ARTnews: Let’s shift gears to talk with Refik Anadol. Ryan, can you talk a little bit about why you connected with Refik’s work?
Zurrer: Refik is one of the few digital artists who had a highly successful practice before NFTs. He was able to find global commercial success without that crucible moment of digital scarcity. Digital scarcity just allowed more people to collect it. I bought his NFT, Machine Hallucination: Synthetic Mars Terrain [in 2021]. What has always attracted me to Refik’s work is its generative nature. His work is a river in time. The onlooker never sees the same thing twice.
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ARTnews: Refik, you started out largely by making big public art commissions prior to the NFT days. Was it this public interaction that drew you to that scale?
Anadol: In 2008, when I was an undergraduate [in Istanbul], I programmed my very first piece of art with data and visual programming language. At that time, I coined this term “data painting,” with the idea that data is a kind of memory that can take any shape and any form. I am grateful for [Austrian conceptual artist] Peter Weibel, whom we lost this year, and the mindset he gave me. He inspired so many media artists in the world, and I had the chance to work with him. His vision was that artists should push the boundaries of art, science, and technology to the next level. So I come from that beautiful community of imaginations. [While studying at UCLA], I did my first audiovisual performance on [the side of] a building and, for the first time, I encountered how the community and the public react to something fresh and new. For years, I augmented many buildings and public spaces. I imagined that art should be for anyone—any age, any background, any culture. That was always my motive.
ARTnews: Earlier, Ryan was talking about how digital scarcity of NFTs was a watershed for many digital artists. Refik, was that part of your attraction to NFTs?
Anadol: Computer graphics has always been my main framework, and all digital art is generally based on computer graphics. In 2016–17, I was working with [the technology company] Nvidia to commission many works. I was surrounded by [graphical processing units] and I was just learning about the blockchain. I had already started mining [cryptocurrency], and I was learning about the blockchain and the culture around it. But NFTs were a breakthrough. It was this moment of connecting with communities, connecting with people like Ryan, and connecting with
other people supporting each other. I never saw that kind of support in any other medium. I’ve been to exhibition openings, and I never felt that same power of community. It was like magic, magic that rarely happens in any art form. That was how I was introduced to the space, and now I have a Discord community of 17,000 people. Every morning, I wake up and say hi and connect with everyone there. It’s ridiculously active.
ARTnews: What does it mean to you as an artist to have that built-in community? How does it affect your practice?
Anadol: There are two scales [of support]: One is someone like Ryan; collecting is one part of his support, but it is more than that. For me, a true collector and patron like Ryan is thinking, talking, sharing [with me], and supporting the whole journey. On top of that, there are other community members who operate at a different scale of support. With even humble pieces, there is the voice of the community. And when you connect all those people together you have this incredible community around the work and the studio. That is what makes me and the studio motivated every morning. This is public art thinking.
Zurrer: That community is emblematic of the crossover between culture and crypto. The tone is set by its leadership. Refik sets this positive frame of mind, and there is such meaning behind his work. For example, Refik’s recent [NFT collection Winds of Yawanawá] supports Indigenous peoples in Brazil. The capital [generated] from that project is genuinely life-changing for an entire tribe. I’m in something like 200 Discord channels, and Refik’s is unquestionably the most positive I’ve ever been a part of.
ARTnews: MoMA just acquired an NFT of Refik’s work, and that comes on the heels of Unsupervised being extended again. Ryan, could you talk about what that institutional backing means for digital art?
Zurrer: My hope is that we will look back and recognize this moment for the historical importance that it has. It catalyzed the recognition among major art institutions that the path to get museumgoers back after the pandemic is digital art. When displayed correctly, at scale, digital art creates awe in viewers, and it will bring crowds back. A new generation of people want dynamic art that changes. If they’re going to return to a museum, they don’t want to see the same thing. They want to see something that’s constantly evolving. I tip my hat to the folks at MoMA for understanding the cultural zeitgeist of the moment. Unsupervised went up two weeks before ChatGPT went public. AI is the defining topic of the moment, and MoMA captured that. I’m excited to donate this work to MoMA. But I need to acknowledge that this isn’t just a donation from me and [collector] Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile, but from Refik. He is bringing the servers and screens and the other components. The NFT is one part of this conceptual artwork that belongs to MoMA now.
Anadol: For any living artist, MoMA is the dream place to be. This is one giant, very incredible dream. But, as Ryan mentioned, the process of creating the work was collaborative. It’s not just the curators, but carpenters, the IT team, security, guest relations, everyone at MoMA became part of the work. It is a work that was cocreated. From the collecting, the production, creating the AI algorithm, finding the context and discourse, and working with the curators and the MoMA team, and the audience. That is the ultimate joy to me, and the ultimate success. Some people believe that [Unsupervised is] AI. It’s not AI. It is a human-machine collaboration. It is a 50/50 percent imagination. This is not just an AI doing something. It took 14 people one year to deep dive into one of the best art archives in the world, to imagine an AI that is inspiring, rather than mimicking, reality. It is not about creating another van Gogh or another Monet. It is about finding a new form.
ARTnews: The public conversation has exploded with Midjourney, ChatGPT, and other AI platforms recently. Has that changed how you approach your work?
Anadol: I think what is amazing right now is, finally, AI has its own moment. Finally, the world is paying attention. It is a moment that I think needs to happen. I’ve worked with AI since 2016, when I was the artist-in-residence at Google. That feels like 70 years ago because of how much has changed. If you work in a conventional medium, your tools—the paint, the brush—don’t change. But every morning, I wake up to a new tool. It’s a very different mindset. I love this uncomfortable zone.
But let’s not be wishful thinkers. Currently, the tools are making some artists unhappy. They are not feeling fulfilled. This is a common problem, but I have a solution. I’ve been saying for years, every artist who wants to explore AI should create their own AI model. They should be able to classify their data and train their model. This is a very challenging technique, but this logic can make people be more responsible with their AI models. It’s hard, but that is the way to push the boundaries and create something that artists can own, from the process to the data to the narrative.
ARTnews: Do you think working with tech companies like Google and Microsoft affects your ability to critically examine these technologies?
Anadol: How did Andy Warhol get support in the late ’60s? At LACMA, there was the [famed “Art and Technology” program and exhibition]. Back then, artists got the best support from the technology world. We are in the same space now. Breakthroughs may happen, but only when art, science, and technology come together. It is very easy to [maintain objective distance] because it is art. It’s not branding. It is a pure art on the edge of imagination. As an artist, if I look at the edge of imagination, I see archives, I see knowledge, I see the information of the world. And that world connects with the best hardware in the world. I don’t think there is any other hidden agenda. It is just our human world of data [connecting to] the best technology in the world.
ARTnews: We are a couple years down the line from the NFT explosion. Now, we are firmly in the AI moment. What do you see as the next evolution or maturation in digital art?
Zurrer: I think we’ll get more dynamic art that evolves. Especially as generative AI is implemented in it. And this idea that art can be a river in time and evolve based on a variety of inputs. So some of Refik’s work evolves based on sound and light and the environmental impact around it. You’ll also get work that will continue to add new data points, and the work will evolve in that way.
Anadol: Art can only happen if it touches the mind and soul at the same time. Even though I am the artist most working with data and AI, I have a spiritual connection to every work I do. That comes from being human. Even though we are going to a world where AI and machines will have a significant role in humanity, I have found that my role is to question: what is creativity and what is real? What is real is the main question over the next decades, and I just want to be sure that our work brings inspiration, joy, and hope for humanity. That is what I am working for, and I will just be working as much as I can to bring these feelings to the world.