The World's First Museum of AI Arts
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building directly across the street from Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles is set to become a landmark for the future of art. Designed by Gehry himself, this ambitious project will house the world's first Museum of AI Arts, opening its doors to the public in the spring of 2026.
Refik Anadol Studio presents DATALAND, the groundbreaking museum that will blend human imagination with artificial intelligence, establishing a new paradigm for artistic expression as we enter the digital age.
For a city that has long stood at the crossroads of technology and culture, the arrival of DATALAND feels less like a surprise and more like an inevitability. Hollywood invented the moving image, Los Angeles shaped the digital entertainment industry, and Silicon Beach brought the tech sector to the Westside. Now, on a stretch of Grand Avenue that already includes The Broad, MOCA, the Music Center, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the most pressing question in contemporary culture—what happens when artificial intelligence becomes a creative partner rather than merely a tool—will find its own permanent institution.
Meet the Visionaries
Established in 2014 by Refik Anadol, a pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence, alongside artist and entrepreneur Efsun Erkılıç, the Los Angeles-based Refik Anadol Studio produces enthralling and immersive media art designed for audiences of all ages and backgrounds.
Anadol's personal history with Los Angeles adds depth to the significance of DATALAND. His fascination with the city began at age eight when he discovered Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, which presented a futuristic reimagining of Los Angeles. Arriving in 2012 to attend a graduate program in Design Media Arts at UCLA, where he has taught for the past decade, Anadol's journey is intimately tied to the city.
"The first artist to have a generative AI work in the MoMA permanent collection is now opening a museum six blocks from where that work was first conceived."
Born in Istanbul in 1985, Anadol is a media artist and educator at UCLA's Department of Design Media Arts. His teaching role is significant, as it connects the work showcased at DATALAND directly to the next generation of artists and designers being trained at one of the nation's most prestigious design programs. The museum is not merely a display space; it is embedded in the ecosystem that produces art.
The impact of Anadol and Erkılıç's work is staggering. In 2023, Unsupervised, presented at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, attracted nearly three million visitors in a single year. The Washington Post hailed it as an "early masterpiece of AI-generated art," and it was acquired into MoMA's permanent collection, marking Anadol as the first artist to have a generative AI piece added to the museum's holdings.
DATALAND Unveiled: A New Artistic Frontier
The innovative 25,000-square-foot institution will feature five distinct galleries, serving as a pioneering hub for exploring the creative potential of artificial intelligence and generative systems. Designed in collaboration with architecture firm Gensler and sustainable development consultancy Arup, the museum represents a new model for artistic expression at the dawn of the digital age.
DATALAND is committed to promoting "ethical AI" and will be powered by renewable energy. Anadol's studio has gained recognition as a leader in using AI models to create "AI data painting" and "data sculptures."
"A museum dedicated to AI art that runs on renewable energy is making a visible statement about responsible AI practice."
This ethical and environmental commitment is crucial. The AI industry has faced significant criticism for its energy consumption during large-scale model training and inference. A museum dedicated to AI art that operates sustainably is not just a statement; it is central to DATALAND's identity.
The museum will function as both a physical venue and a digital ecosystem dedicated to data visualization and AI-based creativity. It will unite pioneers across the arts, science, AI research, and technology under Anadol's artistic leadership while acting as a public repository for large-scale, nature-focused datasets and building a comprehensive collection of AI art.
One of the more unusual and significant aspects of DATALAND's design is its public repository function. While most museums collect and display objects, DATALAND will also collect and display the data that generates art, including nature data from Anadol's Large Nature Model project. This collection philosophy treats raw information as cultural heritage worth preserving and sharing.
The Infinity Room: A Global Sensation
The most anticipated experience inside DATALAND is Gallery C, anchored by the Infinity Room.
Over the past decade, the Infinity Room has traveled to 35 cities around the globe, captivating over 10 million visitors. Building on this legacy, DATALAND's Infinity Room will showcase the significant technological and artistic advancements made by Refik Anadol Studio since its inception.
