MACHINE HALLUCINATION

The question of why we collect, record, and share our quotidian experiences has always been entangled with the formal and aesthetic concerns about how to represent reality, totality, and the depth of human imagination. Nineteenth century poet and critic Stéphane Mallarmé famously said that everything in the world existed to end up in a book. Revisiting Mallarmé’s proposition in her 1977 collection of essays, On Photography, Susan Sonntag wrote, “Today everything exists to end in a photograph.” More recently, Jonathan Zittrain, the co-founder of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and society, suggested that “internet architecture” lacked a definable center and instead relied on “an extraordinary collective hallucination.”
Refik Anadol’s most recent synesthetic reality experiments deeply engage with these centuries-old questions and attempt at revealing new connections between visual narrative, archival instinct and collective consciousness. The project focuses on latent cinematic experiences derived from representations of urban memories as they are re-imagined by machine intelligence. For Artechouse’s New York location, Anadol presents a data universe of New York City in 1025 latent dimensions that he creates by deploying machine learning algorithms on over 100 million photographic memories of New York City found publicly in social networks. Machine Hallucination thus generates a novel form of synesthetic storytelling through its multilayered manipulation of a vast visual archive beyond the conventional limits of the camera and the existing cinematographic techniques.
The resulting artwork is a 30-minute experimental cinema, presented in 16K resolution, that visualizes the story of New York through the city’s collective memories that constitute its deeply-hidden consciousness. The exhibition does not tell the story of today’s New York, but, instead, foresees what may come, through the machine intelligence’s bridging of the gap between the present and a vision of the near future. It is a hopeful vision about the evolving relationship between machine and man, and provides an alternative to the conventional narrative of an apocalyptic future. Machine Hallucination offers a unique context for us to explore an alternative reality. As both an entertaining and enthralling experience, the machine’s hallucination can expand our capacity to dream, and help us envision things that we otherwise could not see or imagine.
CREDITS
Commissioned by Artechouse
Designed and Developed by Refik Anadol Studio
Team Members & Collaborators
Alex Morozov
Ali Emre Karacali
Carrie He
Christian Burke
Christina Moushoul
Danny Lee
HyeJi Yang
Efe Mert Kaya
Efsun Erkılıç
Ho Man Leung
Julia Thompson
Kyle McLean
Maurizio Braggiotti
Nicholas Boss
Pelin Kıvrak
Raman K. Mustafa
Toby Heinemann
Sound Design
Kerim Karaoglu
Commissioned By
Artechouse NYC
Sandro Kereselidze
Tati Pastukhova
Public Relations
Laura B. Cohen / LC Media
Specs
18 Channel 4K Video
32 Channel Sound
Custom Software
13689 X 7418px resolution
30 minutes

[@olyvine]

Thank you! You are creating new nature and new universes, and new dreamscapes

[@joshuadarling7439]

Holy shit. This is absolutely amazing. I love the ideas behind this, and the final product. You have inspired me

[@AndresPozosComposer]

I can help you. This is brilliantly done. I'm excited already!!!

[@ValentinaRovedaV]

Awesome work!

[@mir_kaminov]

3:10 that breakdown is literally perfect! ❤️

[@ronyg2741]

Thank you Refikanadol ❤🔥 was there myself it's Beatiful 😍

[@saemranian]

Awesome!

[@ArtistScottyGiffen]

Amazing!!!!Thank you.

[@brettherring2138]

Incredible. It would be amazing if you did this for a music festival. An entire crowd immersed in this combined with the music experience would be next level. Beautiful work!

[@TUBESPECIFIC1]

They do trance raves except that wonky pandemic gets in their way now.

[@vickeyavinash]

He did

[@randomlikeu]

this is amazig! thank u very much

[@junjun6977]

素晴らしい😊 感動です

[@user-pu9ch4tg7g]

so great !!!!!! New art !!!

[@KrijnvanNoordwijkGoogle]

Holy shit Refik! Mesmerizing and beautiful!

[@6962943]

Wow i wish to visit this place😍

[@TUBESPECIFIC1]

How many terapflops of computing power does his Nvidea all seeing eye GPU have? It's an amazing technical impossibility achieved. Does he use a very high end gaming PC to do it or is it a special super duper not available in a Best Buy store?

[@TC-rj9rz]

they team up with google cloud engineers. work of this is impossible to be done at a home pc no matter the specs. you need super computers for this bad boy

[@Schizonoise]

I want a room like this

[@vinzuel402]

Le truc de fou !!

[@MashmanMusic]

I want a room based computer monitor like that.

[@alimmuridkadir1876]

Iste KUANTUM ve SALT bilincin, nasil her AN yeni bir san'da oldugunu 5 dakikada butun bunlari OKUyabilen beyinlere sunulmuş muhtesem bir hediye. Incredible , jest mind blowing information making us to Think the truth how our Brain processing the frequencies it receives , process them computing with the information previously stored there ( data we have as a result of precondionting) and outputs by converting them sounds and images which does not even exit.. THANK YOU REFIK!!!

[@DmitriNesterov]

Во, у Вояджера-1 такая ерунда в памяти приключилась. Искренне желаю ему чудесным образом возвращаться на связь 😊

[@stark_i]

مستقبل التكنلوجيا

[@dischargedarrowgetback4322]

There is an "exit" on the left side of the screen. Were the men and women in this room able to return to their original real world?

[@filizB1111X]

This is the esse of what we THINK we see. Eyes do not see. It just receives an insignificant amount of energy, frequency and vicration. Brain, with the help of 5 limited senses, process and converts them into images. Oneness, Wholeness. Observing His Knowledge, in His Knowledge with His Knowledge. Data, Knowledge, Will-Power ( Alim, Murid, Qadir) 💧💗♾️

[@sanapatel3783]

How is something like this made

[@meherbabagod3732]

🥰🥰❤❤😍😍

[@johnmartinimusic2406]

This is not dissimilar to an LSD Trip

[@JuanLopez-ss3mz]

“Them edibles ain’t shi-“

[@xexythanh]

i didnt realize that woman was a render... i was like man she standing really close and not moving... is she ok

[@ssangry99]

cool kind of art made by a vending machine

[@jositochanante]

They look down stunned, they only look forward, which I waste.

[@korobuskha]

bir türk olarak gurur duydum, cumartesi ve pazar günleri açık arttırmada olacağım...

[@ericchristen2623]

A dragonfly is much more interesting. This is only impressive to those who are blind to nature..

[@catalystcoversations5644]

It's all about perspective, I definitely agree with you about nature all around us, however it's all Art... maybe this artist was inspired by a dragonfly, nature, or a dream. Just saying

[@360.Tapestry]

i can help you

[@brijeshdhiman3364]

Not from Planet Earth. Astonishing.

[@dantet.]

Incredible , unbelievable to get the chance playing a DJ set inside this awesome place @refikanadol