refik anadol invites visitors to submerge themselves into the mind of a machine

commissioned by LAS (light art space), refik anadol is exhibiting his latest audiovisual installation latent being at kraftwerk berlin from now through january 05, 2020. the turkish AI artist explores the relationship between artificial intelligence and human engagement with the spatial dimensions of the physical world. latent being seeks to remind us that the existence of AI entities is powered and steered by humans, and that our relationships with other minds –- both human or artificial -– are what we make of them.

refik anadol latent being, LAS, kraftwerk berlin 2019
all images © refik anadol studio, photography by camille blake

adapting the cathedral-like concrete site of kraftwerk berlin into a dynamic human AI eco-system, the interactive installation melds berlin-related visuals and sonic memories. an accompanying sound piece has been generated by sound designer kerim karaoglu. refik anadol allows visitors to submerge themselves into a world where they observe and interact with the mind of a machine.

‘the choreography of this installation unfolds in four chapters as a meditation on time, memory and our interactions with both organic and inorganic beings,’ comments LAS, the berlin-based art foundation.

in the first chapter, the machine is set in motion and fed a dataset of over ten million photographic memories. in the second chapter, the cerebrum of the machine begins to process the visual information using the VGG16 neural network. light and laser sculptures fill the space, representing layers of the neural network. in the third chapter, the machine starts to recognize the life inside the kraftwerk building, as it registers the movement patterns of the visitors. finally, the last chapter sees digitized and processed portraits of the city’s architecture and landscape morph into a large-scale AI data painting, created using style-GAN algorithm. 

project info:

installation: latent being

artist: refik anadol

location: kraftwerk, berlin

date: november 23rd 2019 – january 5th 2020

commissioned and presented by: LAS