Dataland, billed as the world's first museum dedicated to AI art, is set to open on June 20 in Los Angeles at The Grand LA, a Frank Gehry-designed complex. Co-founded by Turkish-American artist Refik Anadol, the 35,000-square-foot privately-funded museum will feature five immersive galleries. Its inaugural exhibition, *Machine Dreams: Rainforest*, is an audiovisual experience based on millions of images and sounds of nature, inspired by a visit Anadol and co-founder Efsun Erkılıç made to the Amazon rainforest. Anadol is known for his generative AI piece at MoMA in 2022 and a projection on the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
The opening arrives amid significant criticism of AI art, including concerns about lack of human agency, environmental impact, unethical training of models on intellectual property, and inherent biases. Artists like Thomas Brummett and Nettrice Gaskins have voiced skepticism, with Brummett calling AI art "second rate entertainment." Despite pushback, Dataland aims to position AI art as a legitimate medium, raising questions about how technology can deepen our understanding of complex systems and the natural world.