Art in the age of machine intelligence | Refik Anadol

Summary

Refik, a media artist, explores the intersection of artificial intelligence and human creativity. Using data as his medium, he transforms architectural spaces into immersive experiences. Drawing inspiration from films like *Blade Runner*, he questions whether machines can dream, hallucinate, and remember. His projects, such as 'Virtual Depictions,' 'Archive Dreaming,' and 'Machine Hallucination,' blend technology and art to create sensory experiences, visualizing vast archives and memories. Refik's work invites audiences to rethink how AI interacts with human knowledge, emotion, and memory, expanding the possibilities of imagination in the 21st century.

Takeaways

• 🎨 Refik Anadol is a media artist who uses data as a creative medium and employs artificial intelligence to collaborate with machines, aiming to make buildings 'dream' and 'hallucinate'.
• 🌟 His inspiration was sparked by the futuristic vision of 'Blade Runner', particularly the concept of machines dealing with memories, which led him to question the capabilities of AI in processing human memories.
• 🏙️ Anadol's work involves transforming architectural spaces into canvases, creating immersive experiences that blend the physical and virtual worlds through data visualization.
• 🔍 He explores the 'poetics of data', turning everyday data into sensory experiences, as demonstrated in his 'Virtual Depictions' project, which visualizes the city's network of connections.
• 🌬️ Wind-data paintings and 'Bosphorus', a kinetic data sculpture, are examples of how Anadol uses machine intelligence to simulate natural phenomena and create meditative experiences.
• 🧠 'Melting Memories' is a project inspired by Alzheimer's disease, visualizing the process of remembering and celebrating the act of memory itself, using EEG data and machine learning.
• 🏛️ Anadol's work with the Walt Disney Concert Hall involved using machine intelligence to project 100 years of archived memories onto the building, making it 'dream'.
• 📚 'Archive Dreaming' is an AI-driven installation that explores 1.7 million documents, inspired by Borges' 'The Library of Babel', aiming to physically navigate vast archives of knowledge.
• 🖼️ 'Machine Hallucination' uses machine learning to process over 100 million photographs, creating a dreamlike fusion of past and future images of New York City.
• 🤖 Anadol's TED Talk data universe project processes and visualizes 30 years of TED Talks, clustering topics and revealing new conceptual relationships, showcasing the potential of AI in expanding human cognitive capabilities.

Q & A

What is Refik's artistic approach?

Refik uses data as a pigment and AI as a tool to create immersive art that blends architectural spaces with machine intelligence. His work explores the idea of buildings dreaming and hallucinating through data and technology.

How did Refik first become inspired to pursue his artistic vision?

Refik's inspiration began when he watched the movie 'Blade Runner' as a child. The architectural vision of the future Los Angeles mesmerized him and stayed with him as a core part of his artistic imagination.

What key question drives Refik's work with AI and memories?

A key question that drives Refik's work is, 'What can a machine do with someone else's memories?' He explores how machines can process memories and whether they can dream, hallucinate, or remember involuntarily.

How does Refik view the collaboration between humans and AI?

Refik believes that AI is only intelligent as long as it collaborates with humans. AI can construct things that human intelligence envisions but may not have the capacity to realize alone.

What role does data play in Refik's art?

Data serves as the core medium in Refik's art. He treats it as a pigment that can be transformed into sensory experiences, creating connections between human senses and machine intelligence.

What is 'Archive Dreaming,' and how does it relate to AI?

'Archive Dreaming' is one of Refik's AI-driven public installations. It allows users to explore approximately 1.7 million documents spanning 270 years through machine intelligence, transforming the experience of a library in the digital age.

What was the significance of the 'Melting Memories' project?

'Melting Memories' visualized the process of remembering, inspired by Refik's uncle's battle with Alzheimer's. The project explored how memories are not static but change shape over time, using brain signals to generate the art.

How does Refik's work relate to the concept of machines dreaming?

Refik explores whether machines can dream through various projects, such as the 'Machine Hallucination' installation, which uses AI to process millions of photographs and generate new dreamlike images of New York City.

How does Refik's work combine physical and virtual worlds?

Refik's art combines physical architectural spaces with virtual, AI-generated experiences, creating immersive environments where data and machine intelligence merge with real-world structures.

What does Refik mean when he asks if a building can learn or dream?

Refik refers to his work with the LA Philharmonic, where he projected 100 years of archived memories onto the Walt Disney Concert Hall. He explores the idea of a building learning and dreaming by merging its history with AI-generated visuals.

Outlines

00:00

🎨 Exploring AI and Artistic Imagination

Refik introduces himself as a media artist using artificial intelligence and data to create art. He reflects on his childhood inspiration from the movie 'Blade Runner' and the idea of memories and intelligence in machines. His creative work revolves around exploring how machines can collaborate with human intelligence to achieve what humans alone cannot. He contemplates whether machines can dream, hallucinate, or remember and how this could revolutionize our relationship with history and knowledge.

