Artist Refik Anadol imagines an immersive installation for Bulgari designed using artificial intelligence

A hot topic in the art world in 2021, NFTs – “Non Fungible Tokens” – finally make it possible to authenticate and make a digital document unique. A process that has been very much in vogue in recent months and which has recently enabled the Turkish artist Refik Anadol to establish his legitimacy: on October 4,  in Hong Kong,  Sotheby’s sold its collection of multimedia works for 5.1 million dollars. A pioneer in digital art and influenced by science fiction, Refik Anadol belongs to a new generation of artists halfway between director and data scientist.  “I started working on computers and video games at the age of eight after seeing the movie Blade Runner. It was my first contact with science fiction. Whether it is to produce music, sounds, text, or images… I’ve always used artificial intelligence as a partner“, he confides enthusiastically. In his creative studio in Los Angeles, there are now as many scientists as designers: fourteen people from ten countries help him daily to create his monumental and hypnotizing sculptures,  composed thanks to billions of data,  images collected on the net and artificial intelligence. “For the past five years, I have been training my teams because working with artificial intelligence is complex. When they start learning, it’s like a black box, you don’t know what they’re learning. Interacting with an artificial intelligence therefore brings a new artistic gesture“, explains the artist. 

Last week, in Milan, Refik Anadol presented its latest digital work designed especially for the Italian jewelry house Bulgari. Inspired by Bulgari’s iconic Serpenti collection and entitled Serpenti Metamorphosis, this immersive installation installed in front of the Duomo offers a striking contrast to the famous Gothic cathedral. In a square room, two walls of screens display a moving and fascinating fresco with vibrant colors that are reflected on the other two sides, the ceiling and the mirrored floor. “For me, the notion of metamorphosis does not only take place in the physical world, but also in the mind of a machine and an artificial intelligence. Everything in our world today is about metamorphosis“, says the artist. To compose this living sculpture, Refik Anadol and his studio trained artificial intelligence which has created, from 200 million images of nature among which 70 million photos of real flowers – whose colours are reminiscent of snakes – drawn from the internet (social networks, open source files, archives and museum libraries), his own process of transforming nature inspired by the animal’s moulting. “With Serpenti Metamorphosis, the question is whether we can control the metamorphosis, the environment in which it evolves and the sensation it provides in the real world,” he continues. Before embarking on this experience, Refik Anadol visited the Bulgari archives to immerse himself in the Serpenti collections launched in the 40s and inspired by mythology. An emblematic motif that, depending on the era, has become abstract or figurative, Serpenti has constantly encouraged the Roman house to push its limits in terms of innovation. Some Serpenti pieces exhibited at the entrance and exit of the exhibition,  from different eras, attest to the exceptional know-how of the house.  

Refik Anadol’s work presented in Milan is not limited to two simple screens. The artist thought of his concept as a multisensory experience that also summons the hearing and smell,  thanks to sounds that evolve according to the images as well as a perfume, Rainforest, developed with the famous nose Sophie Labbé. Also composed thanks to artificial intelligence –  as well as keywords and images –  the fragrance then becomes a new facet of this vast metamorphosis. With Serpenti Metamorphosis, Refik Anadol takes us on an exhilarating immersive journey that, for a few minutes, takes us out of reality.

The installation Serpenti Metamorphosis, located in Piazza del Duomo in Milan,  until October 30 via this link.