If you’ve ever wondered whether machines can dream, or questioned who really holds the power behind an algorithm, now’s your chance to find out. The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia) has just opened its major summer exhibition, Data Dreams: Art and AI, and it’s an immersive, mind-expanding dive into the world of artificial intelligence and contemporary creativity. Running until 27 April 2026, this is the first time an Australian institution has brought together an international roster of artists to explore AI’s profound influence on how we live, think, and make art.
From the moment you step into MCA’s transformed galleries, you’re confronted with the very questions that define our age: what does it mean to be human in a world where machines learn, create, and collaborate? How do algorithms shape our realities, our relationships, and even our understanding of intelligence itself? Data Dreams doesn’t just present art – it stages an experience where AI becomes both subject and co-creator.
Art as Algorithm
At the heart of the exhibition is the idea that AI isn’t just a tool; it’s a partner, a provocateur, and sometimes a mirror. Take Fabien Giraud’s The Feral (2025–3025), for example – a thousand-year-long AI-edited film tracing 32 generations of humans across central France. It’s both epic and eerie, a meditation on the scale of time and the role of artificial intelligence as a storyteller. Or consider Anicka Yi’s luminous sculptures in Radiolaria (2023–24), which undulate like deep-sea organisms, animated with custom AI that could carry on her art practice after her death. Here, AI isn’t just making images – it’s extending the artist’s imagination into new dimensions, blurring the boundary between human and machine creativity.
Other artists interrogate AI’s influence on perception and power. Trevor Paglen’s Adversarially Evolved Hallucinations invites visitors into the surreal world of neural networks, while Christopher Kulendran Thomas in The Finesse (2022) combines AI-generated avatars with archival footage to question the difference between truth and simulation. Meanwhile, Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler’s Anatomy of an AI System maps the hidden environmental and social costs behind the ‘smart’ devices we rely on, reminding us that every algorithm carries a real-world footprint.
Culture, Consciousness, and Collaboration
Not all AI explorations are dystopian. Angie Abdilla fuses Indigenous knowledge systems with astrophysical datasets in Meditation on Country (2024), creating a dialogue between traditional wisdom and digital intelligence. Agnieszka Kurant’s Chemical Garden (2021/2025) literally grows crystals from computer metals, a mesmerizing illustration of how technology can mimic – or even become – nature. And Hito Steyerl’s Mechanical Kurds (2025) highlights the hidden human labour underpinning AI, encouraging reflection on ethics, agency, and responsibility in the age of intelligent machines.
There’s a thrilling tension throughout the exhibition: AI as collaborator versus AI as observer, AI as extension of human creativity versus AI as autonomous agent. Walking through the galleries, you’re constantly reminded that artificial intelligence is reshaping not just art, but society itself.
Interactive AI: Meet Artbot
One of the most exciting aspects of Data Dreams is MCA’s experimental AI companion, Artbot. Built in-house, this conversational tool guides visitors through the exhibition in real time, offering behind-the-scenes insights, curatorial perspectives, and responses to your questions about the artworks. Whether you’re curious about the technical details of a neural network or the inspiration behind a sculpture, Artbot makes AI both accessible and engaging – turning the gallery into a live, interactive laboratory of ideas.
Why Data Dreams Matters
In a time when AI is everywhere – from the phones in our pockets to the platforms shaping public discourse – Data Dreams offers a rare opportunity to step back and reflect. It’s a chance to consider not just what artificial intelligence can do, but what it should do, and how humans can collaborate with these emerging technologies responsibly. As Suzanne Cotter, Director of MCA Australia, explains: “Data Dreams: Art and AI is a landmark exhibition that reflects the Museum’s commitment to presenting contemporary art and ideas that speak to the present moment.”
Whether you’re an art lover, a tech enthusiast, or simply curious about the future, Data Dreams invites you to navigate a world where human and machine imagination intersect, collide, and ultimately co-create. From hallucinatory images to AI-driven films and interactive digital companions, it’s an exhibition that proves the future of art is already here – and it’s dreamlike, digital, and decidedly alive.
Tickets are available at mca.com.au, free for MCA members and visitors under 18. Data Dreams: Art and AI runs through 27 April 2026. Step inside, meet Artbot, and discover what it means to dream in the age of AI.
Feature image credits: Museum visitors with Trevor Paglen, Rainbow (Corpus: Omens and Portents) Adversarially Evolved Hallucination, 2017, installation
view, Data Dreams: Art and AI, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 2025, dye sublimation print on aluminium, image courtesy the artist and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia © the artist, photograph: Hamish McIntosh
