JSLALALAND

CITY & ITS PEOPLE

DATALAND | The first time art looked back at me

Wearing a scent-releasing collar, I walked into a rainforest that read my heartbeat. DATALAND is Refik Anadol's AI art museum across from Disney Hall: the gear, the five galleries, your heartbeat picking your chocolate, plus tickets, parking and how to plan the afternoon.

Translated from Jasmine’s original Chinese. The illustrated slides are on the interactive reader.

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  1. 01 | Grand Ave, right across from Disney Hall

    Inside Frank Gehry's The Grand LA, walking distance to The Broad and MOCA. In 2018, Refik Anadol projected WDCH Dreams onto Disney Hall; eight years later, he opened a museum right across the street.

  2. 02 | Not an exhibition, a museum that's alive

    Opened June 20, 2026, billing itself as the world's first AI art museum; the first exhibition, Machine Dreams: Rainforest, runs through the end of January 2027. There are no paintings hanging on the walls; the walls themselves are the paintings.

  3. 03 | Where the AI's brain comes from

    Its Large Nature Model was trained on 500+ million nature images and 50,000+ sounds, explicitly permission-based, with partners including the Smithsonian and London's Natural History Museum. It's not scraping other people's work to feed an AI, and that matters a lot to me.

  4. 04 | Today's painting won't be the same tomorrow

    It pulls in live weather from rainforests around the world while reading the heartbeats and movement of everyone in the museum, and together they decide the images, sounds and scents in front of you. Every photo you take is a limited edition.

  5. 05 | Your watch says hi, the collar handles the scent

    A wrist biosensor anonymously records your heartbeat and movement, and the neckband is a personal diffuser. My Taiwanese friends' first reaction: isn't that a summer neck fan? If you don't want to share biometric data, you can opt out.

  6. 06 | Five galleries, one route

    Get your gear at the Discovery Portal → Data Pavilion → Latent Gallery → Infinity Room → The Sanctuary; the whole museum is 25,000 square feet, and they recommend allowing 2 hours.

  7. 07 | Latent Forest: flowers blooming bigger than people

    84 projectors and 700+ million pixels, with flowers blooming on the walls and floor; 200 channels of sound carry the rainforest, thunderstorms and the LA Phil playing Mahler, and the air cycles through eight scents. Find a corner and close your eyes for 30 seconds.

  8. 08 | Can art feel us too?

    Refik says that for five thousand years we've looked at and felt art, and now the question is whether art can feel us too. After all these years doing sound healing, I've always believed the body knows the answer first.

  9. 09 | Latent Gallery: your turn to paint

    Thinking Brush: draw a line and the AI grows it into an ecosystem. Fluid Pigments: push particles with your body. Data Universe: wander through a universe of data. The images exist only for the few minutes you play, like sand art; the beauty is that they disappear.

  10. 10 | Data.Chocolate: what does a dream taste like?

    The AI read the genome of wild cacao and wrote concept recipes, and Valerie Gordon of local LA chocolatier Valerie Confections picked four to make into real chocolate. AI can work out the molecules, but it's still human hands that make it delicious.

  11. 11 | Your heartbeat picks one for you

    Low tide is Phoenix Ember, Signal storm is Mycelial Whisper, Flow state is Nectar Lumina, Scattered light is Theobroma Divina. That day I was Nectar Lumina, and it nailed me. All four contain dairy.

  12. 12 | Infinity Room: a hummingbird's last breath

    The glowing bird Refik dreamed of was named Ruwe Pinu by a Yawanawá spiritual leader. The room plays the call of the last male Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, recorded in 1987; the colors keep shifting over you, and lots of people just sit on the floor to watch.

  13. 13 | The Sanctuary: everyone's heartbeat becomes one painting

    Everyone's heartbeats and movement over the visit merge into a 30-foot Data Painting, and at the end of each round comes the scent of the Amazon moonflower, which blooms one night a year. Data is anonymous by default and deleted automatically if unclaimed.

  14. 14 | The robot really is painting

    At QUALIA, just before the exit, a robotic arm paints collectors' biometric signals stroke by stroke into fluorescent acrylic paintings, 365 a year; the hoodies and cards at the Design Store next door make great gifts.

  15. 15 | Know before you go

    It's a for-profit museum, with tickets from $49 up to about $129 depending on date and time; lines were long in the early months, so weekdays are more comfortable. The museum says each visit uses about as much electricity as charging an iPhone once.

  16. 16｜Plan Your Visit

    100 S Grand Ave, closed Mondays, timed entry booked on the website. Validated parking in The Grand LA's underground garage is about $4.50 for the first 3 hours, so bring your ticket stub.

  17. 17 | How I'd plan an afternoon

    11:00 DATALAND's first weekday slot → 13:00 cross the street for a walk in the Disney Hall rooftop garden → 14:00 The Broad (free, reserve online first). Wear comfortable shoes, and charge your phone.

  18. Last word

    The future isn't on a screen; it's on you.

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An original JSLALALAND field guide by Jasmine Chang (@jslalaland).