Artistic Answers
In UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts, software is the tool used to solve problems and imagine possibilities.
"In 2012, Refik Anadol M.F.A. ’14 flew from Istanbul to Los Angeles, rented a car at 2 a.m., put his luggage in the trunk and drove downtown, where 25 minutes of multilane freeway gave way to tall glass skyscrapers. Anadol slowly turned right onto Hope Street, approaching one of the world’s most striking and important works of architecture. The lights had gone out for the night, but Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall felt alive, its stainless-steel curves casting the illusion of movement like a ship’s sails in the wind. Gehry’s opus inspired Anadol. “I was sure then that I wanted to projection-map this building,” he recalls.
Born in Turkey, Anadol comes from a line of teachers. “Learning to learn is my family practice,” he says. He had just arrived for his first year at UCLA’s Design Media Arts graduate program, full of that curiosity, and among the things he hoped to learn was “how to reach Frank Gehry.”
Back then, Anadol’s art practice had neither name nor audience. “I’m pretty sure I coined the term ‘data painting’ in 2008,” he says. “People used to laugh when I said, ‘I want to let buildings dream.’”"— Katya Tylevich, June 14th, 2022
This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on the UCLA Newsroom website.
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