RECIPHER – Generative Arts Exhibition

RECIPHER, a group show featuring works generated by students of Selçuk Artut’s “Creative Coding” course at Sabanci University, Visual Arts and Visual Communication Design Program, will be exhibited in two different locations in Istanbul at the same time. One of the exhibitions will open its door at Sabanci University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Exhibition Hall, Istanbul on October 2nd and the other at Zorlu PSM Exhibition Hall, Istanbul on October 1st of 2018. Additionally, there will be a presentation about the Creative Coding course at the 4th Istanbul Design Biennial on the 16th of October.

Drawing inspiration from the aesthetics and philosophy of [Italian] Futurism, students developed computational codes and creative scripts to devise unique generative works, ranging from digital tableaux to interactive audio-visual pieces.  Harnessing code as an expressive and creative tool, students explored the symbiotic relationship between generative art and Futurism, the technology-loving avant-garde movement that sought not only to destroy older forms of culture but also to celebrate, through art, the beauty of machinery, of movement, of modernity and innovation.

A neologism employed to capture the essence of this Futurism-inspired generative art, “recipher”, which originates from the verb “cipher” (synonymous with the verbs “encrypt” or “encode” and anonymous with “decode”), refers to the creative re-coding, or re-encoding, of information (in this case, artwork) developed by the students as part of the Creative Coding” course.

While the aesthetics of Futurism may share some similarities with Cubism, the distinctive dynamism of Futurist Art reveals the movement’s preoccupation with speed and technology, in addition to its fascination with the aesthetics of machinery or “arte meccanica”. It is the aesthetic and ideological inclinations of futurophilia that serve as such a natural, if not complementary, ally of generative art—art which, in this context, is understood as computer-generated artwork that is algorithmically determined through the use of autonomous systems.

Over the course of the semester, students learned the creative capacity of code and innovative computational thinking, expressing this new vocabulary in a collection of very “futuristic” pieces that reflect the influence and inspiration of Futurist tendencies.

Recipher will not only highlight the surprising compatibility between the technological and creative aspirations of Futurism and the ever-evolving field of generative art but will also showcase the oft-overlooked creative opportunities in computational coding, especially within the context of art.

EXHITIBITING ARTISTS
Deniz Beren Akural
Ipek Ganiyusufoglu
Eylul Naz Kırelli
Havva Neslihan Sumer
Cem Tunaboylu
Cansu Ulker
Goksun Yuksel

CURATOR
Selcuk Artut

EXHIBITION DESIGN
Ezgi Yilmaz

POSTER & VISUAL DESIGN
Onur Yilmaz

TEXT
Kateri O’Neil, Selcuk Artut

Photo: Orsan KARAKUS

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