Refik Anadol sees artistic options in data

Refik Anadol talks on stage during the Time100 AI Impact Awards Dubai, February 10th 2025. Credit – Nicolai Dirchsen

To flow anadol, data is a creative force.

“As long as I can remember, I’ve imagined data like more than just information-I have seen it as a vibrant, breathing material, a pigment with endless possibilities,” said the Turkish-American artist Monday under his acceptance talk at TIME100 AI IMPACT Awards in Dubai.

Anadol was one of four leaders who shaped the future of AI to be recognized at the time of the fourth annual Impact Awards Ceremony in the city. The California Institute of Technology Professor Anima Anandkumar, musician Grimes and Arvind Krishna, CEO, President and President of IBM, also accepted awards as part of the night’s festivities containing a performance by Emirati Soul Singer Arqam Al Abri.

Anadol has spent over a decade on showing the world that art can come anywhere –Even machines. As a media artist and the director and co -founder of Refik Anadol Studio, he has used AI to pioneer new forms of creativity, produce data and data trials in tandem with technology.

“Over the past decade, my journey with AI has been a merciless persecution of collaboration between people and machines, between memory and fantasy, between technology and nature,” he said in his speech.

This year, Anadol and his team “Dataland”, the world’s first AI art museum, will open in Los Angeles – a performance that was undoubtedly informed of years spent producing dozens of other works shown worldwide.

It is all part of his plan to make art that challenges the boundaries of creativity. “Art in my vision has never been limited to a single culture, place or audience,” Anadol said. “It belongs to everyone.”

The Time100 AI Impact Awards Dubai was presented by World Government Summit and The Museum of the Future.

Write to Simmone Shah at [email protected].