A new cultural landmark has arrived in Los Angeles. DATALAND, the world’s first Museum of AI Arts, opened on June 20th, 2026, at The Grand LA in Downtown Los Angeles. Conceived by media artist Refik Anadol and producer Efsun Erkılıç, the institution explores the intersection of human imagination, artificial intelligence, and the natural world through evolving sensory experiences.
Housed within Frank Gehry’s Grand LA development, DATALAND spans more than 25,000 square feet across five galleries. Here, data serves as artistic material, and exhibitions continuously shift through machine intelligence and visitor participation.
Refik Anadol reimagines the Museum of AI Arts
Conceived as a “laboratory of imagination,” DATALAND proposes a new museum model. Vast projections, responsive soundscapes, scent technologies, and AI-generated visuals create environments shaped by live data and audience presence.
More than a billion pixels of visual content, biometric technologies, and advanced audio systems drive the experience. Visitors wear Data.Link devices that anonymously respond to movement and physical signals, allowing artworks to change in real time. A personalized scent system adds another sensory layer.
Beyond the galleries, DATALAND includes educational programs, artist residencies, open-access environmental data resources, and a growing collection dedicated to AI-based art. Ethical data practices and sustainability remain central to its vision.
Museum of AI Arts launches with ‘Machine Dreams: Rainforest’
The inaugural exhibition, Machine Dreams: Rainforest, runs from June 20th, 2026, through January 31st, 2027.
Created by Refik Anadol Studio, the project is powered by the Large Nature Model (LNM), an AI system trained on one of the largest permission-based environmental datasets ever assembled. Drawing on millions of images and ecological records from collaborators including the Smithsonian, Getty, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the exhibition converts environmental information into a living sensory landscape.
Rather than depicting the rainforest, it evokes its rhythms, memories, and hidden systems through generative imagery, sound, scent, and live environmental data.
Refik Anadol’s dream-inspired journey through the rainforest
The exhibition traces a narrative inspired by Anadol’s visit to the Amazon and encounters with leaders of the Yawanawá community. A dream of a hummingbird became the thread linking personal memory, Indigenous knowledge, and machine interpretation.
Across five connected galleries, visitors encounter rainforest recordings, evolving digital environments, orchestral compositions, and sensory installations that shift throughout the day. In the final space, Sanctuary, audience participation contributes to a collective data sculpture that continually changes shape.
The project reflects Anadol’s long-standing interest in making the invisible perceptible, turning vast datasets into emotionally resonant experiences while prompting reflection on humanity’s relationship with nature and technology.
A new cultural landmark for Los Angeles
With DATALAND, Refik Anadol proposes a new kind of cultural institution—one that breathes, reacts, and evolves alongside its audience. Blending cutting-edge technology, ecological consciousness, and sensory storytelling, the museum challenges conventional ideas of how art can be experienced in the twenty-first century.
Discover how Refik Anadol approaches AI-driven creation, thinks about scale and public space, and envisions the next chapter of art in an increasingly technological world, in our conversation.
Photography by REFIK ANADOL STUDIO, courtesy of DATALAND
