Run the Code: Data-Driven Art Decoded by Thoma Foundation x Blanton Museum of Art | teamLab

Run the Code: Data-Driven Art Decoded by Thoma Foundation x Blanton Museum of Art

Mar 08 - Aug 02, 2026Blanton Museum of Art, Austin

Group Exhibition

Run the Code: Data-Driven Art Decoded by Thoma Foundation x Blanton Museum of Art

Mar 08 - Aug 02, 2026Blanton Museum of Art, Austin

Group Exhibition

Artworks

The World of Irreversible Change

This work is both somewhere in time and here and now.

The world of the artwork changes with the real time of its location. Morning arrives in the artwork with the sunrise in the real world, and when the sun sets, evening begins. If it rains in the real world of the work’s location, it rains in the world of the artwork, and the flora that grow in the artwork change every day with each passing season.
The people’s lives also change continuously depending on the time of day and weather of the real world, and the festivals and events that are celebrated change with the seasons. Various stories take place every day, and the lives of people continue eternally.

The actions of viewers influence the world of the artwork. The people in the artwork respond when a viewer touches them, but if the interaction is limited, they return to their daily lives.
If the interaction is continuous, however, fights break out amongst the people in the artwork that are near to each other, leading to deaths. The fighting spreads throughout the city, which becomes engulfed in flames that last for over a year. As the city burns to the ground, the people in the artwork eventually die out.

In the ruined city where not a single person remains, the seasons still pass and the sun rises and sets with the time of the real world. After a few months, new flora begin to grow in the burnt ruins of the city.
The flora grow, bloom, and scatter repeatedly, changing daily with the real passage of time. The flowers and plants grow deeply over the course of a long period, and the flowers change throughout every year, continuing in perpetuity.

Once the world of this artwork begins to burn, the world from before can never be returned to.
The people who interact with the artwork cause this outcome.

About teamLab

teamLab (f. 2001) is an international art collective. Their collaborative practice seeks to navigate the confluence of art, science, technology, and the natural world. Through art, the interdisciplinary group of specialists, including artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians, and architects, aims to explore the relationship between the self and the world, and new forms of perception.

In order to understand the world around them, people separate it into independent entities with perceived boundaries between them. teamLab seeks to transcend these boundaries in our perceptions of the world, of the relationship between the self and the world, and of the continuity of time. Everything exists in a long, fragile yet miraculous, borderless continuity.

teamLab’s works are in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra;  Amos Rex, Helsinki; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; Borusan Contemporary Art Collection, Istanbul; and Asia Society Museum, New York, among others.

teamlab.art

Biographical Documents

teamLab is represented by Pace Gallery, Martin Browne Contemporary and Ikkan Art.

Exhibition Overview

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