SELÇUK ARTUT

Selçuk Artut’s oeuvre deals with ontological questions through the use of sound art, interactive technologies and artificial intelligence. The artist’s interest lies in the minor differences that would claim changes, swells of time, in which Artut works with codes and computational algorithms. Artist’s sleek metal sheet sculptures hide a world with wires, which needs a quick glance to what is hidden, supporting his questions on perceptive reality.

Inspired by Barry Truax’s book Acoustic Communication, the software installations and sculptures of the exhibition explore the notion of habituation—the ceasing response to a stimulus as a result of adaptations of brain to sound. In some pieces, Artut uses random algorithms to disturb a possible habituation. In Habituation of Dishabituation (2019) Artut deals with the fact that constant disruption of a certain sound or image (dehabituation) might also lead to habituation. Similarly, what is perceived as repetition that causes habituation in the first glance, includes various shifts and differences. Playing with such ideas, the piece Isomorphism (2019), consisting of sound bars, brings us into a soundscape, a new layer of architecture in the belle-epoque space of the gallery.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with an introduction by Lotte Laub, and essays by Selçuk Artut and Siegfried Zielinski.

Selcuk Artut (1976). His artistic research and production focus on theoretical and practical dimensions of human-technology relations. Artut’s artworks have been exhibited at Dystopie Sound Art Festival (Berlin, 2018), Moving Image NY (New York, 2015), Art13 London (London, 2013), ICA London (London, 2012), Art Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 2011), Istanbul Biennale (Istanbul, 2007). He holds a Ph.D. in Media and Communications from European Graduate School, Switzerland. Currently, Artut is the head of the Visual Arts and Visual Communication Design Program at Sabanci University, Istanbul where he mainly teaches Sound and Interaction Courses. He has been releasing several albums as a member of a Post-Rock Avangard music band Replikas since 1998. In 2016, he co-founded the audio-visual performance group RAW together with Alp Tuğan, which produces works through creative coding and live-coding techniques