{"id":6923,"date":"2023-01-16T16:29:44","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T16:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.niio.com\/blog\/?p=6923"},"modified":"2023-01-16T16:29:46","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T16:29:46","slug":"refik-anadol-art-in-a-latent-space-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.niio.com\/blog\/refik-anadol-art-in-a-latent-space-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Refik Anadol: art in a latent space"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pau Waelder<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Refik Anadol. Unsupervised: Machine Hallucinations MoMA (2022)
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Refik Anadol<\/strong><\/a> (b. 1985, Istanbul, T\u00fcrkiye) is a media artist and lecturer, whose meteoric career has taken him from creating video mappings on building fa\u00e7ades in several European cities, to being one of the first artists in residence at Google\u2019s Artists and Machine Intelligence<\/a> Program, the founder and director of Refik Anadol Studio RAS LAB in Los Angeles, a lecturer for UCLA\u2019s Department of Design Media Arts, and a successful artist with global recognition in the contemporary art world. In just 15 years, Anadol has amassed numerous awards and presented his site-specific audio\/visual performances at iconic museums and events such as the 17th International Architecture Exhibition \u2013 La Biennale di Venezia, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Centre Pompidou, Daejeon Museum of Art, Art Basel, Ars Electronica Festival, and the Istanbul Design Biennial, among many others.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

He works with a large team of designers, architects, data scientists, and researchers from 10 different countries and has partnered with teams at Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, Intel, IBM, Panasonic, JPL\/NASA, Siemens, Epson, MIT, Harvard, UCLA, Stanford University, and UCSF, to apply the most innovative technologies to his body of work. He is represented by bitforms<\/strong><\/a> gallery in New York. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

bitforms is participating in the Art SG<\/strong><\/a> art fair in Singapore from 12 to 15 January 2023, presenting a selection of generative artworks by Refik Anadol. Niio<\/strong> supports the exhibition as technical partner, in collaboration with SAMSUNG<\/strong>, and is proud to present the artcast Refik Anadol: Pacific Ocean<\/em><\/strong>, <\/em>which features excerpts from three pieces by the Turkish artist. The following article offers a brief introduction to the main aspects of Refik\u2019s work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Refik Anadol. Unsupervised \u2014 Machine Hallucinations \u2014 MoMA Dreams \u2014 F
Image sold on Feral File as NFT. 100 editions, 1 AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Building a latent space<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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A trailblazing artist in the field of art and artificial intelligence, Refik Anadol uses large amounts of data and machine learning techniques to create his generative artworks and site-specific installations. His creative process often implies the creation of a data set from an archive of images, sounds, and documents or from measurements taken by sensors, radars, and other devices. The data set feeds a series of machine learning processes that generate an endless succession of audio-visual compositions, which can fill a large screen, a whole room, or the fa\u00e7ade of a building. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the heart of the machine learning models that transform the original data into something else lies what is called a \u201clatent space,\u201d in which clusters of items are formed from similarities between them, which give rise to a set of variables. The latent space is therefore a space of possibilities, somewhat unpredictable, that contributes to shaping the final outcome. In Refik\u2019s work, it is not only part of the machine learning model but also a concept that helps understand his generative pieces and installations as spaces in which creation is constantly exploring its latent qualities. Spaces in which the artwork is never finished. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His recent installation at the Museum of Modern Art<\/strong> in New York, Unsupervised: Machine Hallucinations MoMA<\/em><\/strong><\/a> <\/em>(2022), clearly exemplifies the conception of the artwork as a latent space. Using the public metadata of The Museum of Modern Art\u2019s collection, which comprises more than 130,000 pieces including paintings, drawings, photographs, and video games, the artist and his studio created a series of artworks that result from the interpretation of this data by means of a machine learning algorithm. The initial series was sold as NFTs in the exhibition Unsupervised<\/em> on the online platform Feral File<\/strong><\/a>, the project being further expanded into the generative artwork installed at MoMA\u2019s lobby. Casey Reas<\/strong>, artist and co-founder of Feral File, aptly described the artwork in terms of its latency: \u201cWhat I \ufb01nd really interesting about Re\ufb01k\u2019s project with MoMA\u2019s dataset, with your collection, is that it speculates about possible images that could have been made, but that were never made before\u201d [1]. The artwork can thus be seen as a space of possibilities, but also as a simulated environment that becomes particularly meaningful in the context of the building that houses it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Casey Reas: \u201cWhat I \ufb01nd really interesting about Re\ufb01k\u2019s project with MoMA\u2019s dataset is that it speculates about possible images that could have been made, but that were never made before\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Refik Anadol Studio. WDCH Dreams, 2018.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The room as <\/strong>Merzbau<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Architecture, and more generally a real or simulated three-dimensional space as a container, are key elements of Refik\u2019s work. Artworks such as WDCH Dreams<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (2018) or Seoul Haemong<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (2019) use the exterior surfaces of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul as canvases, while Infinity Room<\/em><\/strong><\/a> <\/em>(2015) and Pladis: Data Universe<\/em><\/strong><\/a> <\/em><\/strong>(2018) are conceived by the artist as \u201cTemporary Immersive Environments.