“Sound is not merely an accompaniment to my visual installations; it is an intrinsic element, co-constituting the overall sensory experience,” says artist and visionary Refik Anadol, whose DATALAND, the Museum of AI Arts, opened to the public on June 20, 2026 at The Grand LA in downtown Los Angeles. With that conviction at its core, DATALAND has partnered with L-Acoustics to create an aural environment unlike anything found in any permanent museum anywhere in the world. One powered by an L-ISA Hyperreal Immersive spatial system and, for the first time in the Americas, the groundbreaking L-Acoustics Ambiance™ hybrid active acoustic enhancement solution, installed by Certified Partner Solotech.
DATALAND is the world’s first omni-sensory AI arts museum, activating all five human senses. Its inaugural exhibition, Machine Dreams: Rainforest, developed by Refik Anadol Studio’s collective of artists, scientists, architects, and engineers, runs through January 31, 2027. Spread across five galleries, Machine Dreams: Rainforest redefines art for the age of machine intelligence. No longer a finished object, this art is a living work that unfolds in real time through the dynamic interplay of data, computation, and human presence. Visitors interact directly with artworks that respond to them; biometric data from wearable devices is woven into the experience itself.
L-Acoustics is among an elite group of technology collaborators on the project, alongside NVIDIA, Google Cloud, Founding Olfactory Partner L’Oréal Luxe, and Epson. As the audio partner, L-Acoustics’ role goes far beyond sound reinforcement: its technology is integral to the full realization of Anadol’s creative vision, shaping every emotional beat of the experience through a 250-speaker spatial ecosystem with a resolution unprecedented in any permanent museum anywhere in the world.
The Sound of DATALAND: L-ISA and Ambiance
At the heart of DATALAND’s audio architecture is L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal audio, which gives artists the ability to ‘paint’ with sound across a three-dimensional canvas, in front of, above, and entirely surrounding each visitor. Audio content created by composer and sound designer Kerim Karaoğlu draws on original music, the acoustic ecology of the rainforest, and the sacred healing songs of the Yawanawá, and is fully integrated with the visual art, responding to the visuals in real time, inhabiting the same space, completing the experience at a sensory level that transcends any single medium.
L-Acoustics Ambiance extends this further, transforming the acoustic character of the room itself. Ambiance can make a space feel intimate or vast, enveloping or electric, altering the reverberation time and character of the room in real time to serve the creative content. DATALAND marks its first permanent installation in the United States.
Anadol’s work is guided, as he describes it, by “a desire to craft a soundscape that would serve as an auditory echo of both the architectural essence and the subtle emotional atmospheres inherent in the spaces.” L-Acoustics Ambiance is the instrument that makes Anadol’s vision possible.
“For Refik and the DATALAND team, sound has always been as essential to the work as the visuals themselves, which is what makes this collaboration so meaningful,” says Yann-Gaël Gicquel, Director of Product Management, Spatial Systems at L-Acoustics. “This is the culmination of a long and deeply shared vision. We’ve worked together to build technology that supports the art, and becomes part of it. With L-ISA and Ambiance, that means giving Refik’s studio something they can keep playing, keep evolving, keep imagining with. That is what it means to be a true creative partner.”
Gallery by Gallery: Engineered for Every Vision
Because DATALAND is designed to evolve, with its content and experiences continuously developing over time, L-Acoustics engineered each gallery to deliver the most flexible, most adaptive audio platform possible. Whatever Anadol’s team imagines, this spatial system can realize it.
Data Pavilion
DATALAND’s main exhibition space, nearly 5,000 square feet with overhead speakers positioned 21 feet high, is the centerpiece of the immersive audiovisual experience. Three vertical rings of L-Acoustics loudspeakers envelop visitors in a fully spatial acoustic landscape designed to support Refik Anadol Studio’s generative visual art. Sound can be precisely localized to any point on the walls or ceiling, creating a seamless union of image and audio.
The bottom layer alone features 27 Syva colinear speakers, each paired with a Syva Low and Syva Sub, delivering remarkable sonic resolution and low-frequency extension across the full sweep of the space. The surround and height layers add 25 and 12 X8i coaxial speakers respectively, with eight KS21i subwoofers providing room-filling foundation. Twenty-five X6i coaxial loudspeakers deliver direct-routed personalized audio encounters for individual guests. The space is driven by 12 LA7.16i amplified controllers using L-SMART technology, which continuously monitors and optimizes power consumption to average 30% greater efficiency compared to traditional processing platforms, with zero compromise to the sound. An L-ISA Processor II controls the object-based mix.
The Sanctuary
The Sanctuary measures 20 by 35 feet, with ceiling speakers reaching 30 feet high, a configuration that takes full advantage of Ambiance. Here, the technology is used not merely as a sound effect, but as a live acoustic tool: the reverberation time and character of the room itself shift in real time with the content, transforming the space from intimate to immersive and back again.
Three rings of loudspeakers surround the gallery: a bottom layer of 17 5XT compact coaxial speakers, a surround layer of 11 X8i, and a height layer of six X8i. Low-frequency power comes from two KS21i and nine SB10i subwoofers, with six 5XT for individualized audio moments.
Latent Gallery
Connecting the exhibition areas, this space features video on one wall and seamless overhead audio continuity throughout. Ten X8i loudspeakers and two KS21i subs ensure visitors are never outside the sonic experience as they move between galleries.
The Infinity Room
The Infinity Room is a compact, self-contained space where audio and video are deeply intertwined for an intimate sensory encounter. A focused L-Acoustics system, comprising 25 X6i and 10 X8i loudspeakers plus two KS21i subwoofers, all driven by three LA7.16i, provides clear, full-range sound reinforcement in precise support of the room’s visual installations.
Discovery Portal and Lobby
The first space guests encounter upon entering DATALAND, the Discovery Portal sets the tone for everything to follow with welcoming L-Acoustics sound via four Soka colinear arrays and four SB10i subs driven by a single LA7.16i. Premium L-Acoustics background music systems extend through all common areas and the gift shop, ensuring the sonic quality of the museum reaches every corner of the guest journey.
Across all spaces, the DATALAND installation deploys a total of 250 L-Acoustics loudspeakers, with audio transport split between Milan-AVB and AES67 protocols, giving DATALAND maximum flexibility for whatever its content becomes next.
A Vision Built on Sound
DATALAND’s ambition required a technical partner willing to design for the unknown. Because the museum is a site of continuous production, with its exhibitions evolving and the pigment of the artworks never drying, the audio system had to be as adaptable as the works themselves. Solotech delivered an L-Acoustics platform engineered for every experience that Anadol and his team will ever envision.
L-Acoustics has a long history of collaboration with Anadol’s studio, including his In the Mind of Gaudí permanent L-ISA installation at Casa Batlló in Barcelona. DATALAND represents the most ambitious realization of that shared vision to date, and the first time Ambiance has been permanently deployed in the United States.
“My work is guided by a desire to craft a sonic landscape that would serve as an auditory echo of both the architectural essence and the subtle emotional atmospheres inherent in the spaces,” Anadol has said. “With L-Acoustics L-ISA and Ambiance technologies, those atmospheres are no longer fixed. They are alive.”
- AVNation Staff
- AVNation Staff
- AVNation Staff
- AVNation Staff
