I came to scoff and stayed to praise. Dataland, the museum of AI arts in Los Angeles by Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç, is their supernatural fantasy of gorgeous data. Unlikely as it seems, with multi-coloured lights swirling overhead, underfoot and patterning the body, it is all drawn from the natural world.
The Turkish artists, who are married, first conceived of it during the 2019 Covid pandemic when they felt deprived of actual nature due to the parks and trails that were closed. Working indoors, they created their own out-of-doors, an AI realm that evolved as the new Machine Dreams: Rainforest.
Immersive art installations are commonplace now, but Dataland is a world apart, literally.
Eighty-four 4K Epson projectors and 50 billion pixels deliver images from the Amazon selected from the Smithsonian’s Encyclopedia of Life, a digital resource at the National Museum of Natural History. These are not films but the multicoloured, photographic essences of butterflies, orchids, ferns and fauna. It evolved from Anadol’s own choice to take ayahuasca (a psychedelic) with a spiritual leader and discover profound connections to the rainforest. Here, the journey through the galleries concludes with one called the Sanctuary and a sacred healing song of the Yawanawá people.
Is this recreated world a hallucinatory experience? Pretty much, and doubtless many visitors will enhance their 20 or more minutes of wandering or dancing to light and music.
An omni-sensual experience, it was designed by Anadol, Erkılıç and his collaborators to respond to your responses. At the entry to the 25,000 sq ft structure on the lower level of a Frank Gehry-designed high-rise in the downtown arts district, visitors are given wristbands that convey their physiological and emotional responses. A padded collar around the neck wafts a series of individualised odours, a collaboration with L’Oréal. I got sweet moonflower.
Walking through towering rooms radiant with patterns as well as specific images of foliage and fluidity, with birds and lightning bugs flittering about, my own response was astonishment. The music leans towards techno-pop with bird song from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. During my visit, a long passage from Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No.3 added to the sense of being in a meadow dappled with sunlight. The romantic theme was suggested by Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor laureate of the LA Philharmonic at Disney Hall, which stands across the street. This integration of past, present and future may be key to some sense of wellbeing within the unprecedented presentation. Far from jarring, the Infinity Room is an Avatar-like virtual landscape and fable about a glass hummingbird based on Anadol’s own dreams. But the haunting sound of a mating call is that of a now-extinct bird in Hawaii. It is the last known recording of its call.
‘Our model is asking, can art feel us back? Our heartbeat, our emotions, our goosebumps?
Refik Anadol
Anadol is the most advanced and sophisticated of artists using AI. His pulsing flat screens appear to morph from two to three dimensions and have been shown in many galleries and museums. Art critics were unconvinced and made unflattering comparisons to lava lamps. Anadol accelerated into the challenge by using AI to build his Large Nature Model – ‘the world’s first open-source AI model based solely on nature data’, trained on datasets drawn from 'ethical sources'. As he walked among visitors to this creation, he explained, 'Everything here was designed from the beginning. There are no cables. Intentionally, everything is just art and technology. It’s a first, never been done before. This is ten years of practice.'
He points out that for thousands of years, we have looked at art and had feelings. 'Our model is asking, can art feel us back? Our heartbeat, our emotions, our goosebumps? If it feels, what does that mean? We can hear, touch, smell, feel, even taste, so it's truly exploring the five senses.'
On the taste front, various types of chocolate – 'data sculptures' – are given to visitors at the conclusion of their wander through different galleries. The LA chocolaterie Valerie Confections used data from the show to make the sweets, some being fruity, another with an ashy, woodsy flavour.
About that data: Refik Anadol Studio claims it is erased after 30 days. Visitors can choose to keep their data, which can be used to decorate a T-shirt, available in the gift shop, of course. There are Dataland memberships offering priority visits as well as NFT options. At the conclusion of the show, there is an ironic moment. A gallery with an enormous robotic arm can use your data to produce paintings. The kind that hang on your wall as, well, art.