What happens when code and data become the raw materials of art?

In Run the Code, contemporary artists harness algorithms and generative AI models to create powerful, thought-provoking works that explore nature, art history, internet culture, and human behavior. Showcasing highlights from the Thoma Foundation’s Digital and Media Art Collection, this immersive exhibition transforms digital information into sensory works of art.

Included are some of the most important digital and generative artists working today: Refik Anadol, Daniel Canogar, Jenny Holzer, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, teamLab, Siebren Versteeg, Leo Villareal, and Marina Zurkow, among others.

Some create interactive systems that respond to your movement, touch, or presence — inviting you to become part of the artwork. Others design custom software that generates ever-evolving images right before your eyes. Digital landscapes reflect on our relationship with the natural world, while other works remix historical paintings and cultural archives through machine processes. Together, these artworks demonstrate that algorithms can be more than technical tools — they can also serve as a creative medium.

Though grounded in advanced technology, these artworks are deeply human, raising important questions for the digital age: What does it mean to create art in a world shaped by data? And how might it help us reimagine our relationship to the information that surrounds us? From interactive installations to complex systems running behind the scenes, Run the Code brings together art and technology in exciting, unexpected ways.

Organized by Hannah Klemm, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Blanton Museum of Art

An animated illustration of a polluted landscape with a pond, shrubs and trees, picnic tables, people wearing hazmat suits, and many monarch butterflies.

Marina Zurkow, Mesocosm (Wink, TX), 2012, 28 x 48 1/2 in.,  146 hour cycle (24-minute day, 146-hour year), Real-time generative software animation (color, sound), monitor, Marina Zurkow, Collection of the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation

A digitally generated image of many raised white shards that resemble a pointed arch or the facade of a Gothic cathedral.

Refik Anadol, Machine Hallucinations – Study I, 2019, single-channel digital video, silent, computer, monitor, 30 min., Collection of the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation © Refik Anadol

An abstract digitally generated image with a tan background and many cream, blue, pink, green, and orange markings.

Camille Utterback, Untitled 5, 2004, interactive installation: custom software, silent, video camera, computer, projector, lighting, infinite (live generation), Collection of the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation © Camille Utterback

A split screen monitor with close-up images of fingerprints that get progressively smaller.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Pulse Index, 2010, interactive generative custom software, silent, computer, digital microscope, industrial camera, plasma monitor, Collection of the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation © Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

A monitor with an image of the front page of the New York Times covered with digitally generated purple, turquoise, white, and gray brush strokes.

Siebren Versteeg, Daily Times (Performer), 2012, real-time generative custom software animation, silent, computer, internet connection, monitor, 24-hour cycle, Collection of the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation © Siebren Versteeg

Credit

Run The Code: Data-Driven Art is organized by the Blanton Museum of Art in collaboration with the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Foundation.