Refik Anadol Sci-Fi Utopianism
By Refik Anadol
Sci-Fi Utopianism Engram : Data Sculpture, 3+1 AP. 6M x 5M, 3MM LED Media Wall, Custom Software. “From February 7 through March 17, 2018, Pilevneli Gallery presented [Refik Anadol](/artists/refik-anadol)’s latest project on the materiality of remembering Refik Anadol is a media artist and director from Istanbul, currently living and working in Los Angeles. Through explorations of space, achieved through immersive installations and experiences, his work examines the idea of memory. Anadol has been building upon the ideas of [machine hallucinations](/orgs/codame/projects/machine-hallucinations) and the melding of digital and physical space for a long time. Having spent time as a videographer, architectural photographer, and creative director, he brings these disciplines and ways of seeing to bear on his evolving algorithmically-based works. Refik Anadol Machine dreams of Mars For this year’s [CODAME](/orgs/codame) [ART+TECH Festival](/orgs/codame/events/codame-art-tech-festival-2013) 2019 『 SPACE 』, Anadol will be showing examples of his signature parametric data sculpture works, which he calls “machine hallucinations.” This will be his first time presenting work at the annual CODAME event, which will take place at Github headquarters in San Francisco this October. “I’m really excited to be a part of the festival for the first time,” says Anadol. “I’m super excited about these Machine Memoir works and machine hallucination studies.” To create the works, he explains, he began with 12 terabytes of datasets, images downloaded from the HiRISE telescope, which recorded the entire surface of Mars. (“Maybe our next home, who knows,” he laughs, and I get the feeling he isn’t really joking.) Refik Anadol — Melting Memories HiRISE (short for “High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment”) is the most powerful camera ever sent from Earth to travel the solar system. Launched in 2005 by a team of planetary scientists, geologists, and researchers from the University of Arizona, SETI Institute, and other research institutions, HiRISE reached Mars in 2006 aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), an advanced spacecraft designed to observe Mars from orbit.