Turkish artist, designer and director Refik Anadol is known for his site-specific installations and use of data to create visual artwork, like the mind-bending “Melting Memories” exhibit at the Pilevneli Gallery. With a number of awards in his repertoire, he’s exhibited in places like the Ars Electronica Festival in Austria, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and the Istanbul Design Biennial in Turkey. His latest piece is at esteemed Stockholm photography museum, Fotografiska.

Scene from Refik Anadol’s Latent History

Projected on a 180 feet-wide by 11 feet-high screen in Fotografiska’s large exhibition hall, Latent History is a unique portrayal of a Stockholm streetscape where the real and the imaginary intertwine. Anadol uses algorithms of media archives of Stockholm stretching back 150 years in a never-before-seen portrayal envisioned by machines. The result is astonishing. It’s a visual journey through Stockholm’s history and its development, flow, and transformation over time.

Scene from Refik Anadol’s Latent History

“We explore, among other things, photographic memories from the past 150 years and offer the viewer a chance to experience something completely new,” explains Anadol. “[It’s] a re-imagining of the development of modern-day Stockholm, a latent source of information waiting to be revealed. Latent History reveals the old that would otherwise remain unprocessed and unseen in dark archives. Individuals and collectives, bodies and spaces, that have coalesced to create the city we experience today.”

Latent History is an alternative reality, a visual interpretation of what could have been that makes us question the accepted history of Stockholm to consider what can be learned from the past. It is a postcard of a city going through never-ending transformation, ever evolving into something new. This exhibition also questions the digital era we are in and how it affects our day-to-day lives as well as our future.

“The digital revolution will continue to affect us in ways we find difficult to grasp. So much is happening in so many areas for the first time, and we’re continually breaking new ground. Such as here, producing art based on a machine’s vision, a kind of journey in time and space interpreting what has been, and creating alternative scenarios of what could have been,” Anadol says.

The exhibit prompts viewers to ponder on what makes a city, be it the history, people, buildings, culture, development, or all of the elements combined. “Latent History” will be on show until August 25.

tagged in Fotografiska, latent history, Refik Anadol