Dataland, world's first AI art museum, opens June 20 in Los Angeles with immersive rainforest exhibition

Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç co-founded Dataland, a 25,000-square-foot museum dedicated to AI-generated art, opening June 20 in downtown Los Angeles as part of the $1-billion Frank Gehry-designed Grand LA complex. The inaugural exhibition, 'Machine Dreams: Rainforest,' uses half a billion nature images from partners including the Smithsonian and Cornell Lab of Ornithology to create immersive sensory experiences that simulate Amazon rainforest environments.

Unlike traditional art museums, Dataland uses five immersive galleries with 30-foot ceilings where visitors experience AI-generated art across multiple senses—sound, visuals, temperature, light, smell, and touch—powered by the Large Nature Model, an open-access AI system that discloses its data sources (a principle Anadol emphasizes to distinguish his work from proprietary AI art practices).

For artists and technologists, Dataland creates the first institutional space to exhibit and preserve AI art as a serious medium rather than a novelty; for general audiences concerned about AI's environmental cost, the museum's servers run on 87% renewable energy in Oregon, making each visitor's energy use equivalent to charging a smartphone.

The museum is privately funded and does not charge an admission price mentioned in available details; visitors can take an escalator from ground level to experience the galleries below. The first exhibition runs through the museum's opening date of June 20.