Refik Anadol hopes to demystify AI and look beyond the “shiny pixels” of generative art

Obviously an algorithm isn’t going to bring in the crowds, but this is where Refik has found his niche. The exhibition at London’s Serpentine North features three recent artworks by Refik, real-time generative artworks of flora, fungi and fauna, accompanied by immersive sounds and smells, all made using his studio’s so-called Large Nature Model algorithm (a play on the term Large Language Model), which aim to provoke new perspectives and conversations on nature and climate change. His artworks are at times grand, mesmerising, satisfying to watch; other times the aesthetic is still very typical of current AI: swooshing, crashing waves of goo and impossibly perfect splats of paint in ice cream colours. Nevertheless, these pupil-dilating artworks do bring the crowds in, and, in tandem, the show aims to demystify AI and the process behind making such a project – to make it accessible and encourage others to use it.

“The largest work in this exhibition is the data wall,” Refik tells me. When you first walk into the gallery and adjust your eyes to the darkness, you are first greeted by this huge data wall, which you could (and I did) spend more time examining than the entirety of the rest of the show. It explains what the Large Nature Model is, but mostly the data it was fed: 4.5 billion images of coral reefs and rainforests, 25,000 sounds of bird songs, and half a million scent molecules, all ethically sourced from months of firsthand research by the studio (Refik himself lived in the rainforest for three months to research this project), data from the Smithsonian Institution and London’s Natural History Museum, and freely accessible online imagery. “We are witnessing the raw data, demystifying the source of knowledge,” Refik continues. “You can see where the data comes from, how we collected it, how we built the AI from scratch. This artform needs more than beauty. I’m doing my best to share more.”

The word bridge comes up a lot with Refik. He wants to bridge the gap between AI and the public, between tech and nature, but he’s also become a bridge between a sceptical art crowd and the potentials of AI technology. He probably spends nearly as much time explaining to cynical journalists and confused patrons how AI models work, as he does actually making the work. As such, Refik represents the antithesis of exclusionary art world gatekeepers, speaking artistic babble no one ever says in everyday conversation. He wants everyone to understand and be excited by AI art’s possibilities, and use it to promote discussion and collaboration for good causes – in this case saving underwater and rainforest ecosystems.

When I ask him if he ever considered simply putting photographs of actual coral on the big screens, he tells me some of the generated images “aren’t just shiny pixels” but in fact functional – they have been 3D printed and placed in the ocean by researchers trying to make a new ecosystem where real coral is dying. “I’m trying to find a common place where shiny aesthetics but also the scientific, tangible and functional can meet,” he explains. The studio has also raised millions using AI (through commissions and selling NFTs) which it is putting back into communities, such as the rainforests the team visited. “AI can have a tangible impact. It’s important to remember it’s not just about extracting data. If you just see shiny pixels, it’s just the surface, the depth is much beyond.”

Refik is a vocal advocate for open-source culture and using technology and research to make a difference beyond gallery walls, which this show exemplifies. The Large Nature Model is open source, because, as Refik tells me, he “comes from an open source culture. I learned AI through open source culture. So it’s our gift back to humanity. Anyone can access it, researchers can download and play and break it. The future of AI needs open source.”

To that end, this show is free to visit, not to mention a feat of scale and technology – the huge screens envelop the space and your peripheral vision, making it dazzling, social media heaven. Yes, the aesthetic can feel familiar at points, and arguably less impressive than real-life nature – but actual nature is dying, and that’s the point. As Refik puts it: “Nature is the most intelligent technology we have. We have to learn to respect it and protect it.”

Refik Anadol: Echoes of the Earth: Living Archive is open until 7 April 2024 at Serpentine North gallery in London.