'Data chocolate', dreams made real and artworks shaped by visitors’ emotions: Refik Anadol’s AI art museum launches in Los Angeles
“For 5,000 years humans have been emotionally moved by artworks, but the relationship has always flowed in one direction,” said Refik Anadol, artist and co-founder of the world’s first AI art museum. “While developing Dataland we asked ourselves, ‘Is it possible for artworks to feel us back?’”
Dataland, the Museum of AI Arts, opens on June 20 2026 at the Frank Gehry-designed Grand LA in Downtown Los Angeles. Its inaugural exhibition Machine Dreams: Rainforest, aims to answer Anadol’s question.
Co-founded by Anadol and new media artist Efsun Erkılıç, Dataland features art experiences that evolve continuously through the convergence of data, machine intelligence, architecture, and human presence. The museum unfolds across five galleries spanning 25,000 square feet, exploring the creative potential of AI.
“For many years, we have dreamed of a place where audience and artwork could merge – a laboratory of imagination where we can explore burgeoning new artforms. At Dataland, that dream has now become reality,” said Anadol.
Machine Dreams: Rainforest was inspired by a trip Anadol took to the Brazilian Amazon.
The exhibition aims to transport visitors to the rainforest through a series of interconnected environments powered by Refik Anadol Studio's Large Nature Model, an AI system trained on one of the world's largest collections of ecological data.
Measuring visitors' reactions
Visitors can connect to the museum via two wearable devices; a custom medical-grade biosensing device worn around the wrist that incorporates the collective visitors’ emotional reactions through real-time measurements of heart rates, skin temperatures, and skin conductivity; and a device draped around the neck that delivers an individualised scent journey.
Throughout the exhibition, visitors can experience their own data via a random assignment of the biosensing devices, each imprinted with a unique two-digit code. Physiological signals captured by the device, together with live environmental data, reshape what each visitor experiences: “A machine dream that is not pre-programmed, but a living dialogue between art and the audience,” said Anadol.
At various points throughout the museum, visitors can interact with both the data used to create the artworks and their own data.
Museum highlights
Museum highlights include the Infinity Room, where Anadol’s dream of a glass hummingbird takes flight in a three-dimensional LED cube; the Data Pavilion, an immersive architectural canvas animated by 84 4K Epson projectors.
The visitor journey ends at the Sanctuary with a sacred healing song of the Yawanawá people, and the scent of Lost Flower, the moonflower that blooms only one night each year in the Amazonian Rainforest - the studio recorded the scent molecules brought it back to share with LA visitors.
As they leave, visitors are given a data token containing a 'personalised sensory archive' which can be used to create a customised t shirt and scent.
Dataland was developed in partnership with architecture firm Gensler and global consultancy Arup.
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