Page 190 - The 60.Venice Biennial & MoMA issue of WOA Contemporary Art magazine

WORLD-CLASS ART

REFIK ANADOL:
UNSUPERVISED
THIS MAJOR INSTALLATION WILL FEATURE THREE NEW
DIGITAL ARTWORKS BY REFIK ANADOL THAT USE ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE TO INTERPRET AND TRANSFORM MORE THAN
200 YEARS OF ART FROM MOMA’S COLLECTION. KNOWN
FOR HIS GROUNDBREAKING DIGITAL ARTWORKS AND PUBLIC
INSTALLATIONS, ANADOL HAS CREATED A SINGULAR AND
UNPRECEDENTED MEDITATION ON TECHNOLOGY, CREATIVITY,
AND MODERN ART. UNSUPERVISED WILL CONTINUOUSLY
GENERATE NEW FORMS ON A LARGESCALE
MEDIA WALL MEASURING APPROXIMATELY 24 × 24 FEET IN THE
MUSEUM’S GROUND-FLOOR GUND LOBBY.

What would a machine dream of after seeing the collection of The
Museum of Modern Art? For Unsupervised, artist Refik Anadol
(b. 1985) uses artificial intelligence to interpret and transform
more than two hundred years of art at MoMA. Known for his Installation view of Refik Anadol: Unsupervised, The Museum of Modern Art,
New York, November 19, 2022 – April 15, 2023. © 2023 The Museum of Modern
groundbreaking media works and public installations, Anadol Art. Photo: Robert Gerhardt
has created a singular meditation on technology, creativity, and
modern art. Unsupervised features a digital artwork that unfolds in real
time, continuously generating new and otherworldly forms
Refik Anadol. Sample data visualization of Unsupervised — Machine Hallucinations
- MoMA - Fluid Dreams, Data sculpture: custom software, generative algorithm that envelop viewers in a large-scale installation. The artist
with artificial intelligence (AI), real time digital animation on LED screen, sound. trained a sophisticated machine learning model to interpret the
Dimensions variable. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. © Refik Anadol Studio
publicly available data of MoMA’s collection. As the machine
learning model “walks” through its conception of this vast
range of works, it reimagines the history of modern art and
dreams about what might have been - and what might be to
come. In turn, Anadol incorporates site-specific input from
the surrounding environment of the Museum’s Gund Lobby -
changes in light, movement, acoustics, and the weather - to
affect the continuously shifting imagery and sound. The history
of modern art is transformed by the liveness of public space
in the present. Anadol’s installation reshapes the relationship
between the physical and the virtual, the real and the unreal.
Often, AI is used to classify, process, and generate realistic
representations of the world. Unsupervised, by contrast, is
visionary: it explores fantasy, hallucination, and irrationality,
creating an alternate understanding of artmaking itself.
The installation is based on works that are encoded on the
blockchain, a distributed digital ledger, which stands as a public
record of Anadol’s art. By revivifying and remodeling archives
of collective memory, Anadol hopes to pose new futures.

190 WORLD of ART