art with works by 20 artists. It was a timely exhibition. Burak Arikan, Botto, Mitchell F Chan, DEAFBEEF Simon Denny, Harm van den Dorpel, Sarah Friend, Rimbawan Gerilya, Holly Herndon, Mathew Dryhurst, Tyler Hobbs, Dandelion Wistjo+kapi, Larva Labs, Jonas Lund, Ninaad Kothawade, Sarah Meyohas, Leah Meyers, Aaron Penn, Aruan Wang, Emily See. These artists are leveraging emerging technologies like non-fungible tokens and generative artificial intelligence to push the boundaries of what art is and can be.
The future of museums: AI art and NFT
According to Animation Art Academy, the use of AI-generated art has undoubtedly increased over the past 40 years, and the tokenization of art via NFTs has made it even more popular over the past decade. Vilas Dhar, Chairman of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, explained:
“AI is not just a tool for innovation; it is a force that can change the way we see our planet by reconnecting us with the beauty and fragility of nature in ways never before possible.” Refik Anadol’s brilliant vision allows us to use technology (AI art and NFTs) to stimulate the senses and evoke a deeper emotional connection with the natural world.”
During this year, many museums and over 100 “immersive” institutions around the world will exhibit/purchase AI art and NFTs at scale, showcasing the fusion of human imagination and machine intelligence, and the Seattle NFT Museum at the Guggenheim. include. Museum, Mercer Lab, Museum of Art and Light, Buffalo AKG Museum, Center Pompidou, Tate Modern, and PST Art: Art & Science Collide, which has hosted more than 60 shows throughout Southern California.
Magda Shawon, co-founder of New York City’s Postmasters Gallery and working with first NFT artist Kevin McCoy, brings AI-generated digital art to museums such as MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. I’ve been selling it. Over 20 years of American art. She agrees with Vilas and Melissa about Refik’s impactful AI artwork.
“When people sit in front of Refik Anadol’s AI Work, they don’t want to stop looking. Refik’s work is influential, but whether it will spark a huge field of AI generative art or not. NFT sales are a big problem.”
Although digital art has been collected for as long as it has existed, widespread adoption is still in its infancy. Art tokenization via NFTs is facilitating the integration of the digital and traditional art worlds, and is attracting growing interest from museums, immersive institutions, collectors, auction houses, NFT markets, and galleries. Kevin McCoy, the first NFT artist to create art NFTs in 2014, is hopeful and supports Refik’s museum, AI art, and NFT efforts. He emphasized:
“We are heartened by Anadolu’s announcement of Dataland. He is leading by example, both in his commitment to ‘ethical AI’ and in his commitment to exhibiting and preserving the AI and digital art that the museum represents. In this context, the provenance provided by NFTs and blockchain-based records more generally can play a central role. This will be an important next step in expanding the use of this technology. ”
