"Melting Memories"
PILEVNELI Dolapdere
February 7 - March 10, 2018
PILEVNELI Gallery is pleased to present Refik Anadol’s solo exhibition titled ‘’Melting Memories’’ between February 7 and March 10, 2018. ‘’Melting Memories’’ is Anadol’s second solo gallery show in Turkey, after his exhibition at Pilevneli Project in 2012.
On view from February 7 through March 10, 2018, Refik Anadol’s latest project ‘’Melting Memories’’, deals with the relationship between human beings and memory recollection with the help of the latest technology and the limitless possibilities of the brain. Artist believes that the question which occupied the world of art and literature since the beginning of the 20th century, ‘’what are memories and what do they tell us?’’, has been transformed into ‘’what can be done with memories?’’ during 21st century, where connecting with past is relatively easier than ever.
The foundation of Anadol’s work is to transform all kinds of data into visual material. The artist reveals the materiality of the brain through filtering an individual’s most intimate data, memories and the process of ‘’recollection’’. By skillfully manipulating advanced technology, Anadol draws attention to representational possibilities that the intersection of advanced technology and contemporary art offers to artist, while questioning the emergence of a new space where artificial intelligence is no longer in conflict with individuality and intimacy.
Many thinkers from Ancient Egypt to the Middle Ages, René Descartes’ theses on perception, medical studies on neurological diseases, and the movie, ‘’Blade Runner 2049’’, are a few amongst the inspiration sources that leads up to Refik Anadol’s production process. Each work grows out of the artist’s impressive experiments on the idea of converting memories into algorithms using an advanced brainwave sensor provided by the neurology laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco. These algorithms are formed by focusing not on the content of the memories, but on the vibrations that the recalling process causes in the dark rooms of the brain. These unique algorithms constitute the building blocks for the multi- dimensional visual structures on display, which in total creates a new dimension for the issue of representation in contemporary art.
The viewers are going to be able to experience data sculptures and three- dimensional paintings in architectural scale LED displays, enhanced with lighting and projections.
Refik Anadol currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
The exhibition is organized with the contributions of Samsung, Godiva, Nespresso and Jotun.
