(Repost @design.emergency) In November 2021, artist Refik Anadol presented Unsupervised, “an exhibition of works created by training an artificial intelligence model with the public metadata of The Museum of Modern Art’s collection... The AI-based abstract images and shapes in Unsupervised are interpretations of the Museum’s wide-ranging collection, weighted toward the exhibition of new artworks at MoMA this fall’ explains MoMA’s website. In this first foray into NFTs, MoMA teamed up with Refik and with the media platform Feral File––which was founded by Refik’s mentor and renowned artist Casey Reas. The AI that Refik and his team had trained and tamed like a dragon rendered hypnotic images in which MoMA curators could recognize the essence of the collection, its soul and DNA, familiar and yet revealed to them for the first time. About six years ago, Refik began his investigation of machine learning, his quest into whether a machine can not only learn but also dream or hallucinate, producing a diverse body of work based on datasets coming from archives of all kinds––including one of the most well-known museum collections in the world––each time surfacing new information that, using the appropriate source, could go well beyond the aesthetic activation of data and into the realm of health, equity, and sustainability, and contribute to the advancement of society. In our video channel, you can watch Paola’s conversation with Refik, in which the characteristically generous, optimistic, and exquisitely communicative artist explains his views on the potential of AI, and on 21st-century public art as a hybrid blend of media arts and architecture. Images: Unsupervised — Data Universe — MoMA, a “global AI data painting that simulates a latent walk among the museum’s digitized collection”; Unsupervised — Machine Hallucinations — MoMA (details), “a machine mind’s dream after ‘seeing’ the vast collection of The Museum of Modern Art”; courtesy the artist and Feral File. #refikanadol #designemergency #ai #web3 #machineart #machinedreams #gans #nft #datart #moma #unsupervised #feralfile #caseyreas