Machine Dreams: Rainforest at LA’s newest museum DATALAND
Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkilıç open a pioneering experiential space
Known for their mind-bending digital art creations, Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkilıç, have revealed their newest endeavor in downtown Los Angeles. Located at the Frank Gehry-designed The Grand LA, across the street from Disney Hall (also by Gehry), the duo’s living museum DATALAND is now open. In this experience, the senses of touch, taste, sight, sound and scent amplify each other in a continuous omni-sensory dialogue. The first exhibition, Machine Dreams: Rainforest, harnesses the power of their innovations in data collection to explore the world’s rainforests in real time.
“The images we see, the sounds we hear and the smells that we will go through are all intertwined into one algorithmic imagination,” says Anadol. In over 10 years of working with AI, they’ve collected data for three years, written more than 10 million lines of code and recorded 100,000 hours of sound that emanate from 300 channels. The museum is set up to listen to the earth-gathering data about weather, humidity, wind patterns and more, and the imagery is displayed with the clarity of 1.5 billion pixels.
The first DATALAND gallery, Discovery Portal, is set up to prepare visitors what they are about to experience. The museum connects to 20 rainforests in the world in real time and displays rainfall data, each screen representing one ‘painting’ of live data from those rainforests. The Refik Anadol Studio traveled to 16 rainforests to deploy data collection technology including photogrammetry, LiDAR, capturing high resolution visuals and 360-degree spatial audio.
For the fragrance component, the L’Oréal Luxe fragrance team headed by Véronique Ferval and Patricia Soyer created 12 avant-garde scents inspired by the rainforest. This required their olfactory research into what Soyer describes as a deep dive into the unknown. “We explored the concept of living nature,” says Soyer. “We were discussing having different scent experiences. We were experimenting and exchanging ideas. We built this story looking for a surprising experience, both artistic and emotional.”
To share the scent within a museum setting, the Refik Anadol Studio developed a custom device worn around the neck that diffuses the scent in coordination with the exhibition. “The technology is a dry diffusion,” Soyer says. “We miniaturized the scent into tiny cartridges, then airflow triggers the cartridge to release the scent.” As each fragrance enhances the visuals and sound, they are designed to only be detected by the person wearing the collar and dissipate before the next.
L’Oréal took on the challenge of creating the scent of digital code. They named one The Synthetic Essence, blending clean musks and aldehydes with a background of heated vinyl and synthetic wood. Petrichor Memoria depicts the scent of rain and earth after rainfall. Mycelia Whisper shares the scent of fungi and soil. Verdant Chorus blends with Tuberose and Osmobloom. Sacred Vapor emanates with aromas of Wacapu wood and Terra Resonance with sea air.
Rounding out the sumptuous sensorial feast are edible creations by Los Angeles chocolatier Valerie Gordon, who crafted bon bons corresponding to elements of the overall immersive experience. To add the sense of taste to DATALAND, Anadol needed to find a culinary partner for the artistic venture. When they first met, Anadol gave Gordon 12 AI-generated recipes from the rainforest data with the prompt “how would chocolate taste?”
Gordon used these AI recipes for inspiration, but explains that edible balanced food requires an understanding of chemistry. She created her own recipes after an early preview of the space with Anadol. When he explained his vision for DATALAND, Gordon had a clear aha moment, asking herself, “How do we build a full narrative through chocolate?” She then crafted an exclusive box of four bon bons with forest aromas, tropical fruits and smoky components like activated charcoal. “I like taking something technical and making it analog,” says Gordon. “This is an experiment in how to marry AI and human work, to highlight human expression.”
For more info on DATALAND’s inaugural exhibition, Machine Dreams: Rainforest, visit dataland.art.
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