“AI is my brush, this is how I create digital art”, Refik Anadol and the immersive work that inaugurates the Gorizia gallery

Born in 1985, Refik Anadol is a pioneer of digital art and has been working on data and artificial intelligence for ten years. “I think that artists are the mirror of society and reflect the time in which they are living. I was born in the digital age and have been lucky to see everything from the beginning of the Internet to the arrival of artificial intelligence. All the artists of the past have tried to see beyond and I do the same. Data has become part of our lives, it is the language we all use through smartphones and computers, it is something we do not see but which exists, it is our information, our identity and our memory. For me they are not just numbers, there is poetry inside them”, he explained in a press meeting attended by Adnkronos.

In Gorizia the artist used architecture as a canvas to create his ‘Data Tunnel’, a site-specific immersive installation which exploits the entire extension of the new LEDwall of the renovated Galleria Bombi: a continuous visual flow on a thousand square meters of digital surface. The installation was born from Anadol’s research on the ‘Large Nature Model’, an artificial intelligence model trained on millions of environmental images and datasets from international museums and scientific archives. Data becomes pigment, memory and visual matter, generating organic shapes in transformation. “We use artificial intelligence like a brush and create the work with that. I love Italian culture and we kept in mind the great artists of the past, such as Michelangelo and Donatello: the Renaissance is my greatest source of inspiration. My motto is ‘Don’t forget the past, but always imagine the future’, so our work respects the history of art while aiming for innovation,” said the artist.

Behind it there is over a year of work and a team of 20 people who come from all over the world. “You have to try and try again, there is no shortcut, there is no magic button that creates art. We need to find the right connections, we look for the human in what is not human. We went and collected data in nature, for example in rainforests and glaciers, and then used open source data. At that point – he explained – we created the algorithm and trained the AI ​​on the project, which is a very difficult process for an art studio compared to a large technology company, because our resources are limited. In the tunnel you will see millions of images taking shape, accompanied by a beautiful soundtrack, and people will have a unique perspective from every point of the tunnel. And all this will be possible thanks to sustainable energy.”

Bequest to the city of ‘GO! 2025’ (Nova Gorica-Gorizia European Capital of Culture 2025), the DAG becomes an important meeting place for contemporary artistic practices and will be accessible free of charge. “It is very rare that there are places like this – said Anadol – we must celebrate it. I believe that art is more inspiring when it is not just in a museum, it is public and accessible to everyone. I believe that this project unites people and takes public art to another level. Places like this allowdigital art to become part of society. Imagine the questions the public will ask themselves, people will go home and inform themselves on the Internet, the work could inspire other artists. Digital art reminds us that the world is changing and makes us wonder what will happen in the future. I hope that the work touches souls and minds, that people are intellectually and spiritually stimulated by our work.”

And he has no doubts about the future of artificial intelligence, which Refik Anadol uses paying close attention to data ethics and environmental sustainability. “I believe the future will be humanbut there will be a collaboration with machines. And since machines – he underlined – reflect us, it is important to use AI responsibly. We must have good intentions”. (by Corinna Spirito)