LO 08: Space in the Mind of a Machine, Eyeo 2019 – Refik Anadol

Refik Anadol is a media artist born in Istanbul, Turkey and holds a master of fine arts degree from UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts, master of fine arts from Istanbul Bilgi University in Visual Communication Design and a bachelors of arts degree in photography and video. Currently situated in Los Angeles, he works in the field of site-specific public art, leveraging data, live audio, and video to produce interactive information visualization. His key works explore the spatial relationship between architecture and media arts with machine intelligence.

The most interesting part is how he visualizes various datasets with relationship to visual and spatial storytelling. I can relate his method of inquiry to critical regionalism or place-making reflecting the memory or history of that context. His final project named WDCH Dreams was the best of all as the presentation format was incremental and progressive.

WDCH DREAMS – Process from Refik Anadol on Vimeo.

His presentation for the Eyeo Festival, 2019 begins with his motivation to computational design followed by his capstone project for master of fine arts degree at UCLA. On a larger context, the presentation can be divided into before AI and after. The key feature of the presentation was incorporating his experience with various clients and people he met during this journey through storytelling, which involves the audience into his works.

Eyeo 2019 – Refik Anadol from Eyeo Festival on Vimeo.