COGNITIVE DRIFTS & PERCEPTUAL TWISTS
Irem is an artist, designer, and technologist from Istanbul, currently based in between London and Istanbul. Working across media such as advanced physics simulations, eye-tracking systems, AI algorithms, 3D scanning, and kinetic mechanisms, her practice incorporates notions of intelligence, perception, and cognition to disentangle our ever-webbed relationship with technology. Often recognizably colorful and playful, her work contrasts the typically dark and rigid portrayals of new technologies, offering an alternative to the growing disarray and anxiety surrounding them. This approach is evident in the machines she designs and creates, such as her robot Luna, which was characterized as cute, inquisitive, and more like a pet—less like a machine.
Irem's works have been showcased at notable venues such as the Barbican Centre, Ars Electronica, Ugly Duck, and Istanbul Airport. In 2018, she joined the Interactive Architecture Lab at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where she specialized in Robotics. She completed her master's degree with Distinction and was awarded the Best Thesis Award. Before relocating to London, she worked as an architectural designer in San Francisco. With a multidisciplinary background, Irem holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors (Cum Laude) in Art History and Architecture from Tufts University in Boston.
Investing in the affective dimensions of our technological interactions, she re-contextualizes and situates emotions and sensations mediated by digital interfaces. By extending the dialogue between the senses, the digital, and the physical, she hopes to land on a constructively conceived understanding of interfaces in an increasingly virtualized world.
Aside her practice, she works at Random International as the lead designer.
Selected Talks and Writings
Instruments of Vision: Eye Tracking as an Embodied Interface, ACM, https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3465618
Instruments of Vision, SIGGRAPH 2021
Envisioning Machines with ArtBizTech, 2021
Your Eye's Motion by Luna, DigitalFUTURES Young: Interactive Design
Navigating Distance Bodies and Spaces at So-Far
Archives of Vision at Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL
Selected Exhibitions & Awards
Eskiden Piksele, Samsun, Turkey, 2024
Istanbul Digital Arts Festival, AKM, 2023
SOFT Publication, 2022
SIGGRAPH ACM, 2021
Somerset House, Makerversity Under 25 Programme, 2021
Bang Prix. Curious Minds of 2020 Award
Bang Prix. 2020 Programme
Istanbul International Airport, Genetic Codes of Design, 2020
Ars Electronica, Out of the Box, 2019
Barbican Centre, AI More Than Human Innovation Hub, 2019
Bartlett 15, UCL, 2019
Ugly Duck, Anamorphic Waves, 2019
Grow Hackney, Sense 4: Perception, 2019
Here East UCL, Exquisite Instruments, 2019
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