Nature dreams in a digital age
NATURE DREAMS Refik Anadol Image credit: Emma Sennels / ARKEN
The Turkish artist Refik Anadol can right now be seen on Danish soil for the first time ever in an exhibition at the contemporary art museum ARKEN south of Copenhagen. His art raises highly topical questions about our relationship with artificial intelligence.
What does it mean to be human in a time permeated by artificial intelligence – now and in the future? In his giant digital installations, Refik Anadol (b. 1985), who is currently also exhibited at MoMA, works with machine learning and artificial intelligence, utilising the data-driven algorithms found everywhere in our everyday life.
His installations raise philosophical questions which point to a future where human existence is inextricably linked to data and advanced computer technology – to an even greater extent than today. Refik Anadol presents three works at ARKEN, one of them created especially for the exhibition Nature dreams.
AI algorithmic abstractions
The works take their point of departure in visual presentations of nature found online and on digital media. These gushing waterfalls, sunsets, forests and plains affect our shared ideas about what nature is and what it looks like. Anadol has collected millions of images of nature through the years, compiling vast sets of data. Through AI algorithms, Anadol’s works transform this data into completely new, partially abstract and everchanging depictions of nature. The main work of the exhibition is the 7 x 7 metre data sculpture Nature Dreams from 2021.
Weather data from Ishøj becomes a new work of art
Refik Anadol has created a new work rooted in the museum’s unique natural setting. Taking its starting point in meteorological data from the area around ARKEN, the work’s algorithms translate this information into a visual world of images that will be displayed outdoors, projected onto the museum building. Responding to the weather, the work will change from one minute to the next.
In the third work of the exhibition, visitors enter an immersive installation where the viewer’s senses are subjected to a barrage of input from all sides, as if you had entered the brain of a machine.
Three-year exhibition series
REFIK ANADOL – NATURE DREAMS is the first part of ARKEN’s three-year exhibition series NATURE FUTURE, which uses art to explore humanity’s relationship with nature and technology, now and in the future. NATURE FUTURE will unfold within the museum’s spectacular 1,000 m2 gallery, The Art Axis, taking the form of a succession of immersive installations created by leading international contemporary artists.
To the greatest extent possible, these exhibitions will be produced in Denmark and specifically for the museum in order to minimise climate impact and costs due to factors such as international shipping.
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