05:01

🌊 Visualizing Nature and Data Through AI

Refik discusses his project 'Bosphorus,' where high-frequency radar data from the Marmara Sea is used to create a dynamic and immersive synthetic sea experience. He reflects on how architecture and imagination extend beyond physical materials, with AI offering new ways to augment our perception. He connects his work to artificial intelligence and the feeling of being plugged into a broader, more knowledgeable system, introducing the 'Archive Dreaming' project, which used AI to explore 1.7 million cultural documents from Istanbul.

10:04

🧠 Immersing in Machine-Driven Knowledge and Memories

Refik takes the audience on a journey into the world of machine intelligence, focusing on how memories and knowledge evolve through AI. He details projects like 'Machine Hallucination,' where AI processed 100 million images of New York City to create a fusion of past and future. He introduces 'Melting Memories,' a work inspired by his uncle's Alzheimer's diagnosis, visualizing the fragility and transformation of memories through machine intelligence. Finally, he reflects on his collaboration with the LA Philharmonic, where AI turned 77 terabytes of archived memories into a projection on the Walt Disney Concert Hall, realizing his childhood dream of seeing a building dream.

🤖 AI and the Power of Collective Knowledge

In the final segment, Refik invites the audience into a TED Talk data universe, where AI processes 30 years of talks, generating clusters of interconnected topics. He highlights the impressive power of AI in mapping relationships between concepts and creating a vast knowledge network. Standing inside this AI-driven mind, he expresses his belief that the future of AI is in human hands, capable of expanding our understanding and remembering what we can only dream of.

Keywords

💡Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions. In the context of the video, AI is integral to Refik Anadol's artistic process, where he uses AI to assist in creating immersive and interactive art installations. Anadol explores the potential of AI to not only process data but also to 'dream' and 'hallucinate,' suggesting a deeper level of interaction with human experiences and memories.

💡Data as Pigment

In the video, 'data as pigment' is a metaphorical concept where data is treated as a raw material for artistic creation, similar to how pigments are used in painting. Anadol and his team use data to create visual representations and experiences, transforming abstract information into tangible and aesthetically pleasing forms. This approach is exemplified in projects like 'Virtual Depictions,' where city data is visualized as a dynamic sculpture.

💡Architectural Spaces as Canvases

This concept refers to the use of physical structures or architectural spaces as the medium for displaying art, much like a canvas in traditional painting. Anadol's work often involves projecting digital art onto buildings, allowing the architecture itself to become part of the artwork. This is seen in projects like 'Melting Memories,' where brain signals are translated into visual representations on a building's surface.

💡Machine Learning

Machine learning is a subset of AI that enables machines to learn from data and improve their performance over time without being explicitly programmed. In the video, Anadol uses machine learning algorithms to process vast amounts of data, such as photographs and cultural documents, to create new images and experiences. This is evident in 'Machine Hallucination,' where algorithms predict and generate new images from historical data.

💡Immersive Experience

An immersive experience is one that engulfs the participant in a virtual or augmented environment, creating a sense of being physically present in the experience. Anadol's work often aims to create such experiences by using AI and data to transform architectural spaces. For example, 'Bosphorus' uses radar data to project a dynamic sea view, immersing viewers in a synthetic representation of nature.

💡Generative Algorithms

Generative algorithms are used to create art by setting initial parameters and allowing the algorithm to produce unique outputs based on these rules. In the video, Anadol mentions using generative algorithms to transform data from wind sensors into visual art, creating 'wind-data paintings' that represent the invisible forces of nature in a tangible form.

💡Cultural Documents

Cultural documents refer to records, texts, and other materials that represent a culture's knowledge and history. Anadol's 'Archive Dreaming' project involves using AI to explore and interpret a vast library of cultural documents, suggesting a new way of engaging with historical archives through technology.

💡Human Senses and Machine Simulation

This concept explores the relationship between human sensory experiences and machines' ability to simulate or recreate these experiences. Anadol's work often plays with this idea, using AI to create art that stimulates human senses, such as sight and sound, in novel ways. The 'Bosphorus' project is an example where sea-surface data is used to create an immersive, sensory experience of the sea.

💡Memory and AI

The video discusses the concept of memory in the context of AI, questioning whether machines can dream, hallucinate, or remember like humans. Anadol's 'Melting Memories' project is directly inspired by the experience of memory loss in Alzheimer's disease, using EEG data to visualize the process of remembering, suggesting a way for AI to engage with and represent human memory.

💡Public Installations

Public installations are artworks that are displayed in public spaces, often interactive and designed to engage a wide audience. Anadol's work frequently takes the form of public installations, such as 'Virtual Depictions' in San Francisco, which turns city data into a public art piece, inviting the community to engage with the artwork and reflect on the data that shapes their urban environment.

