Irem is a London-based artist born in Istanbul, Turkey, working with interactive systems and moving image to explore intelligence across biological and artificial domains. Her work stages new encounters with machines, drawing on evolutionary and cognitive frameworks to examine how humans perceive, relate to, and attribute meaning to non-human forms of mind.
This inquiry began with Luna, a robotic installation that follows the viewer’s gaze through eye tracking. As audiences formed emotional connections with a system they knew to be artificial, the work exposed the underlying structures through which perception becomes relation, and relation becomes meaning.
Recent works extend this investigation across different cognitive processes and timescales. Priors examines shared perception, bringing human and machine sensing into alignment in real time. Inference engages memory, allowing viewers to interact with a system’s processes of recall and association. Cambrian Stream traces intelligence to its evolutionary origins, simulating early forms of life to explore how diverse modes of sensing and response emerge over time.
Her work has been exhibited at the Barbican Centre, Ars Electronica, Istanbul Airport, Scorpios Mykonos (with HOFA Gallery), and Phillips London, among others. She holds an MA in Robotics and Human-Computer Interaction from UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture, where she received the Best Thesis Prize, and a BA in Art History and Architecture from Tufts University. Her research has been published at SIGGRAPH and IEEE ICRA.
Selected Exhibitions, Commissions & Awards
Inference, Art of Ritual presented by AMEX, Scorpios, Bodrum, 2025
Ecologies of Vision II, Esas Holding, Istanbul, 2025
Digital Art Awards by HOFA with PhillipsX, London, 2025
Ecologies of Vision, Istinye Park Art Collection, Istanbul, 2025
Frontiers, in collaboration with Lannka, curated by HOFA, and Scorpios Mykonos
Eskiden Piksele, Samsun, Turkey, 2024
Istanbul Digital Arts Festival, AKM, 2023
SOFT Publication, 2022
SIGGRAPH ACM, 2021
Bang Prix. 2020 Residency Programme
Ugly Duck, Anamorphic Waves, 2019
Grow Hackney, Sense 4: Perception, 2019
Here East UCL, Exquisite Instruments, 2019
Selected Talks and Writings
Instruments of Vision: Eye Tracking as an Embodied Interface, ACM – A detailed exploration of eye-tracking systems as embodied interfaces in interactive art.
Instruments of Vision, SIGGRAPH 2021 – Presentation on the relationship between machine vision and perception in robotics.
Sentimental Machines, IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation – Designing emotional encounters with machines as an alternative interface with intelligences.
Envisioning Machines, ArtBizTech, 2021 – A lecture on looking at our perception of machines and intelligence.
Your Eye's Motion by Luna, DigitalFUTURES Young: Interactive Design – Discussing the creation of Luna, a robot designed to engage with humans emotionally through eye-tracking.
Navigating Distance: Bodies and Spaces, So-Far, 2021 – Investigating spatial and digital boundaries in the era of remote communication.
Archives of Vision, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, 2021 – A lecture exploring the role of perception in robotics and interaction.
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Instagram: irem.rgb
