Refik Anadol Studio presents DATALAND, the world's first Museum of AI Arts opening at The Grand LA in 2025

Refik Anadol Studio presents DATALAND, the world’s first Museum of AI Arts, which is set to open in 2025 at The Grand LA, the Frank Gehry-designed development in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. DATALAND features art experiences blending human imagination and artificial intelligence, establishing a new model for artistic expression at the onset of the digital age.

The decision by co-founders Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkiliç to launch DATALAND in Los Angeles reflects their deep commitment to the city. Los Angeles has long held Anadol’s fascination, beginning when he was eight years old with the discovery of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, set in a mesmerizing futuristic reimagining of LA. Anadol first ventured to LA in 2012 to attend a graduate program in Design Media Arts at the University of California Los Angeles, where he has taught for the last ten years. In 2014, Erkiliç joined Anadol in Los Angeles to establish Refik Anadol Studio permanently in the city. Now celebrating its ten-year anniversary, the Studio’s works have been exhibited worldwide in more than 70 cities on six continents, and are beloved by millions of ardent fans. DATALAND brings their future-forward vision to a permanent home.

“Los Angeles is the perfect city to launch DATALAND, a forward-thinking, revolutionary museum in support of the fields to which I have dedicated my career: art, science, technology and AI research,” says DATALAND co-founder and Artistic Director Refik Anadol. “L.A. has long been a city that looks to the future in art, music, cinema, architecture, and more, and it feels natural to open DATALAND here. To have a permanent space for us to develop a new paradigm of what a museum can be, by fusing human imagination with machine intelligence and the most advanced technologies available, is a realization of one of my biggest dreams. To do so in a building designed by one of my heroes, Frank Gehry, is almost unbelievable."

DATALAND co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Efsun Erkılıç remarks, “DATALAND is a place where human creativity meets innovation, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. Our Studio has presented exhibitions in incredible places all around the world, but having a space of our own gives us a blank canvas to work with, allowing us to truly push ourselves to dream without boundaries. DATALAND will be a place where audiences of all ages are transported to new worlds of discovery, inspiration, and wonder. We are building a visionary museum that redefines learning and community, igniting the human spirit and fueling a journey into the beauty of our collective memories – the world of data.”

Establishing DATALAND at The Grand LA, in the heart of Los Angeles’ cultural corridor, is a full-circle moment for Anadol, Erkılıç, and the Studio. The Grand LA is situated directly across the street from Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, where, in 2018, Refik Anadol Studio presented one of their defining projects to date, the ambitious and groundbreaking WDCH Dreams, celebrating the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Centennial. Using 42 large scale projectors, the nightly live performances featured machine dreams of the LA Phil’s 100 years of digitized memories, mapped directly onto the undulating stainless-steel exterior of the iconic building.

DATALAND at The Grand LA is situated steps from renowned cultural institutions: The Broad, MOCA, The Music Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, REDCAT, and The Colburn School in the cultural epicenter of Los Angeles. Developed by Related Companies, The Grand LA is home to the award-winning 305 room Conrad Los Angeles luxury hotel, more than 436 residences including affordable housing and will feature a collection of chef-driven restaurants, shops, and art-driven experiences anchored by DATALAND.

As the world’s first Museum of AI Arts, DATALAND will infuse the emerging art forms of tomorrow into this vibrant community gathering place and cultural ecology, pushing the boundaries of creativity, technology, and human imagination and experience.

"The Grand was always envisioned as a place that would complement and connect its neighboring world-class cultural institutions for generations to come, and there’s no better way to realize that mission than by welcoming a future-forward AI arts museum from the mind of Refik Anadol to Grand Avenue,” said Nick Vanderboom, Chief Operating Officer, Related California. “DATALAND will inspire entirely new audiences to visit downtown LA, infusing new energy into the neighborhood and further cementing Grand Avenue as a place to see and be seen in the international arts community.”

The opening of DATALAND follows a series of groundbreaking presentations from Refik Anadol Studio, including Living Paintings at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, in Los Angeles; Machine Hallucinations at The Sphere, in Las Vegas; Living Architecture: Casa Batlló at Antoni Gaudí’s famed building, in Barcelona, Spain; Living Archive: Nature at the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland; Echoes of the Earth at London’s Serpentine Galleries; and Living Arena at the Intuit Dome, in Inglewood, CA. In 2023, Unsupervised, presented at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, attracted nearly 3 million visitors in one year. The Washington Post heralded Unsupervised as an “early masterpiece of AI-generated art.” The work was acquired into MoMA’s permanent collection and Anadol became the first artist to have a generative AI piece added to the museum’s collection.

DATALAND is designed in collaboration with award-winning architecture firm Gensler and global sustainable development consultancy Arup. The inaugural exhibitions of DATALAND will be expressed through Refik Anadol Studio’s Large Nature Model, the world’s first open source AI model based solely on nature data. Additional information and details on DATALAND will be available in the coming months.

