Dataland: An Immersive Adventure in AI Art

Posted on by Diversions LA

Dataland is literally something else as far as an art experience. Fiercely, even reverentially experiential, it is an immersive adventure into “living” AI. It is in a way a combination of familiar things rendered into something entirely different.

For me it was one part IMAX viewing experience; one part the traveling Van Gogh exhibition Immersive Van Gogh with its 360-degree, floor-to-ceiling animated digital video projections; and one part reminiscent of Images in Space and Time, an international collection of fine art holographs which originally came to Los Angeles in the 1990s via the California Museum of Science and Industry. The latter was semi-permanently located in the concourse galleries close to where Dataland is now.

The bottom line with Dataland is that it is entirely unique and a lot of fun, a spectacle of light and color and moving images.

The experience begins by listening to an introduction to the experience, and then donning a neck-wrap device the emits scents related to the visuals, and a wristband not dissimilar to a Fitbit, which measures your own personal metrics, which are then monitored by the AI.

Descending a mirrored escalator to a cavernous room where shifting light projections cover the walls and floor, over the course of about 40 minutes, there are flowers and trees and what look like living, surging seas and colorful beads and swarming colors and even moments that illuminate one’s own metrics in blue and white circles on the floor. A soundtrack merges with the scents that support the scene from forest to flower to sea breeze. This gallery is the Latent Forest.

It’s galvanizing and absolutely embraces the vision by the installation’s cofounders Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç with their inaugural Machine Dreams: Rainforest exhibition. The AI itself was trained on and based upon datasets about nature; culling information from diverse sources such as the Natural History Museum in London and the Smithsonian.

According to museum literature, the commitment to nature includes sustainability as to use, with the system operating on primarily carbon-free and renewable energy.

While that exhibition is the main, and longest experience at Dataland, it is not the only one. Upon exiting, Latent Forest, there is the interactive adventure of the Latent Gallery in which three separate kiosks allow hands on projections of various flowers,sea, and forest images that visitors can explore and learn about, such as orchids, mushrooms, specific trees.

In this area there was also a small stand where visitors could select, or have AI select based on its reading of ones’ personal metric, one of four flavors of chocolates. While my AI chose milk chocolate with mushrooms (and it is true, I do like Hershey bars to this day), I selected my own, the orange bitters and dark chocolate with cardamon.

There were two, timed, separate limited admission gallery experiences, the quite lovely and haunting “The Dream of Ruwe Pinu,” a journey through the Amazon rainforest led by a translucent hummingbird, and “The Sanctuary.”

The latter makes use of visitors’ own biometric information collected via their wristbands, and is vaguer in intent, consisting of patterns of writhing colorful, sand-art-style beads, blooming and snaky florals, and mysterious near-landscapes that materialize on the dimensional screen. It ends however, with the lovely sound of a bird now extinct, issuing its call to a non-existent mate. One could feel deeply elegaic about that birdsong. The bird is gone, and here we are, sitting in an air conditioned sanctuary enjoying its last poignant hope.

However, hopefulness, rather than a last, forlorn lost hope is really the intent of these exhibitions. One of the visitors came with an 18-month-old, who vividly enjoyed crawling around these smaller galleries, interacting with the patterns cost reflectively on the shining floors, and clearly as immersed in experience as one could possibly be.

The child was feeling joy in the sound, colors, scents, and lights. That is the true crux of this experience: its joyful, playful, and also resolute in its depiction of AI as our artistic friend or at least our artistic spectacle creator. While shaping our own memories it is also preserving existing ones, or dreamscapes that involve memories of nature’s rainbow.

Dataland is more art experience than museum or gallery, so with that in mind, go and experience it and all its scents, sounds, and motions.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis

An International Exhibition Pairs Work with Artists from Los Angeles and Belgrade

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An international exchange of art may or may not work as anything more than an interesting premise, or a way to open dialog between two disparate locations.  But with Translocal Conclave Amid the Market, an exhibition pairing Los Angeles-based Durden and Ray with Blok Gallery, located in Belgrade, Serbia, both artist-run spaces have hit the collaborative mark and then some.

