IN SESSION: Curating After the Internet

A pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence, Refik Anadol shared insights into his process of creating real-time generative environments, often presented as large-scale public installations experienced worldwide. Together with Linda Rocco, they discuss the impact of AI and emerging technologies on established ‘art world’ norms, reshaping the conditions of curating and art-making.

Linda will be leading the Curating Contemporary Art and Design short course in July 2024, applications are open.

Refik Anadol

Refik Anadol is an internationally renowned media artist, director, and pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence. He is the Director of Refik Anadol Studio in Los Angeles and Lecturer in UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts. Anadol’s work locates creativity at the intersection of humans and machines. Taking the data that surrounds us as primary material, and the neural network of a computerized mind as a collaborator, Anadol offers us radical visualizations of our digitized memories and expands the possibilities of interdisciplinary arts. Anadol’s site-specific data paintings and sculptures, live audio/visual performances, and immersive installations take many forms, while encouraging us to rethink our engagement with the physical world, collective experiences, public art, decentralized networks, and the creative potential of AI. Anadol’s work has been exhibited at venues including MoMA, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Art Basel, National Gallery of Victoria, Venice Architecture Biennale, Hammer Museum, Arken Museum, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Ars Electronica, Istanbul Modern, and ZKM | Center for Art and New Media. Anadol has received a number of awards and prizes including the Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award for New Media Art, Microsoft Research’s Best Vision Award, German Design Award, UCLA Art+Architecture Moss Award, Columbia University’s Breakthrough in Storytelling Award, and Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence Artist Residency Award.

Refik's most recent reels:

Showreel

AI Research

Linda Rocco

Linda is an independent curator and researcher. Her curatorial practice and research engages the crossover of contemporary art, the curatorial and new media, with a focus on emerging technologies and the financialisation of art, organisational systems, particularly collaborative infrastructures, and network cultures. Linda has extensive experience in curating exhibitions, public programmes, and residencies, with established international organisations such as Delfina Foundation, Yinka Shonibare Foundation, Goethe Institut and the Mayor of London. She has worked with artists, collectives and organisations worldwide, from Denmark to Thailand, Ghana, Indonesia and the US, and has consulted for numerous London councils, Arts Council England, the Creative Cities Challenge and Frieze Art Fair. Trained in art history and curating, her doctoral research at the Royal College of Art is focused on developing new art ecologies for Industry 5.0. She has published in Art Monthly, and her curatorial projects have been featured on the BBC, The London Evening Standard, Art Daily, Kunstbulletin, Arte e Critica Magazine, The Quietus, Dazed and GQ.

Linda's website

Professor Victoria Walsh

Victoria is a curator and active researcher whose projects span from the post-war period to the contemporary. Working across both the museum, gallery and academic sector, Victoria Walsh has taught widely at institutions including Chelsea College of Arts, Architectural Association and University of Westminster. She received her doctorate in Art History from Oxford Brookes University in 1996, and also holds degrees in Art History (M.A., Courtauld Institute, London) and Curating (M.A., Royal College of Art).