An AI artwork by Refik Anadol depicting Argentine soccer player Lionel Messi’s favorite goal sold for $1.87 million at an online auction hosted by Christie’s, which concluded on July 22nd.
The artwork, titled Living Memory: Messi – A Goal in Life, used cutting-edge AI technology to reimagine Messi’s 2009 UEFA Champions League final header. The piece was displayed in a 10-day public exhibition at Rockefeller Center in New York, coinciding with Christie’s 10th Art+Tech Summit.
This online sale was part of the A Goal in Life initiative spearheaded by a foundation operated by Messi’s current club team, the Inter Miami CF Foundation. The proceeds from the sale will benefit several nonprofit organizations, including the Inter Miami CF Foundation’s global partnership with UNICEF, which supports education programs in Latin America and the Caribbean.
To create Living Memory: Messi – A Goal in Life, Anadol used millions of data points to construct an eight-minute immersive video that combines depictions of Messi’s movements during the goal with abstract forms that visualize the artist’s emotional connection to the moment. To help make these forms, the artist incorporated biometric data—such as Messi’s heartbeat and breathing patterns, as recorded during interviews where the soccer player recalled the goal—into image-creating algorithms. The result was an immersive digital sculpture, shown in 16K resolution, which integrated videos of the goal, interviews, the crowd, and the emotionally-charged abstract forms.
Messi selected this goal from over 850 career goals, which span the athlete’s years playing with FC Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain FC, Inter Miami CF, and the Argentinian national team. “Choosing just one goal out of them all is very difficult—each one is special in its own way, and some are really important or bring back incredible memories,” Messi said in a press statement in May.
Based in Los Angeles, Anadol is widely recognized for his pioneering use of digital technology. His hypnotic “data paintings” transform vast datasets into visual compositions through the artist’s self-designed algorithms. One notable example is Unsupervised – Machine Hallucinations (2022), which was prominently featured at the Museum of Modern Art in 2022.
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