Introduction to Dataland: The World’s First Museum of AI Arts
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been making waves in various sectors, from the stock market to education, and now, it’s set to revolutionize the art world. Media artist Refik Anadol is poised to open Dataland, the world’s first museum of AI arts, inside the Frank Gehry-designed Grand L.A. complex in downtown Los Angeles next spring. This 25,000-square-foot museum promises to be a game-changer in the art world, showcasing the capabilities of AI in creating immersive and interactive art experiences.
A first-look at the Infinity Room gallery at Dataland.
(Dataland)
The Infinity Room: A Multisensory Experience
The Infinity Room, one of the museum’s five discrete galleries, features Anadol’s distinct swirling colors and images and will be infused with AI-generated scents, creating a multisensory experience powered by its very own AI model, called the Large Nature Model. The design of the Infinity Room dates back to 2014 when Anadol created his first immersive data sculpture at UCLA. He described it as an exploration into the future of the Light and Space movement. It was essentially a 12-by-12-foot cube, with mirrored walls, ceiling, and floors. Projectors emitted pulses of black-and-white imagery that used data as a pigment. To date, the Infinity Room has toured 35 cities and been viewed by more than 10 million people.
Machine Hallucinations and Ethical AI
“The work emerged from my exploration of the idea that information can become a narrative material capable of transforming architectural space into a living canvas. The question driving me was simple but profound: What happens if there is no corner, no floor, no ceiling, no gravity?” Anadol wrote about his concept for the Infinity Room in a blog post on his website. “At DATALAND, Infinity Room enters a new era. This iteration embodies the technical and conceptual leaps our studio has made over the past decade. Where the original used generative algorithms, this new incarnation incorporates our decade-long research into what I call “machine hallucinations” — the dreamlike, surreal realities an AI can generate from vast datasets.”
