Michelle Castano
Editor-in-Chief
Art. Look but don’t touch type of art… Where’s the fun in that? American digital gallery titled ARTECHOUSE has made splashes onto Collins Ave in Miami. As a rotating site-specific gallery, guests are encouraged to interact and feel the 21st century retrospective.
Turkish artist, Refik Anadol is showcasing his memory and dream inspired digitally immersive art exhibit until Jan. 31st. His retrospective is titled “Infinite Space”. Immersive? Check. Touchable? Check? Transformative? Check. Anadol is considered a pioneer in data visualization who utilizes A.I. (artificial intelligence), data, algorithms, science and technology to manifest his visions and imagination.
At eight years old, after seeing the movie, Bladerunner, the idea of the near future placed a stronghold onto Anadol’s young mind. “Art is the imagination capacity of humankind,” he said.
Anadol wanted to establish an understanding of what public art was and to explore the uncharted territory of technology and its impact on society and humanity. Gathering inspiration from human emotions as well, he collected data from brainwaves with the help of the University of California.
A data set of 700 people was donated; moreover the brainwaves were gathered throughout the the course of a decade in research involving memory, dementia, and Alzheimer’s. “We basically took this data and used AI to classify and create a common sense that transformed the data into digital sculptures,” elucidated Anadol.
According to ARTECHOUSE, Anadol takes the data that flows around us as his primary material and the neural network of a computerized mind as his collaborator; he creates radical visualizations of our digitized memories, expanding the possibilities of architecture, narrative, and the body in motion.
Alongside Tatiana Pastukhova, Sandro Kereselidze (owners) intended for ARTECHOUSE to be a space dedicated to the arts and technology. “It’s a 21st century art space, so as a creative, I always try to think about what is next in the arts? What is the future going to look like? Because technology is a tool of this century, we finally have a home for this type of art [within ARTECHOUSE] and we have a space where the audience and the artist can connect,” Kereselidze explained.
Always pushing the boundary, extending one’s limitations, entering the void and expanding one’s imagination, ARTECHOUSE really is a time-machine, if you will. The owners of the venue are inviting visionaries to exhibit algorithms and data so that the audience and guests receive an understanding that art is an evolving medium. Through Artificial Intelligence, memories, and projections, we are seeing that science, technology and art are dovetailed within each other.
Refik Anadol and ARTECHOUSE are opening new dialogues pertaining to art and technology. “We are in the timeframe in which data is all around us,” said Anadol.
castm46@mail.broward.edu