Using artificial intelligence

This is not the kind of art one is used to seeing in a traditional museum. Nor is it one of those giant immersive installations, purely decorative, that rehash images from art history.

Through October 19, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is dedicating one of its impressive, irregularly shaped rooms designed by Frank Gehry (See here an interview of Frank Gehry) to a multimedia work by LA-based, Turkish artist Refik Anadol (born in 1985) (See here an other interview of Refik Anadol). It’s a project that is aesthetic and grand, but also conceptual, as it was created using artificial intelligence.

You need time

The first thing visitors should know is that if they don’t spend enough time in Gallery 208, they won’t understand a thing. You need to stay at least ten minutes, immersing yourself in the spectacle, in order to understand the idea behind “Living Architecture: Gehry,” as the piece is called. The work extends in 360 degrees across walls with no right angles, some towering up to 16 meters high. The images are constantly evolving.

The good side of AI

A superstar in the field of digital art, Refik Anadol has a wonderfully kind, optimistic disposition. He wants to harness the good side of artificial intelligence. Since childhood, he has dreamed of a robot friend, of a computer capable of dreaming. So he devised a system that compiles architectural data drawn from Frank Gehry’s repertoire.

Nature+ architecture

In parallel, he aggregated a phenomenal amount of data related to what he calls “nature,” thanks to a collaboration with, among others, the Smithsonian Institution, an American educational organization. Then, with the help of AI, he fused the two with a guiding principle:  nature + architecture = culture.

Utopian architectures

The idea is for AI and the artist himself to invent new, utopian architectures. If you arrive at the right moment, you’ll be treated to an infinite projection of real buildings dancing across the gallery walls. When the mechanism is in the midst of data processing, abstract, colorful shapes appear in motion, like a kind of waiting sequence. Then come the invented images, engaging in dialogue with equally imaginary environments.

With the Yawanawa

We could have guessed it: Anadol is a unique being. For the past four years, he has spent significant time with a small Amazonian tribe in Brazil, the Yawanawa. He says of them: “They are my mentors, my teachers. The tribal chief is fascinated by AI-generated imagery. He said that it closely resembles their dreams in real life.”

Spiritual journey

To go on such spiritual journeys, both the indigenous people and Anadol himself use ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic brew believed to connect humans to the spirit world. “It is impossible to separate oneself from spirituality in the forest. It is in fact the only way to communicate and survive.”

New repertoire

Through his work, Anadol offers up a virtuous AI world, populated by an architecture that harmonizes with its environment. To design his vast dream-generating machine from his 20-person studio in Los Angeles, he has adopted a slower, more energy-efficient approach. With this piece, he renews his repertoire, introducing a new kind of artistic emotion.

Ryan Zurrer

“Until now, art has been grounded in the richness of its history, in its constant references to the past,” observes digital art collector and sponsor of this project, Ryan Zurrer. “Here, we are faced with a new feeling—nostalgia for the future. As I watch the piece, I am transported to another time, and when I leave, I feel nostalgic.” ( See here an other interview of Ryan Zurrer).

It is said that over the course of seven months of exhibition, no returning visitor will see the same thing twice.