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Exhibition Introduction

“Art Between Light, Space, and the Viewer”

Anthony McCall is a legendary figure in media art who has dissolved the boundaries between film, sculpture, and installation by using light and time as his sculptural language. His iconic Solid Light series is regarded as a pioneering form of immersive art that is completed through interaction with the viewer, and it has been spotlighted at major museums around the world. Most recently, his exhibition at Tate Modern in London was extended due to overwhelming acclaim, generating renewed global interest. Now, for the first time in Asia, Futura Seoul brings this extraordinary experience to new audiences. Join us and discover a moment of sensory restoration and emotional pause through the light-filled world of Anthony McCall.

“Between light and mist, forgotten senses awaken. Art that gradually stirs the soul.”

Dubbed a "sculptor of light," Anthony McCall holds a unique place in the contemporary art world for transcending the boundaries of cinema, sculpture, and installation. This exhibition—his first major presentation in Asia—offers a rare opportunity to experience over 50 years of artistic experimentation and innovation, from his early film works to his most recent digital projections. At its core are immersive installations that invite viewers to physically enter and explore spaces of light and haze. Through these works, audiences can engage with McCall’s multifaceted practice as a pioneer of media art and expanded cinema. Wander among the sculptural beams of light and experience a new spatial language shaped by time, movement, and presence.

Artist Introduction

“An Artist Who Arrived in the 21st Century Ahead of Time: Anthony McCall”

Born in 1946 in St. Paul’s Cray, UK, and currently based in Manhattan, New York, Anthony McCall is an artist whose work spans film, sculpture, installation, drawing, and performance. He has developed a singular visual language by shaping the immaterial concepts of light and time. He is best known for deconstructing cinematic structures and reimagining them through audience participation, coining the concept of Expanded Cinema, and for his immersive Solid Light series.

Since 1973, Solid Light works have taken on the form of three-dimensional light sculptures, projected through mist and evolving over time in space. These pieces invite viewers to step into and become part of the work itself, creating an intimate, bodily encounter with light. Long before the term "immersive art" became popularized, McCall was already pioneering experimental practices that drew audiences into the heart of the artwork through light and space.

His groundbreaking work has been recognized and exhibited by leading institutions around the world, including the Whitney Museum of American Art (2001–2), Centre Georges Pompidou (2004), Tate Britain (2004), Serpentine Gallery (2007–8), MoMA in New York, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2024), and the ongoing exhibition at Tate Modern.

FUTURA SEOUL, a new art space located in Bukchon, Gahoe-dong, aims to reflect multilateral perspectives toward the future with its grounded history. The space will open with <Echoes of the Earth: Living Archive>, the first solo exhibition in Asia by media artist Refik Anadol, exhibiting from September 5, 2024 to January 10, 2025. This exhibition was first conceived and presented by Serpentine in London and is now being showcased at FUTURA SEOUL as its first presentation in Asia.

The exhibition's artworks were produced using the Large Nature Model (LNM), the world's first open-source generative AI model dedicated solely to nature, created by Refik Anadol Studio. LNM is an AI model trained on a vast amount of nature data collected by Refik Anadol and his team over the past decade, along with data from academic institutions such as the Smithsonian Museum and the Natural History Museum in London. The artist and the institutions also gathered photos and sounds from 16 tropical rainforests worldwide, including in the Amazon, Africa, and Southeast Asia. By incorporating nature images into AI-generated media art, the artwork offers a fresh perspective on nature. Through his art, the artist emphasizes the significance of ecosystem health for Earth's sustainability and explores the potential of advanced technology in documenting and appreciating nature.

Inside the Futura Seoul space hosting the exhibition 《Echoes of the Earth: Living Archive》, AI-developed scents based on around 500,000 scent molecules replicate near-authentic natural scents, creating an entirely immersive experience for the audience. While exploring Echoes of the Earth, the audience actively engages in the living archive instead of just observing. This exhibition aims to challenge existing perspectives on nature, technology, and the art that links them, serving as a testament to the collective efforts to conserve the beauty and intricacy of the natural world.

Artist Introduction

Refik Anadol(b.1985, Istanbul, Turkey) is an internationally renowned media artist, director, and pioneer in the aesthetics of data and machine intelligence. He is the Director of Refik Anadol Studio in Los Angeles and Lecturer in UCLA’s Department of Design Media Arts. Anadol’s work locates creativity at the intersection of humans and machines. Taking the data that surrounds us as primary material, and the neural network of a computerized mind as a collaborator, Anadol offers us radical visualizations of our digitized memories and expands the possibilities of interdisciplinary arts. Anadol’s site-specific data paintings and sculptures, live audio/visual performances, and immersive installations take many forms, while encouraging us to rethink our engagement with the physical world, collective experiences, public art, decentralized networks, and the creative potential of AI.

Anadol’s work has been exhibited at venues including MoMA, Centre Pompidou, Las Vegas Sphere, Art Basel, National Gallery of Victoria, Venice Architecture Biennale, Walt Disney Concert Hall, World Economic Forum, CES, and Davos Forum. Anadol has received a number of awards and prizes including the Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award for New Media Art, Microsoft Research’s Best Vision Award, German Design Award, UCLA Art+Architecture Moss Award, Columbia University’s Breakthrough in Storytelling Award, and Google’s Artists and Machine Intelligence Artist Residency Award.