Biography
I am an inter-disciplinary Turkish artist, currently based in Chicago as an MFA candidate at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago with a New Artists Society Scholarship. I hold a BSc. degree in Computer Science and BA. degree in Visual Communication Design from Istanbul Bilgi University. My practice moves between media and methods, incorporating video, installation, light, sculpture, print, alghoritmic text/poetry, ethnographic research and data analysis. I work at the edge of physical and virtual production, trying to accommodate both the traditional, i.e. mold making & casting, and the contemporary, i.e. 3-D scanning & 3-D printing.
In my practice, I do not concentrate on either the virtual or the actual/physical. I give importance to the slippage, to the edge where the virtual and actual leak into each other, where the concrete becomes ephemeral or the virtual is made physical. Thus, I explore the concepts of presence, belonging and intimacy, as these are the norms we use to define ourselves and our realities. For me, all these concepts endlessly move between virtual and concrete worlds. They are both in & out, visible & invisible, virtual & actual, fixed & in flux at the same time.
This fluidity perfectly defines our contemporary age, connects it to different pasts and futures. It gives us the chance to see the self as an accumulation of influenceable data, scrutinize it and make a holistic sense of it. That is why I aim to make use of any effective method of interpretation, either artistic or scientific; why I try to understand the rapid increase in human/technology interconnectivity; why I look into alternatives of human contact & intimacy in virtual worlds; why I ask myself about home, homelessness and where we belong.
