Refik Anadol is opening Dataland, a 25,000-square-foot immersive AI arts museum in downtown Los Angeles, located inside Frank Gehry's Grand LA complex. The museum, set to debut later this month, features the inaugural exhibition "Machine Dreams: Rainforest," which uses a generative AI system called the Large Nature Model trained on environmental datasets from institutions like the Smithsonian and the Natural History Museum in London. Visitors experience a multisensory journey involving biometric sharing, scent projections developed with L'Oréal Luxe, and even edible chocolate that translates cacao genetics into flavor profiles. The museum aims to redefine the relationship between humanity and AI by presenting the technology as an ally rather than an opponent.
This matters because Dataland arrives amid intense global debates about AI's impact on culture, cognition, and the arts. By creating the world's first AI arts museum, Anadol and co-founder Efsun Erkılıç are positioning Los Angeles at the forefront of a new artistic frontier that merges cutting-edge technology with environmental consciousness. The museum's commitment to carbon-neutral operations—using Google Cloud servers running on 87% renewable energy—also sets a precedent for how large-scale digital art institutions can address sustainability concerns. Whether L.A. audiences will embrace this ambitious vision remains to be seen, but Dataland represents a significant test case for the future of AI-driven cultural spaces.