Refik Anadol
Latent City

Over the past ten years, Refik Anadol Studio has trained proprietary machine learning models using more than five million images of cities worldwide, developing unique algorithms that reimagine the metropolis as a living, breathing entity. The exhibition ‘Refik Anadol. Latent City’ marks the beginning of a new series in which Anadol’s long-standing engagement with urban imagination is presented in a museum context for the first time.  

Driven by data from Bruges 

Created especially for BRUSK, Refik Anadol has developed an immersive total installation driven by historical and real-time data from Bruges: from the city’s medieval networks and architectural structures to its rich art collections, as well as the hidden rhythms of everyday urban life. The live-generated installation is a spectacular focal point: a ten-metre-high, hallucinatory sculptural form with an infinity effect that continuously transforms.  

Urban dialogue 

The BRUSK installation is surrounded by a constellation of digital paintings: existing and new works featuring other cities such as Stockholm, Seoul, Berlin, New York and Portland from Anadol’s Latent City series. Together, they form an urban dialogue in which the museum functions as a kind of translation device, transforming the material city into invisible data, and data into a new, poetic dreamscape. Central to the exhibition is the question of how technology can represent the city—not only its visible layer, but also its invisible, latent dynamics. A sensory and immersive experience at the intersection of art, technology and ethics.  

Bridge between the digital and physical worlds

Drawing on innovative techniques and a deep artistic vision, Anadol bridges the divide between the digital and physical worlds. His art goes beyond aesthetics; it raises fundamental questions about technology, the role of data and the interaction between humans and machines. Anadol works with complex algorithms and machine learning, creating patterns and structures that are beyond human perception. As such, he is a pioneer in his field and a role model for a new generation of digital artists.