💡Digital Archives

Digital archives are collections of digital documents, images, or other media that are preserved and organized for access. In the video, Anadol mentions using digital archives, such as the LA Philharmonic's 100-year archive, to create projections on the Walt Disney Concert Hall. This project transforms the building into a living archive, showcasing the potential of AI to bring historical data to life in a public space.

Highlights

Refik Anadol describes himself as a media artist who uses data as a pigment and AI as a tool to create art.

He collaborates with machines to make architectural spaces dream and hallucinate.

Inspired by 'Blade Runner', Anadol ponders the potential of AI to process and dream with human memories.

AI's intelligence is seen as a collaborative effort between humans and machines.

Social networks and machines get smarter through increased human interaction.

Anadol questions if machines can dream, hallucinate, and make connections between human dreams.

He explores the idea of AI as a revolutionary tool for capturing and experiencing history.

Anadol's studio brings together architects, scientists, and artists to blend media arts with architecture.

Data is considered as a pigment in Anadol's work, creating a 'poetics of data'.

The project 'Virtual Depictions' turns city data into a public art installation in San Francisco.

Anadol's work transforms invisible data into collective sensory experiences.

Wind-data paintings visualize poems based on data from wind sensors.

The 'Bosphorus' kinetic data sculpture questions our capacity to reimagine natural occurrences.

Anadol's work with AI explores the potential of machines to simulate human senses and nature.

The 'Archive Dreaming' project uses AI to explore 1.7 million documents from Istanbul's cultural archives.

Inspired by 'The Library of Babel', Anadol imagines exploring vast archives through machine intelligence.

The 'Machine Hallucination' project uses AI to predict and hallucinate new images from New York's photographic archives.

Anadol reflects on the non-static nature of memories and how machines can simulate subconscious events.

The 'Melting Memories' project visualizes the process of remembering, inspired by Alzheimer's disease.

Anadol worked with the Neuroscape Laboratory to understand brain signals during memory formation.

For the LA Philharmonic's centennial, Anadol made the Walt Disney Concert Hall 'dream' with archived memories.

Anadol's final project immerses viewers in a data universe of 30 years of TED Talks, processed by machine intelligence.

He envisions AI as a tool for expanding human memory and imagination, controlled by our dreams and aspirations.

Transcripts

Hi, I'm Refik. I'm a media artist.

I use data as a pigment

and paint with a thinking brush

that is assisted by artificial intelligence.

Using architectural spaces as canvases,

I collaborate with machines

to make buildings dream and hallucinate.

You may be wondering, what does all this mean?

So let me please take you into my work and my world.

I witnessed the power of imagination when I was eight years old,

as a child growing up in Istanbul.

One day, my mom brought home a videocassette

of the science-fiction movie "Blade Runner."

I clearly remember being mesmerized

by the stunning architectural vision of the future of Los Angeles,

a place that I had never seen before.

That vision became a kind of a staple of my daydreams.

When I arrived in LA in 2012

for a graduate program in Design Media Arts,

I rented a car and drove downtown

to see that wonderful world of the near future.

I remember a specific line

that kept playing over and over in my head:

the scene when the android Rachael

realizes that her memories are actually not hers,

and when Deckard tells her they are someone else's memories.

Since that moment,

one of my inspirations has been this question.

What can a machine do with someone else's memories?

Or, to say that in another way,

what does it mean to be an AI in the 21st century?

Any android or AI machine

is only intelligent as long as we collaborate with it.

It can construct things

that human intelligence intends to produce

but does not have the capacity to do so.

Think about your activities and social networks, for example.

They get smarter the more you interact with them.

If machines can learn or process memories,

can they also dream?

Hallucinate?

Involuntarily remember,

or make connections between multiple people's dreams?

Does being an AI in the 21st century simply mean not forgetting anything?

And, if so,

isn't it the most revolutionary thing that we have experienced

in our centuries-long effort to capture history across media?

In other words,

how far have we come since Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner"?

So I established my studio in 2014

and invited architects,

computer and data scientists, neuroscientists,

musicians and even storytellers

to join me in realizing my dreams.

Can data become a pigment?

This was the very first question we asked

when starting our journey to embed media arts into architecture,

to collide virtual and physical worlds.

So we began to imagine what I would call the poetics of data.

One of our first projects, "Virtual Depictions,"

was a public data sculpture piece

commissioned by the city of San Francisco.

The work invites the audience

to be part of a spectacular aesthetic experience

in a living urban space

by depicting a fluid network of connections of the city itself.

It also stands as a reminder

of how invisible data from our everyday lives,

like the Twitter feeds that are represented here,

can be made visible

and transformed into sensory knowledge that can be experienced collectively.

In fact, data can only become knowledge when it's experienced,

and what is knowledge and experience can take many forms.