Ten million visitors across 35 cities is not a niche audience; it represents a global phenomenon, a level of engagement that most artists and institutions never achieve throughout their entire existence. The version arriving at DATALAND is not a mere reproduction of what those visitors experienced; it is a fundamentally new iteration built with technologies that did not exist when the original was created.
"Infinity Room engages three senses, all being shaped in real time by an AI system that understands how physics and space actually behave."
The 2026 DATALAND version will permanently integrate advanced World Models and cross-modal AI systems covering vision, sound, and olfaction into the gallery space. This new version of World Models simulates the real world by algorithmically warping, refracting, and dissolving architectural constraints, achieving a profound illusion of unbounded infinity.
Infinity Room will feature AI-generated scents created by the Large Nature Model and will be the first immersive environment to utilize World Models—an advanced generative AI that comprehends real-world physics and spatial dynamics.
This sensory combination of visual, auditory, and olfactory experiences generated by AI simultaneously is unique in a permanent public art context. The scent dimension alone represents a genuinely new frontier. While most immersive art experiences engage two senses, DATALAND's Infinity Room engages three, all dynamically shaped by an AI system.
The evolution from a 12x12 ft mirrored cube using generative algorithms in 2015 to a 2026 World Model-driven Infinity Room illustrates how the future of public art, architectural interventions, and decentralized networks can effectively utilize complex generative systems.
Experiencing an environment where the AI is not simply playing a pre-rendered video but actively generating the visual and spatial experience based on learned models of physical reality is fundamentally different from any existing immersive art experience in Los Angeles. The closest comparable experiences, such as the Van Gogh projection shows and Meow Wolf installations, are beautiful yet passive. DATALAND's Infinity Room is generative; what you experience is created in the moment.
The Large Nature Model: A New Ethical Standard
One of the most remarkable aspects of DATALAND's approach to AI art is the foundation it has built for its primary model. Rather than relying on internet-scraped data, the studio has spent years developing something fundamentally different.
The inaugural exhibitions will feature Refik Anadol Studio's Large Nature Model, described as the world's first open-source AI model based solely on nature data.
An AI model trained exclusively on ethically sourced nature data, made open-source for other artists and researchers to build upon, powers permanent gallery experiences in a museum committed to renewable energy. This coherent philosophy about what AI in the arts should look like is executed at an institutional scale.
The Large Nature Model also generates the AI scents in the Infinity Room. A key part of the Infinity Room experience is the inclusion of AI-generated scents using this model, which interprets nature and expresses that interpretation as a scent evolving within an immersive spatial environment. This concept is one of the more genuinely strange and beautiful developments in contemporary art happening anywhere in the world right now—and it is taking place in Downtown Los Angeles.
DTLA's Cultural Corridor: A New Landmark
DATALAND's location places it at the heart of the most concentrated arts corridor on the West Coast.
Within walking distance of The Broad, MOCA, The Music Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, REDCAT, and The Colburn School, DATALAND enhances Los Angeles' cultural corridor.
The Grand LA, developed by Related Companies, is home to the award-winning 305-room Conrad Los Angeles luxury hotel, over 436 residences—including affordable housing—and will feature a collection of chef-driven restaurants, shops, and art-driven experiences anchored by DATALAND.
Its location directly across from Walt Disney Concert Hall resonates deeply with anyone familiar with Refik Anadol's history in Los Angeles. In 2018, the team presented WDCH Dreams, celebrating the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Centennial, using 42 large-scale projectors to create nightly live performances featuring machine dreams of the LA Phil's 100 years of digitized memories, mapped directly onto the undulating stainless-steel exterior of the iconic building.
This project, projecting the LA Philharmonic's century of memories onto Gehry's concert hall using machine intelligence, was one of the most talked-about public art events in Los Angeles in the last decade. The permanent museum opening across the street this spring is, in many ways, what WDCH Dreams was pointing toward: a stable, sustained institution that gives these ideas a home for visitors to return to.
For Angelenos looking to build a day around the opening, the cultural density of Grand Avenue makes it easy. A visit to DATALAND can be paired with a stroll through The Broad's Kusama and Jeff Koons collection next door, a look at the current MOCA exhibition around the corner, or an evening concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The Grand Avenue corridor has been one of the most exciting stretches of the city for years, and DATALAND adds a unique experience that did not exist anywhere on the block before.
