Dataland: The world’s first Museum of AI Arts

Under the creative vision of Refik Anadol, 2025 will witness the inauguration of the world’s first Artificial Intelligence Arts Museum.DATALAND will bring together pioneers from various fields, including arts, science, artificial intelligence research, and cutting-edge technology, under the artistic direction of his studio. Its main venue will open at The Grand LA, a complex designed by Frank Gehry in downtown Los Angeles, joining the city’s renowned visual and performing arts institutions.

To understand the context of this grand opening, we must delve into the journey of its principal creator.

Refik Anadol (born in 1985 in Istanbul, Turkey) is a globally recognized multimedia artist, director, and pioneer in the evolution of artificial intelligence. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California, where he owns and directs Refik Anadol Studio and RAS LAB, a research studio focused on discovering and developing pioneering approaches to data storytelling. Anadol also teaches in the Department of Design and Media Arts at UCLA, where he earned his Master of Fine Arts.

Anadol’s work addresses the challenges and possibilities that ubiquitous computing has imposed on humanity, exploring what it means to be human in the age of AI. He investigates how the perception and experience of time and space are radically changing now that machines dominate our daily lives. Anadol is intrigued by how the digital era and machine intelligence enable a new aesthetic technique to create enriched immersive environments that offer a dynamic perception of space.

In an interview with journalistCelina Chatruc in 2022, prior to presenting Machine Hallucinations: Coral at the Teatro Colón (an event we produced for Artbag), he stated: “Data is the next language of humanity. Every machine, every computer, every phone, WiFi, Bluetooth systems… It’s all about data. Data has become the language of machines. These mathematical numbers can be a very important substance, a pigment that eliminates all inequalities, and by using the great truth of science, we can invent a new language. Most of humanity still doesn’t know how technology works, how we collect data, how AI makes decisions.” (…) “In my work, I strive to make the invisible visible, and I believe it is a very exciting and important effect. We need to understand the world.”

Three years later, he is about to achieve his great goal, encompassing many of his upcoming projects. DATALAND is committed to the ethical collection of data and AI practices. It aspires to set the global standard for the presentation, preservation, and exploration of AI-driven art, operating at the intersection of human imagination and the creative potential of machines, establishing a new model for cultural institutions in the digital age. It will welcome people from all backgrounds with unparalleled experiences that utilize machine learning and the latest sensory and visualization technologies on a scale and quality never before achieved. To fulfill its mission, DATALAND combines online access and learning platforms, acts as a public repository of large-scale datasets focused on nature, and will create a comprehensive AI art collection.

The latest development in the project is the Large Nature Model (LNM) initiative, the world’s first open-source generative AI model dedicated to nature, trained on the most extensive and ethically collected dataset of the natural world. The model was refined with data from the Smithsonian Institution (9 million public specimen records, 6.3 million public images, 148 million objects in its collection); the Natural History Museum in London (90 million specimens in its collection, 4 million public images); the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (54 million images, 2 million sound records). This was first unveiled at the “World Economic Forum 2024” and aims to educate, inspire, and foster proactivity to build a future centered on sustainability, community, and creative innovation. Subsequently, the works created using LNM traveled to the United States to be exhibited at the NVIDIA GTC 2024.

For this special occasion, the Getty Images base model was used, based on NVIDIA’s Edify architecture. This model has been trained with an abundant dataset of approximately 750,000 images, including 274,947 images of flora, 358,713 images of fauna, and 130,282 images of fungi, capturing the incredible biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest.

LNM will be the main AI model to generate the inaugural exhibitions of DATALAND LA. These will explore the complex ecosystems of Earth’s rainforests, drawing inspiration from data on their flora, fauna, and fungi.

Last but not least, this new proposal operates on renewable energies to minimize its carbon footprint and ensure responsible use of technology. This is due to its collaboration with Google Cloud Platform (GCP), a partner of the studio and the cleanest computing company in the industry, pursuing net-zero emissions across all its operations and value chain by 2030.

Refik is undoubtedly making history. In a note in the “Los Angeles Times” he reflects:

The idea that AI could become sentient does not terrify Anadol. While others see the disappearance of what makes us human, Anadol sees AI as a co-creator and a “co-being.” It may currently only mimic human reasoning, but that is likely to change, he asserts. It is making us question the basic foundations of our reality. It is “the new campfire.”

“I believe AI means anything and everything,” Anadol said. For him, AI is an intelligent and reasoning system. “Some say it’s a tool. I don’t think we should call it a ‘tool.’ That underestimates its power.”

The museum does not have an official opening date yet, but you can follow all the updates on DATALAND on their social media.