When exploring such connections

through the vast potential of machine intelligence,

we also pondered the connection between human senses

and the machines' capacity for simulating nature.

These inquiries began while working on wind-data paintings.

They took the shape of visualized poems

based on hidden data sets that we collected from wind sensors.

We then used generative algorithms

to transform wind speed, gust and direction

into an ethereal data pigment.

The result was a meditative yet speculative experience.

This kinetic data sculpture, titled "Bosphorus,"

was a similar attempt to question our capacity to reimagine

natural occurrences.

Using high-frequency radar collections of the Marmara Sea,

we collected sea-surface data

and projected its dynamic movement with machine intelligence.

We create a sense of immersion

in a calm yet constantly changing synthetic sea view.

Seeing with the brain is often called imagination,

and, for me, imagining architecture

goes beyond just glass, metal or concrete,

instead experimenting with the furthermost possibilities of immersion

and ways of augmenting our perception in built environments.

Research in artificial intelligence is growing every day,

leaving us with the feeling of being plugged into a system

that is bigger and more knowledgeable

than ourselves.

In 2017, we discovered an open-source library

of cultural documents in Istanbul

and began working on "Archive Dreaming,"

one of the first AI-driven public installations in the world,

an AI exploring approximately 1.7 million documents that span 270 years.

One of our inspirations during this process

was a short story called "The Library of Babel"

by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.

In the story, the author conceives a universe in the form of a vast library

containing all possible 410-page books of a certain format and character set.

Through this inspiring image,

we imagine a way to physically explore the vast archives of knowledge

in the age of machine intelligence.

The resulting work, as you can see,

was a user-driven immersive space.

"Archive Dreaming" profoundly transformed the experience of a library

in the age of machine intelligence.

"Machine Hallucination" is an exploration of time and space

experienced through New York City's public photographic archives.

For this one-of-a-kind immersive project,

we deployed machine-learning algorithms

to find and process over 100 million photographs of the city.

We designed an innovative narrative system

to use artificial intelligence to predict or to hallucinate new images,

allowing the viewer to step into a dreamlike fusion

of past and future New York.

As our projects delve deeper

into remembering and transmitting knowledge,

we thought more about how memories were not static recollections

but ever-changing interpretations of past events.

We pondered how machines

could simulate unconscious and subconscious events,

such as dreaming, remembering and hallucinating.

Thus, we created "Melting Memories"

to visualize the moment of remembering.

The inspiration came from a tragic event,

when I found out that my uncle was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

At that time, all I could think about

was to find a way to celebrate how and what we remember

when we are still able to do so.

I began to think of memories not as disappearing

but as melting or changing shape.

With the help of machine intelligence,

we worked with the scientists at the Neuroscape Laboratory

at the University of California,

who showed us how to understand brain signals as memories are made.

Although my own uncle was losing the ability to process memories,

the artwork generated by EEG data

explored the materiality of remembering

and stood as a tribute to what my uncle had lost.

Almost nothing about contemporary LA

matched my childhood expectation of the city,

with the exception of one amazing building:

the Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by Frank Gehry,

one of my all-time heroes.

In 2018, I had a call from the LA Philharmonic

who was looking for an installation

to help mark the celebrated symphony's hundred-year anniversary.

For this, we decided to ask the question,

"Can a building learn? Can it dream?"

To answer this question,

we decided to collect everything recorded in the archives of the LA Phil and WDCH.

To be precise, 77 terabytes of digitally archived memories.

By using machine intelligence,

the entire archive, going back 100 years,

became projections on the building's skin,

42 projectors to achieve this futuristic public experience

in the heart of Los Angeles,

getting one step closer to the LA of "Blade Runner."

If ever a building could dream,

it was in this moment.

Now, I am inviting you to one last journey into the mind of a machine.

Right now, we are fully immersed in the data universe

of every single curated TED Talk from the past 30 years.

That means this data set includes 7,705 talks from the TED stage.

Those talks have been translated into 7.4 million seconds,

and each second is represented here in this data universe.

Every image that you are seeing in here

represents unique moments from those talks.

By using machine intelligence,

we processed a total of 487,000 sentences

into 330 unique clusters of topics like nature, global emissions,

extinction, race issues, computation,

trust, emotions, water and refugees.

These clusters are then connected to each other

by an algorithm,

[that] generated 113 million line segments,

which reveal new conceptual relationships.

Wouldn't it be amazing to be able to remember

all the questions that have ever been asked on the stage?

Here I am,

inside the mind of countless great thinkers,

as well as a machine, interacting with various feelings

attributed to learning,

remembering, questioning

and imagining all at the same time,

expanding the power of the mind.

For me, being right here

is indeed what it means to be an AI in the 21st century.

It is in our hands, humans,

to train this mind to learn and remember

what we can only dream of.

Thank you.