“Smithsonian Dreams,” a free public art experience created by artist Refik Anadol, will be presented July 17-18 from 9 to 11 p.m. each night, featuring lights, sound and large-scale visuals projected onto the Castle.
The installation uses a custom artificial intelligence system to reinterpret nearly two centuries of Smithsonian collections and research, drawing from millions of digitized items, including specimens, manuscripts, photographs, artworks and scientific records.
“For me, data is a form of memory,” Anadol said. “The Smithsonian preserves one of humanity’s most extraordinary repositories of knowledge, accumulated across generations of discovery and imagination. ‘Smithsonian Dreams’ asks what might emerge if that vast memory could become dynamic, if the Castle itself could learn from its collections, reflect upon them and dream through them.”…