Refik Anadol, 1985

Born in Istanbul in 1985, Refik Anadol completed his master’s degree in Media Arts Design at the University of California Los Angeles after graduating from Istanbul Bilgi University, Department of Visual Communication Design with a focus on photography and video. Working as a lecturer and visiting researcher in the same department, the artist continues to live and work in Los Angeles, California, where the Refik Anadol Studio and RAS LAB are located.

Refik Anadol, who defines himself as a media artist, usually creates site-specific works. At the beginning of his artistic career, Anadol produced sculptures using architectural-oriented data. In time, Anadol began to produce projects in which he processes data from much more diverse sources through artificial intelligence programs. The artist, who is known for his works focusing on how machines perceive and interpret data – which today is frequently referred to as the memory of machines – obtains the data sets he focuses on through various institutions he collaborates with such as NASA and Google. In his works where he focuses on artificial intelligence and machine memory, Anadol investigates how the perception and experience of time and space changes and transforms.

The installation titled “Bosphorus” focuses on data and themes about the Bosphorus, one of the most important symbols of Istanbul, which has inspired artists for decades. Within the scope of this work, Refik Anadol Studio collects and analyzes real-time environmental data such as wind, temperature, and the humidity of air and sea provided by the General Directorate of Meteorology. On the other hand, the work processes the data of invisible communication signals collected through sensors that are placed around the museum with machine intelligence. “Bosphorus” invites the visitor to a 360° mirrored room that surrounds the visitor with light and sound, while processing and dynamically visualizing all this live and instant data through digital technologies. Designed as an Infinity Room, the work focuses on the transformation of the cultural memory of the Bosphorus and how it can be interpreted from the past to the future. The installation aims to reveal all the visible and invisible colors of the Bosphorus.