Architect-designer Antoni Gaudí, a legend of Catalan Modernisme, is often quoted as having said, “Nothing is invented, for it’s written in nature first.” Whether or not that’s apocryphal, his legacy suggests something holier than human at work. This year, one of Barcelona’s most visited Gaudí sites, Casa Batlló, found a contemporary analog in “Structures of Being,” a new audiovisual piece by Sofia Crespo projected onto the building’s façade on January 27 and 28. Crespo, an Argentinian artist who entangles AI and machine learning with natural life forms, possesses a Gaudí sensibility about our era of digital manipulation: The aim is not to discover anything completely new, but to look at existing things in a new way.
For a building erected in 1877 and renovated by Gaudí in 1906, it’s not Casa Batlló’s first foray into generative art. In 2022, the UNESCO World Heritage Site debuted a projection mapping project by media artist Refik Anadol, whose AI-based immersive room also resides in the basement of Casa Batlló, making a dizzying screensaver of the site’s tagged social media photos the final stop on visitors’ €29 (~$31) tour. Given UNESCO’s comprehensive rulebook for the landmarks it has deemed worthy of preservation, it’s clever to add artwork that doesn’t need to touch the walls.