The group exhibition was presented in Belgrade, and viscerally examines both the connections and disparities between the two art collectives. Each is an innovative gallery space that offers provocative, unique work reflecting on the nature of social and political societies and the heart and soul of the very human artists who live within them.

Paired, there are immediate differenes in color palette and patterns between the Serbian and American artists. Durden and Ray artists dive into deep color and bold shapes; the Serbian artists rely more on a graceful minimalism in both palette and form.

The differences coalesce into a woven dialog of abundant beauty and precise tradition.  Exhibiting artists include artists:

Djordje Arnaut, Lore AKA Lortek , Željka Momirov, Miodrag Perić, Tanja Strugar, Carlos Beltran Arechiga, Snezana Saraswati Petrović, Joe Davidson, Alexandra Wiesenfeld, Max Presneill, Regina Herod, Ismael De Anda III & Eugene Ahn, and Arezoo Bharthania.

Petrovic straddles both Serbian and U.S. based artist groups. Originally from the Belgrade area, she is now a member of Durden and Ray, and was the catalyst in creating this exhibition.

The exhibition’s wide range includes work rooted in vibrant street art, sculptural forms that transcend the traditional, and transcendent work rooted in memory. There is also that soars beyond the typically temporal, as in the VR installation of Ahn and De Anda. Regardless of medium or the location of the originating artists, these images sing with humor as well as grace.

Smart, sophisticated, and using a wide range of materials, the exhibition not only spans art around the globe but within the heart and soul. So what happens when two art collectives collide and conjoin? Universal art magic.

May there be more such, which given Petrovic’s prediliction for engaging in international. boundry crossing wonder, it’s extremely likely there will be. Stay tuned.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by the gallery and Snezana Saraswati Petrovic

 

Here Comes the Shark – Jaws Celebrates 50th Anniversary at Academy Museum of Motion Pictures

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With warm remarks by filmmaker Steven Speilberg, exhilerating soundtrack excerpts performed symphonically live and set to movie stills, dun-dun dun-dun dun– Jaws has arrived at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in mid-city.

It was a thrilling introduction to a well done exhibition at the museum, one that any movie lover should brave the waters filled with LA traffic sharks to experience.

The live musical experience of the Hollywood Studio Symphony – who performed the iconic John Williams score for the film originally, added to the enthusiasm of the audience before we even got a look at the beautifully realized multi-gallery experience.

Celebrating the 50th anniversary year of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975), the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures first large-scale exhibition dedicated to a single film is also the largest exhibition to have showcased Universal Pictures’ landmark summer blockbuster, which earned three Academy Awards® and was nominated for Best Picture.

Running September 14, 2025, through July 26, 2026 in the Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery, Jaws: The Exhibition breaks down famous scenes, offers interactive experiences, behind-the-scenes stories, and some 200 original objects on display.

Interactive experiences include the ability to pose as the arm buried in the sand dune on the beach; create your own dolly shot on your smart phone, operate a facsimile of Bruce the shark (the real deal hangs outside the gallery, spanning massive ceiling space over the escalator), or sit in the galley of the boat where the intrepid team of shark hunters bonded in the film.

Props and notes and even a camera are on display among many objects never previously shown to the public, some from the personal collections of Steven Spielberg and the Amblin Hearth Archive, the NBCUniversal Archives & Collections, and the Academy Collection.

 

According to Academy Museum Director and President Amy Homma, who gave her remarks at the press opening, “The Academy Museum celebrates film history and with this exhibition we can bring never-before-seen movie experiences to a public audience…[and] create a space where the worldwide community of Jaws fans can gather and relive the movie while giving new audiences the joy of discovery.”

Senior Exhibitions Curator Jenny He, who also spoke at the opening noted that “It has been absolutely rewarding to engage with so many outstanding collaborators to tell the story of Jaws through an exhibition, which is as thoughtful and revelatory as it is immersive and thrilling. All of us at the Academy Museum are deeply grateful for the invaluable support and insight we have received, working with Steven Spielberg’s personal archive at Amblin, the collection at Universal Pictures, numerous private collectors, and many of the Jaws filmmakers.”

