As his permanent installation at Kunsthaus Zurich in Switzerland was unveiled, deadly fires were burning near his home in Los Angeles.
Refik Anadol, the Los Angeles-based artist whose home sits just a mile from where massive wildfires have devastated the city, unveiled a monumental work this week at the Kunsthaus Zurich that warns of the impact of climate change. Glacier Dreams uses monitoring data culled from glaciers in Iceland, and other subarctic and Antarctic locations.
Anadol, who has become a leading artist in the field of data-driven visual art, spoke from Switzerland on a Zoom interview ahead of the debut of his work at the museum. The work, commissioned by the bank Julius Baer as part of its NEXT initiative launched in 2022, was donated to the Kunsthaus Zurich and will have a permanent place at the David Chipperfield-designed extension. Versions of the changing visualization were presented at Art Dubai 2023.
The immersive room, which measures around 172 square feet, includes high-tech screens and mirrors that transform images of glaciers into otherworldly creations generated by the A.I. algorithms. "I was able to collect hundreds of millions of data points across the world in the last two years," Anadol said. "The experience starts with the raw data, millions of images loading in this infinite library. The audience is surrounded by the millions of ethical images of those beautiful glaciers."
From there, viewers are presented with a second phase where the A.I. begins making connections between the data sets. Then, the machine hallucination begins. "Here, we see the landscapes, blends, and the glaciers melting and ice caves, transforming the beautiful sunset and sunrise in like Antarctica, and so forth," Anadol explained.
Anadol previously made an installation, titled Living Arena, for the new Los Angeles Clippers's stadium. That work is comprised of four chapters -- each visualizing data from different sources. One chapter, "Nature Dreams," uses live weather data from Inglewood including wind direction, temperature, and humidity.
He called the wind patterns in the area "super significant" and noted that there is a "beautiful wind tunnel" with gusts that change speed and direction where the stadium is located. Such wind events around Los Angeles have been partly blamed for spreading the infernos and impacting firefighting efforts.
The artist said the installation uses next-generation visual media technology that consumes 70 percent less energy than standard display screens, which has the added benefit of keeping the immersive room cooler. The work requires connectivity to a supercomputer in Los Angeles and the Google Cloud, but he praised them for using renewable energy.
How much do you pay attention to limiting your impact on the environment, especially considering the known drain that technology has on mining and energy resources?
In the last four years, all our research with A.I. uses ethical data and nature-friendly resources. You, of course, don't want to damage nature when we are creating artwork about nature. So, we are very careful about this.
The first time we talked was when you were in Davos, Switzerland, last year for your rainforest piece. What is it that draws you to discussing nature with digital works?
A.I. is a very powerful technology for us to preserve nature. And I think I have a very simple theory: We don't hurt something we love. The work I do around this tries to make deeper connections with nature. In the last two years, I've focused on corals, rainforests, and glaciers -- three topics my team has been constantly recording data on. We have ocean [data] as well.
I don't know if we focused so much on the importance of collecting your own data last time. Would you say that it has become more important to you with this work than it was with the other work?
Yes, 100 percent. In any work I do with nature, from now on, I am very present as an artist to collect data, to understand people, to have a fresh perspective.
When we previously discussed your Large Nature Model, you mentioned you had used external data sources as well, and that you had been that you had partnered with scientific institutions for that.
Yes, like the Smithsonian, for example.
Did you need to do that for this glacier piece? Or is this just all personal data collection?
Glacier is heavily personal, but of course, there are institutions and public libraries in Iceland, Argentina, and Switzerland [dedicated to] the glaciers. I was able to reach incredible institutions who have been preserving data and the majority of them have public data published online. So, I only use public data and data me and my team personally collect.
Using glaciers in your work makes a pointed commentary on climate change issues.
The glaciers are melting. They are the majority of our clean water source for humanity, and they are melting. They're gone. It's clearly visible data. I mean, it doesn't need any more speculation. It's visible that they are melting, so that really hurts me so much.
I want to shout out my mentor, Hans Ulrich Obrist. He really challenged me two years ago, when the project started. He said he thought I should be a part of the data, that I should travel and document these things myself. I should be present in the nature. It was a huge inspiration.
For this project, I spent more than 10 days in Iceland, walking about five miles with my 110 pounds of gear every day. I was just blown away by the beauty of ice caves, the beauty of landscape. I felt that it's an incredible element that there's my own data in the A.I.
Knowing that you are an Angeleno, and considering the possible impact climate change had in leading to the devastating fires over the last week, can you talk about how the fires affected you and other artists there?
The fire was one mile away from my house in the Hollywood Hills while I was in Shanghai. I received a phone call that a neighbor was evacuating. Because of the big time-zone difference, I didn't quite understand. It was almost 4 a.m. and that's how I learned about it.
It was an insane feeling. You're far away and a phone call comes in saying there's a high chance a fire will destroy everything and there's nothing you can do. It was shocking. Several of my friends lost their houses. Several of my friends lost everything.
By the way, we have an artwork for the California Air Research Board that we made maybe four years ago where we visualize the air quality of California using 42 sensors. We will be visualizing these last couple of days and weeks to show how the fire affected the air quality of California. We'll be quantifying this horrible event.
What can artists, particularly A.I. artists, do to promote climate change topics or make these things more environmentally friendly?
First of all, there's incredibly inspiring research around making technology more nature-friendly. I'm very fortunate that I'm working with these teams who are only focused on renewable energy in computing. So, it is possible to do this. The best thing I can do is apply these disciplines and set an example.
As for ethics, I work with my own data. I train my models, and that's how I focus my work. So yes, it's not easy. But that's how I preserve the ethics and the context and discourse of our work.
You're in Switzerland now. Are you going to be in Davos again next week for the 2025 World Economic Forum?
Yes, this is the third time I'm doing an opening ceremony for world leaders, on January 20. That will also be focused on glaciers, but these are two different events. In Davos, these incredible musicians will be performing for the world leaders with the A.I. model, the Large Nature Model, creating the visuals.
There is a bit of difference between those visuals and the visuals in Glacier Dreams. This artwork is very specifically an immersive environment. The artwork in Davos will be very much a narrative focus, very different visual language, but still from our A.I.