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Generative art has become such a tool to reflect on what we have seen until now and use those tools to create new scenes and dream-like experiences. Refik Anadol does exactly this.
‘Machine Hallucinations’, a synesthetic reality experience explores the connections between collective memories and archival tendencies of humans.
Powered by an algorithm fed over 100 million photographs of New York City, this 30 minute cinematic installation helps us to understand why we record experiences and hold onto memories into every step of a coming reality. Using the immense data that it has been provided and learned from, the algorithm produces scenes of a transforming New York City (in a possible future) and a multitude of similar dream-like ‘hallucinations’.
Anadol’s work stood out to me as it begins the exploration in answering why we as humans act the way we do, all while introducing machines and AI as the possible vehicle for carrying out these considerations. His work not only serves to explore alternate realities through a visual medium, but also to bring a more hopeful narrative to the apocalyptic relationship between AI and humans that we often see today.