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About DATALAND:
DATALAND is the world’s first Museum of AI Arts and digital ecosystem dedicated to data visualization and AI-based creativity. DATALAND will unite pioneers in diverse fields including the arts, science, AI research, and cutting-edge technology under the artistic leadership of Refik Anadol Studio. With its flagship location launching in 2025 at The Grand, in Downtown Los Angeles, DATALAND will join the renowned visual and performing arts institutions in the city’s cultural and civic corridor. DATALAND welcomes people of all backgrounds with unparalleled experiences utilizing machine learning and the latest sensory and visualization technologies at a scale and quality never before realized. In pursuit of its mission, DATALAND combines online access and learning platforms, acts as a public repository for large-scale, nature-focused data sets, and will build a comprehensive collection of AI art. DATALAND is committed to ethical data-gathering and AI practices. Aspiring to set the global standard for the presentation, curation, and exploration of AI-driven art, DATALAND operates at the intersection of human imagination and the creative potential of machines, establishing a new model for cultural institutions in the digital age. www.dataland.art
Instagram: @datalandmuseum
X (Twitter): @datalandmuseum

About Refik Anadol Studio:
Established in 2014 by Refik Anadol, a pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence, and artist and entrepreneur Efsun Erkiliç, the Los Angeles-based Refik Anadol Studio produces enthralling and immersive media art intended for anyone, any age, and any background. The award-winning studio has been engaged by leading tech companies, groundbreaking researchers, and cutting-edge thought leaders to produce projects that have been shown in more than 70 cities spanning six continents, and experienced by millions of ardent fans. The studio’s body of work locates creativity at the intersection of humans and machines. In taking the data that flows around us as the primary material and the neural network of a computerized mind as a collaborator, Anadol and his team paint with a thinking brush, offering us radical visualizations of our digitized memories and expanding the possibilities of interdisciplinary arts. The site-specific AI data sculptures, live audio/visual performances, and immersive installations take many forms, while encouraging us to rethink our engagement with the physical world, its temporal and spatial dimensions, and the creative potential of machines. Refik Anadol Studio comprises artists, architects, data scientists, and researchers from diverse professional and personal backgrounds, embracing principles of inclusion and equity throughout every stage of production. www.refikanadolstudio.com

About Refik Anadol:
Refik Anadol (b. 1985, Istanbul, Turkey) is an internationally renowned media artist, director, and pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence. He is the Director and co-founder of Refik Anadol Studio in Los Angeles and teaches at UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts. Anadol’s work locates creativity at the intersection of humans and machines. Taking the data that surrounds us as primary material, and the neural network of a computerized mind as a collaborator, Anadol offers us radical visualizations of our digitized memories and expands the possibilities of interdisciplinary arts. Anadol’s site-specific data paintings and sculptures, live audio/visual performances, and immersive installations take many forms, while encouraging us to rethink our engagement with the physical world, public art, decentralized networks, and the creative potential of artificial intelligence. Anadol’s work has been exhibited at venues including MoMA, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Serpentine Galleries, National Gallery of Victoria, Venice Architecture Biennale, Hammer Museum, Arken Museum, Casa Batlló, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Daejeon Museum of Art, and Istanbul Modern. Anadol has received a number of awards and prizes including UCLA’s 2024 Edward A. Dickinson Alumnus of the Year Award, the Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award for New Media Art, Microsoft Research’s Best Vision Award, iF Gold Award, D&AD Pencil Award, German Design Award, UCLA Art+Architecture Moss Award, Columbia University’s Breakthrough in Storytelling Award, University of California Institute for Research in the Arts Award, SEGD Global Design Award, LOOP Design Award and Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence Artist Residency Award. www.refikanadol.com

About Efsun Erkiliç:
Efsun Erkılıç (b. 1982, Istanbul, Turkey) is a visionary artist, cultural researcher, and co-founder of Refik Anadol Studio. With a career spanning over a decade, Erkılıç boasts extensive experience in project management, having coordinated and showcased multidisciplinary artworks at more than 70 venues worldwide. She manages global projects at Refik Anadol Studio, ensuring the seamless blend of human-machine collaborations and high-quality execution in every step of the Studio's interdisciplinary projects. Erkılıç is an established painter. Her work captures an eclectic spectrum of colors and shapes, chronicling her myriad mystical, inner, and physical odysseys. Beyond her visual art, Erkılıç crafts performance pieces that meld bodily expression with philosophical insights into the human condition. She holds a BA in Visual Studies and an MA in Media Studies from Bilgi University, Istanbul.

About The Grand LA:
Located at the cultural epicenter of Los Angeles comprised of the Music Center (including the Walt Disney Concert Hall), The Broad museum, The Colburn School of Music and the Museum of Contemporary Art, The Grand LA is designed to become a destination for shopping, dining, entertainment and hospitality, as well as a paradigm-shifting place to live. Developed by Related Companies and designed by Frank Gehry, The Grand LA is home to the award-winning 305 room Conrad Los Angeles luxury hotel and more than 436 residences including luxury apartments and affordable housing. It will also include Refik Anadol Studios’ DATALAND, the world’s first museum of AI Arts; a collection of chef-driven restaurants and shops; and a vibrant public plaza with a series of landscaped, open terraces. The Grand Avenue Project is a visionary public-private partnership with the Los Angeles Grand Avenue Authority to revitalize downtown LA's cultural and civic core with a mix of commercial, retail, cultural and residential uses stitched together with great public spaces and world class architecture. This multi-phased master planned development is re-envisioning and re-developing underutilized government-owned parcels directly adjacent to the Civic Center and key cultural institutions.