REFIK ANADOL – NATURE DREAMS

Digital art has arrived at ARKEN!

10 February to 27 August 2023

Refik Anadol, Nature Dreams, 2021. Courtesy mabu.eth, © Refik Anadol Studio. ARKEN Museum of Modern Art. Photo: David Stjernholm

From February 2023, artist Refik Anadol’s breathtaking installations will fill ARKEN’s largest exhibition space, the Art Axis. With the exhibition Refik Anadol – Nature Dreams, the museum ventures deep into the digital realm of art. Come explore an art form that has just begun to gain traction with the general public and is developing at lightning speed.

Refik Anadol, Machine Memoirs- Space, 2021. ARKEN Museum of Modern Art. Photo: David Stjernholm

An immersive sensory experience

Refik Anadol (b. 1985 in Turkey) is one of the leading artists globally within the realm of digital art. Engaging the audience’s senses to great and appealing effect, his huge installations are the result of his work with artificial intelligence in the form of data-driven algorithms. Refik Anadol’s works arise out of a genuine collaboration between man and machine. The works 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 two works at ARKEN, one of them created especially for this exhibition. Vast in scope and execution, both take their point of departure in mass media’s visual presentation of nature, which affect our shared ideas about what nature is and what it looks like. Through AI algorithms, this data is transformed into completely new, partially abstract depictions of nature that the human brain cannot even imagine on its own. Visitors can look forward to a unique sensory experience in this encounter between art and digital technology which already permeates every aspect of our everyday lives.

Thought-provoking digital installations

;achine Hallucinations: Nature Dreams (2021) is the main work of the exhibition, comprising a 7 x 7 metre data sculpture. The imagery presented by the sculpture arises out of large data sets consisting of millions of pictures of nature. These are incorporated into its algorithms and used to create abstract, computer-generated images of nature, all ceaselessly changing and existing only in a machine. In the second work of the exhibition, Machine Hallucinations: Nature Dreams (Immersive Edition) (2022), visitors will 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.

Learn more about Nature Dreams and Refik Anadol in the digital exhibition catalogue