DATALAND as a Platform: The Google Arts and Culture Residency
In alignment with DATALAND's mission to expand public understanding of artificial intelligence and its creative applications, the museum announces the launch of its inaugural Artist Residency Program, in partnership with Google Arts & Culture. Over six months, three selected artists will explore new frontiers of human-machine collaboration, supported by mentorship, funding, and technical resources. Their projects will culminate in a public showcase at DATALAND, featuring immersive installations, artist talks, and lectures examining AI's evolving role in art and culture.
This partnership with Google Arts and Culture is significant for both its resources and what it signals about DATALAND's ambitions. This is not a museum that intends to showcase the same installations indefinitely; it is a platform designed to generate new work, support emerging artists exploring AI, and serve as an ongoing site of experimentation rather than a static collection. Three artists per year, working for six months with mentorship and technical support, then exhibiting their results publicly, creates an active creative ecology rather than a preservation institution.
For Los Angeles artists interested in the frontier of AI and creativity, DATALAND represents a new resource in the city. It joins UCLA's Department of Design Media Arts, CalArts, and ArtCenter College of Design as a place where serious creative research into technology and expression can thrive with institutional support.
Looking Ahead: DATALAND's Impact on Los Angeles
Los Angeles is gearing up to host the 2028 Olympics, with the D Line subway extension opening its first new stations in May 2026 and LACMA's new Peter Zumthor building debuting in April. Now, the world's first Museum of AI Arts is set to take its permanent position on Grand Avenue.
This cluster of major cultural and infrastructure developments arriving within the same 18-month window is no coincidence. It reflects years of planning and investment converging at a moment when Los Angeles has a clearer sense of its cultural identity than ever before. This is a city that creates, takes art seriously, and possesses the institutional ambition to declare so permanently.
Conceived as a living museum where human imagination meets machine creativity, DATALAND will feature five distinct galleries in a 25,000-square-foot space. Co-founders Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç have solidified their commitment to Los Angeles by establishing the museum's flagship location in their adopted home.
"Anadol came to Los Angeles from Istanbul as a graduate student because of a Ridley Scott film he watched as a child."
This phrase captures the essence of Anadol's journey. He came to Los Angeles inspired by a film, stayed to build a studio, taught at UCLA, projected machine dreams onto the city's most iconic concert hall, and is now opening a permanent institution dedicated to the idea that AI and human creativity are collaborators, not adversaries. This story resonates deeply with the spirit of Los Angeles.
Visiting DATALAND: What You Need to Know
DATALAND is located at The Grand LA, 300 S. Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, directly across from Walt Disney Concert Hall. The museum is set to open in spring 2026, with full ticketing, membership, and exhibition details to be released in the weeks leading up to the opening.
Additional information regarding memberships, ticketing, and the inaugural exhibition will be shared in the coming months. For the latest updates, visit dataland.art and follow the museum on social media. The official Instagram account has been posting previews of the Infinity Room and the building's interior as the opening approaches.
Getting to The Grand LA from across Los Angeles County is straightforward. The Metro B and D Lines stop at the 7th Street/Metro Center station, and the Civic Center/Grand Park station on the A and E Lines is just a short walk from the museum. For drivers, The Grand LA offers parking in the building, with additional street parking available on surrounding blocks.
The Grand Avenue corridor is one of the most walkable stretches of Downtown Los Angeles, with restaurants, bars, and coffee shops accessible from DATALAND's front door. A visit to the museum, a meal at one of the chef-driven restaurants in The Grand LA complex, and an evening at the Walt Disney Concert Hall promise one of the strongest single-day cultural experiences available anywhere in Southern California.
The world's first Museum of AI Arts is about to open in your city. The spring of 2026 in Downtown Los Angeles is poised to be a genuinely historic season in the arts, and DATALAND is one of the central reasons why.
DATALAND opens Spring 2026 at The Grand LA, 300 S. Grand Avenue, Downtown Los Angeles. For ticketing and membership information, visit dataland.art. Follow @dataland.art on Instagram for opening date announcements and previews of all five gallery experiences.