\u201d The artist stresses this connection frequently in his interviews: \u201cI\u2019m interested in exploring the architectural domain as deeply as I can,\u201d he has stated recently. \u201cAll my art works tend to have a physical connection to public space\u201d [2]. However, the architectural space is not conceived in terms of static shapes and volumes, but as something fluid and malleable, a work in progress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kurt Schwitters\u2019 celebrated Merzbau <\/em>installations from the 1920s and 1930s come to mind as an illustrative example of Refik\u2019s conception of space. Schwitters began to alter the space of his studio in Hannover by putting together small artworks, found objects, and debris into structures that he would glue and fix with plaster, building columns and shapes that protruded from the walls. The sculpture was never completed, the artist always kept adding elements and reshaping the space [3]. In a similar way, the space occupied by Refik\u2019s artworks is permanently reshaped through a process that stems from an accumulation of found materials, data that loses its original shape and merges into something new. In the Temporary Immersive Environment series, he specifically seeks to immerse the viewer in a \u201cnon-physical world\u201d that questions their perception of space and their own presence [4]. The room is expanded and multiplied through optical effects, with the aim of creating a viewing experience that goes beyond staring at a flat projection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Refik Anadol: \u201cI\u2019m interested in exploring the architectural domain as deeply as I can. All my art works tend to have a physical connection to public space.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This conception of space as integrated into a Gesamtkunstwerk, the \u201ctotal work of art\u201d that has been the aspiration of opera composers, architects and filmmakers, is not, however, the only connection with architecture in Refik\u2019s work. Interestingly, while Schwitters sought to merge all of his artistic practice under one term (Merz<\/em>), erasing distinctions between painting, sculpture, and architecture, Anadol describes some of his generative art works as \u201cdata paintings\u201d and \u201cdata sculptures.\u201d These references to classical formats speak of a different type of space, confined within the limits of a screen or a wall, which nevertheless intervenes in the surrounding space by means of a trompe-l\u2019oeil effect that creates the impression of three-dimensional shapes pulsating beneath and beyond a solid, thick frame. Artworks such as Virtual depictions: San Francisco<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (2015), displayed on an L-shaped media wall inside the main lobby of the 350 Mission building in San Francisco, seek to create an imaginary space that stands out spectacularly, but at the same time embeds itself into the surrounding architecture. The connection between the artwork and its location, though, is not only expressed in terms of how the screen is placed on the wall, but also in the data that gives meaning to the fluid elements that inhabit the virtual space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Refik Anadol Studio. Future of the City, 2020.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Data is not just a bunch of numbers<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Coming back to the concept of latent space within machine learning models, it is important to remember that Refik Anadol\u2019s artworks do not only have an aesthetic dimension, as colorful shapes in fluid transitions or enormous mosaics of distinct elements, but also a conceptual dimension, expressed by the data that feeds the whole process leading to the site-specific installations and performances. Speaking about his project Quantum Memories<\/em><\/strong><\/a> <\/em>(2020), <\/em>the artist states the importance of this data and the meaning it conveys: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor me, data is not just a bunch of numbers. For me, data is actually a memory. From that perspective, I\u2019m always looking for what kind of collective memory that we are holding as humanity, and how can we use these memories and turn them into a pigment or a sculpture that represents who we are as humanity.\u201d<\/strong> [5]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Conceiving data as memory resonates with his ongoing work with all kinds of archives, from the 1,700,000 documents found in the SALT Research collections to the 587,763 image files, 1,880 video files, 1,483 metadata files, and 17,773 audio files in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra\u2019s digital archives. Every bit of information in these files has its own history and meaning, and has a certain association with another file, enabling the clusters and variables that will emerge in the latent space. The artworks may appear as abstract compositions or massive collages, but they are actually visual representations of underlying stories and invisible structures. As the artist puts it, they aim to \u201cmake visible the invisible world of data that surrounds us\u201d [6]. This statement may lead to considering Refik\u2019s work as a form of data visualization, but it goes well beyond this task, into what media theorist Lev Manovich has described as \u201crepresent[ing] the personal subjective experience of a person living in a data society [\u2026] including its fundamental new dimension of being \u00abimmersed in data\u00bb\u201d [7].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lev Manovich: \u201cThe real challenge of data art is how to represent the personal subjective experience of a person living in a data society.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some of Refik\u2019s installations directly address this condition of being immersed in data by means of projections that surround the viewer with visualizations of the data collected from archives, or in real time from sensors and other sources, as in Latent Being<\/em><\/strong><\/a> <\/em>(2019) or Future of the City<\/em><\/strong><\/a> <\/em>(2020). Others present data that relates to environmental systems that we usually ignore but that have a profound impact on our planet, and therefore in our lives. This is the case of Pacific Ocean<\/a><\/em><\/strong> <\/em>(2022), the series presented by bitforms at Art SG in Singapore and on Niio as an artcast featuring three video excerpts.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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bitforms gallery booth at ArtSG Singapore presenting a series of artworks by Refik Anadol. Photo courtesy of bitforms.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Collecting data from High Frequency Radars (HFR) located in the Pacific coast of the United States, the artist has created a series of visualizations of ocean currents that seems abstract and realistic at the same time: the ebbs and flows of granular elements in shades ranging from dark blue to emerald green clearly evoke the surface of a raging sea, but they are also somehow unreal, impossibly merging numerous currents from different directions in beautifully chaotic, and even violent, clashes. HFRs are used to measure ocean currents and understand their impact and response to climate processes. The data collected from networks of radars in coastal zones around the world is crucial to protect the marine ecosystem and predict changes that will affect life on our planet. Seen from this perspective, the artworks acquire a somewhat unsettling tone and inspire an awareness of the ecosystems that we so often ignore, putting into question our anthropocentric view of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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