In the Frame: Refik Anadol

What are you working on currently?

Refik Anadol: ‘At the moment I am working with my research lab and studio on a piece called Large Nature Model, which we exhibited at Serpentine Galleries in London. It will be an important element of our next project, called DATALAND. We’ve been working with institutions around the world to create the world’s first open-source generative AI model dedicated to nature.

We’re building sustainable research tools in the cloud, and we’re also travelling across the world to 16 different rainforests to physically collect our own data. We have six data science teams, researching more than half a billion images and more than 100 years of sound recordings, with thousands of books, articles and other materials. Our intention is to take the unique approach of training the Large Nature Model algorithms on nature’s inherent intelligence, separating us from the majority of other Large Language AI Models that rely on human intellect. Once we have all this data and the AI research done, our hope is to open this to the public and then explore this model together with everyone, redefining our engagement with the natural world.’

What ritual or routine keeps you going?

RA: ‘I work a lot — 16 to 18 hour days — so that’s my routine. But I don’t feel like I’m working at all. When you become an artist, your whole life becomes work. There's no separation between what you see, what you eat, what you read, what you get inspired by. Also, I travel a lot for my work. I travel to understand the world; to be sure our work is making an impact. It’s important to have a dialogue in our work, and in order to do that I have to understand of how it's perceived and how I can improve.’

What work of art made you see things differently?

RA: ‘I have a huge respect and love for Indigenous art. The Yawanawá people, from the Brazilian state of Acre, in Amazonia, have several ways of depicting their dreams and memories, and they have graphics that represent colour, pattern and form. They create these by making their own pigments from nature. I’m fascinated by their techniques, how they preserve the colours of nature and how they depict these incredible geometries and patterns from the world around them — it inspired our collaboration with them last year.’

Which artist or designer do you wish you knew more about?

RA: ‘In undergrad I studied architectural photography. I really enjoy Zaha Hadid’s work, as well as that of Gaudí, Frank Gehry and many more. We have a surprise project about architecture coming up, so I’ve been doing a lot of research on them. Architecture has been transforming the humanities and design culture, and even though I’ve been in love with it for many years, I’m continually finding new reasons why.’

Which artists are you watching right now?

RA: ‘At the moment, I’m mostly focused on architects. For me, Tadao Ando is a hero as a designer. I’ve been researching his work closely for years.’

Last gift you gave?

RA: ‘Recently I gifted a special NFT artwork from our collections to one of my dear friends for his birthday — a blockchain gift.’

Your favourite view, anywhere in the world?

RA: ‘I have many, but I love to look at the ocean no matter where I am. It can be here in California, in Bali, in Hawaii. I have several places where I found this incredible and infinite context of the ocean. Water is important in my work, and I’ve always been searching for the end of land to look at the edge of the world, the horizon.’

Favourite exhibition this year?

RA: ‘Joan Jonas’s Good Night Good Morning at MoMA. It was an incredible installation of her pieces and performances, and I was honoured being able to visit it. I know her legacy well, but I wasn’t aware of how she had influenced almost five decades of art. She has such a multidisciplinary collection of work from performance to video, drawing and installation. It was great to see her work in that scale.’

Top picks from Christie’s right now?

RA: ‘Paul Allen’s collection is exciting for me. Two things that stand out are Einstein’s letter to President Roosevelt, and the DECsystem, but his collection as a whole is such a unique archive that traces innovation, especially in computing and technology. ‘

What does the future of art in the museum space look like for digital artists?

RA: ‘My recent experience with Unsupervised at MoMA is our benchmark. We received almost three million visitors and realised that the museum can be an incredible place for making art that reaches beyond traditional bubbles. My personal motto since I began this journey is “making art for everyone”. Any age, any background.’

‘As we all know, AI is profoundly changing every aspect of our lives, and I’m confident we will find new vocabularies, new forms of storytelling within this. I really hope that this new form of art, of imagination, can be used to create more powerful connections across the world. It’s an inspiring, exciting time, but it’s also challenging. With possibilities like these we also have deep responsibility. We must work ethically and ensure this technology is used to support humanity.’