A new AI Data Sculpture installation from Refik Anadol has been unveiled ahead of its public premiere tomorrow, September 1st, at the newly-complete Sphere entertainment venue in Las Vegas.

The sculpture utilizes the structure’s Exosphere, a digital canvas covering that can be programmed to display content thanks to its world-leading array of 1.2 million different LED ‘pucks’ which are spaced 8 inches apart to form an almost 580,000-square-foot display.

Anadol says: “It’s so exciting to be given such an architectural and engineering marvel as a canvas. This opportunity aligns perfectly with our studio’s long-term mission of embedding media arts into architecture to create living architectural pieces that are in constant interaction with their environments.” 

The latest in his Machine Hallucinations series will offer viewers a meditative and elaborate multisensory experience based on accumulated local atmospheric data that are consolidated and then visualized as abstract images. It is being presented as the second and final chapter of Machine Hallucinations: Nature. Anadol says the object is for the audience to imagine “alternative realities constructed by invisible data movements around them.”

“Refik Anadol’s artistic approach made him the ideal artist to partner with first to showcase his incredible work using the full-scale capabilities of the Exosphere, an incomparable canvas for artists who want to explore their artistic expression on a global stage and push the boundaries of what’s possible,” Guy Barnett, the Senior Vice President of Sphere Entertainment said in a press statement. “Through the captivating power of the Exosphere and our unwavering commitment to showcase both art and brands on Sphere’s exterior, we will forever change the way artwork and commerce co-exist.”

The installation will be displayed for four months beginning on Friday. A 25-show residency from U2 will inaugurate the venue’s 17,000-seat interior on September 29, followed by filmmaker Darren Aronofsky's immersive ‘Postcard from Earth’ experience, which opens on October 6th.