Through a selection of past work as well as ARTECHOUSE premieres, this first major retrospective of new media artist Refik Anadol explored data sets ranging from human memories to photographs of Mars, inviting visitors to open their senses to the endless possibilities at the intersection of man and machine.
“This collection of work represents my passion to critically pursue the intersection of machine intelligence, media, and architecture. I hope to offer a new visualization of our digitized memories, expanding the possibilities of architecture, narrative, and the body in motion, as well as a dramatic rethinking of the physical world, our relationship to time and space, and the creative potential of machines to enhance our cognitive capacities.” – Refik Anadol
Retrospective – Main Gallery
Bosphorous (Nov 2018, Pilevneli – Istanbul, Turkey) This data sculpture is based on the rhythms of high-frequency radar collections of the Marmara Sea in Turkey, taken in 30 minute intervals over 30 days.
Archive Dreaming (April 2017, SALT Research – Istanbul, Turkey) This immersive installation used machine learning algorithms to uncover relationships between 1.7 million archival materials from the SALT Research Collections.
Machine Memoirs (June 2019, ARTECHOUSE premier) This immersive exploration of celestial structures trained A.I. on a dataset of approximately 2.2 million images of the Earth, Moon, Mars and galaxies from NASA missions ISS, Chandra, Kepler, Voyager and Hubble. By learning from past explorations, the machine “dreams” about what has yet to be discovered and creates alternate universes that may exist just beyond our reach.
Infinity Room (Sept 2015, Zorlu Center of Performing Arts – Istanbul, Turkey)
This immersive audio-visual installation has been viewed around the world by over 2 million people and is part of Anadol’s “Temporary Immersive Environment Experiments” — creating a sense of “immersion,” much like virtual reality but without the headset. This work uses machine randomness itself as a dataset to algorithmically generate light and sound, creating a limitless viewing experience that challenges our perception of place and self.
Infinity Cubes
Pladis: Data Universe (Feb 2018, Istanbul, Turkey) This immersive audio-visual installation uses NASA’s open source data on the star cluster M45 (also known as Pleiades) and is part of Anadol’s “Temporary Immersive Environment Experiments” — creating a sense of “immersion,” much like virtual reality but without the headset.
Celestial Structures (June 2019, ARTECHOUSE premier) This immersive installation uses a similar dataset from NASA missions as “Machine Memoirs” but focuses on a subset of the data and allows viewers to physically step into its infiniteness.
Wind Data Paintings (Jan 2017, Boston MA) This series of data paintings were Anadol’s first commissions and transform meteorological wind patterns collected from Boston’s Logan airport into a soothing, immersive visual experience.
Melting Memories (Feb 2018, Pilevneli – Istanbul, Turkey) Inspired by his uncle’s diagnosis with Alzheimers, this data sculpture transforms EEG data collected by scientists at the Neuroscape Laboratory at the University of California into a moving visualization of the moment of remembering.
Data Tunnel (June 2019, ARTECHOUSE premier) This immersive installation uses a similar dataset from NASA missions as “Machine Memoirs” but instead uses LEDs and mirrors to create an alternate universe where visitors lose their sense of space while walking through and exploring the notion of infinity as it relates to our galaxy.