Visionary Media Artist and UCLA Arts Alumnus Refik Anadol to Deliver UCLA Arts Commencement Address

Visionary Media Artist and UCLA Arts Alumnus Refik Anadol to Deliver UCLA Arts Commencement Address

UCLA Arts alumnus, visionary media artist, and Dataland co-founder Refik Anadol will deliver the commencement address at the 2026 UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture commencement ceremony on Saturday, June 13.

Anadol is an internationally renowned trailblazer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence. He is the director and co-founder of Refik Anadol Studio in Los Angeles and teaches in the UCLA Department of Design | Media Arts, from which he earned a Master of Fine Arts. Refik Anadol Studio brings together a globally diverse team of designers, architects, data scientists, and researchers—originating from 10 countries and fluent in 15 languages—who share a deep commitment to inclusion, equity, and cross-cultural collaboration at every stage of artistic production. Anadol is also the co-founder of Dataland, the world’s first Museum of AI Arts, set to open this spring.

“I am deeply honored to be invited as this year's UCLA School of Arts and Architecture commencement speaker,” said Anadol. “Being a UCLA student profoundly shaped my early thinking about art, space, and the evolving relationship between creativity and technology. It is especially meaningful to share this moment with a new generation of artists and designers who are entering a world defined by rapid transformation. I look forward to celebrating their achievements and reflecting on how curiosity, interdisciplinary thinking, and a commitment to maintaining the human in human-machine collaborations can guide us as we imagine the future together.”

Anadol’s work locates creativity at the intersection of humans and machines. Taking the data that surrounds us as primary material, and the neural network of a computerized mind as a collaborator, Anadol offers us radical visualizations of our digitized memories and expands the possibilities of interdisciplinary art. Anadol’s AI data paintings and sculptures, live audiovisual performances, and immersive installations take many forms, while encouraging us to rethink our engagement with the physical world, public art, decentralized networks, and the creative potential of machines.

Anadol’s work has been exhibited at venues including MoMA, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Guggenheim Bilbao, Serpentine Galleries, National Gallery of Victoria, Venice Architecture Biennale, Hammer Museum, Arken Museum, Casa Batlló, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Daejeon Museum of Art, and Istanbul Modern.

Anadol has received numerous awards and prizes, including the TIME 100 AI Impact Award, UCLA’s 2024 Edward A. Dickinson Alumnus of the Year Award, Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award for New Media Art, Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence Artist Residency Award, Microsoft Research’s Best Vision Award, iF Gold Award, D&AD Pencil Award, German Design Award, UCLA Art+Architecture Moss Award, Columbia University’s Breakthrough in Storytelling Award, University of California Institute for Research in the Arts Award, and SEGD Global Design Award.

"Refik has spent his career asking a question that couldn't be more urgent for this moment: what does it mean to create with technology rather than be controlled by it?” said Lionel Popkin, Interim Dean of the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. “Refik embraces this pursuit with wonder and conviction, showing us that the future is not something to fear but something we can actively shape. I can think of no better voice to send the Class of 2026 into the world."

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