The exhibition leads museum visitors through the structure of the film in six sections: “The Unseen Danger,” “Amity Island Welcomes You,” “Sunday at the Beach,” “The Shark’s Rampage,” “Adventure Ahead,” and “Into the Deep.” The final gallery of Jaws: The Exhibition explores the enduring impact of the film.

From scene set ups to learning about the team behind the film, location scouting, and the film’s famous dolly zoom effect, visitors will uncover terrific information amid a visually resonant series of original set decorations and props, production designs, a Moviola used by editor Verna Fields, and even have a chance to play the musical notes that signal the approach of the shark.

The delightfully immersive and experiential exhibition highlights the impact of the film on motion picture industry itself and pop culture, and brings viewers into the world of movie making as well as drawing them into the enduring allure of the film itself, from the dangerous great white shark to the efforts of the town’s chief of police (Roy Scheider), a young marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss), and a grizzled shark hunter (Robert Shaw) to destroy the terrifying creature before it kills again.

As a thrilling adventure and as a remarkable feat of filmmaking – Speilberg remarked with wit about the great difficulties faced while filming on location, from rough seas to regattas showing up in his framing; and to the stress of being 110 days past the original shooting schedule. But what a reward for suffering the unexpected indignities of shooting at sea.

The Academy Museum is the largest museum in the world dedicated to global cinema and the arts, sciences, and artists of moviemaking. While you visit the brand new Jaws exhibition, be sure to also take a look the other stellar exhibits on display, from the world of Cyberpunk to the set designs of Barbie and Beauty & the Beast, the filmmaking of Bong Joon Ho, a glowing room of golden Oscars, and an astonishing collection of well known props and costumes from Captain America’s shield to Spiderman’s disguise.

  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis

 

A Purrfect Show – Natural History Museum’s Cats Pounces Into LA

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Fierce! The Story of Cats, now at the Natural History Museum through February 18, 2026, brings an immersive, intelligent, and fun view of the fabulous feline to Los Angeles.

Saber-toothed cats had pretty impressive bicuspids!

Along with learning that the La Brea Tar Pits were once home to lions, and that cat friendships and mousing expertise long pre-dated the Egyptian culture’s deification of cats, the exhibit revealed not only cat history, but cat breeds, cat physicality, and cats as art and vestiges of good fortune.

There are clips from cat media (of course including last year’s Academy Award-winning Flow), video of Chinese New Year lion dancers, and even a gigantic sculpture of a Japanese “lucky kitty.”

Flow, above.

What and how cats see, below.

Add your kitty to the carousel of pretties…

In its West Coast debut, the show also features clever cat facts and silhouettes of kitties on the exhibition gallery walls; the ability to enter photos of your own cats as part of a slide show of domestic kitties; and a variety of cultural cat objects.

Seeing the size of various cat claws up close, and cat teeth, and cat fossils, the viewer gets a look at the evolution of cats, the array of feline family cousins and descendents. There are hands-on facts and fun, audio exhibits, and perhaps best of all, a wide ranging display of both taxidermied cats, art depictions of cats, and yes, stuffies of cats, all revealing the beautiful and diverse creatures that make up the feline family tree.

Learn how cats leap, all about their vision, their supple skeletal structure, the differences in fur, the commonalities among feline types.  Hear them roar, hear them purr, consider the reason cat claws contract, and the joy of a playful kitten.

From protecting crops to balancing the eco system in the wild, from predatory hunting skills to the healing sound of a purr, this lovely, multi-room exhibition (plus a gift shop with a lot of fun kitty-lover treats) is informative, fun, and packs a potent message about how important it is to protect cats great and small, their habitats and their homes.

The Natural History Museum is located at 900 Exhibition Blvd. in Los Angeles; open hours are 9-5 Monday-Sunday; Fierce tickets are $12 above the regular museum entrance pricing of $18 per adult admission. Go ahead, take a leap.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis