Machine Hallucinations

"Machine Hallucinations" is a landmark work by Turkish-American media artist Refik Anadol, first presented at ARTECHOUSE in New York in 2019. The piece processes more than 300 million public images of New York through machine learning algorithms, transforming this massive urban dataset into a hypnotic, ever-evolving data sculpture.

The installation invites viewers to step into a space where the boundaries between the physical and the digital dissolve. Monumental projections envelop the audience in luminous waves of color and form that transform incessantly. The work raises profound questions about memory, perception, and creativity in the era of artificial intelligence.

When Refik Anadol created Machine Hallucinations, he wasn't "imagining" like a traditional artist—he was teaching an AI to dream.

He fed the algorithm millions of images (from urban archives to museum collections like the Museum of Modern Art), and then let the machine "remember" and reinterpret that material.

The result isn't simply a data visualization, but something more unsettling:

a kind of artificial subconscious.