The Terakki Foundation Art Gallery opened its doors on March 25th to Selçuk Artut’s exhibition, “Autonomy: Fluid Geometry.” Curated by Nazlı Pektaş, the exhibition establishes a deep and original dialogue between technological art and ancient geometric heritage.
Artist Selçuk Artut, a professor at Sabancı University’s Visual Arts and Visual Communication Design Program, is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher who combines art, mathematics, and technology in a unique language. Artut, who holds a doctorate in Media and Communication from the European Graduate School, is also a prolific academic, having authored or edited ten books.
Because the exhibition is set in an educational institution, children are also at the center of the audience. I learned that Artut will also be organizing workshops during this period. The workshops begin not with screens, but with compasses and rulers; children first create patterns by hand, then transfer the same logic to the digital environment using code. Seeing creative coding grounded in such an intuitive and cultural context was one of the most impressive aspects of the exhibition for me. Especially in this era of concern that Generative AI will take over jobs, utilizing technology's contributions to production, rather than demonizing it, and promoting manual drawing before digital coding, will undoubtedly help children and families establish a healthy relationship with technology.
The Terakki Foundation, which views art as a corporate responsibility and an educational necessity, approaches art and artists with a sense of social responsibility; it believes that keeping art alive is as important and serious an endeavor as creating it. Established in this context and beginning its activities in 2000, the Terakki Foundation Art Gallery operates with an approach that aims to exhibit artworks, pass them on to future generations, and bring together art and artists with students, parents, the art community, and art-loving viewers.
Artut prefers to define his own artistic practice not with established concepts like "digital art" or "new media," but as "technological art." At the heart of the exhibition are technological works created by bridging the gap between the mathematically profound geometric patterns of the Islamic Enlightenment and contemporary computational art. To offer a genuine approach to this heritage, Artut has spent years both learning traditional pattern-making techniques firsthand and conducting extensive field research in centers such as Uzbekistan, Konya, Beyşehir, and Akşehir. Photographs and motif samples gathered during these travels are presented to the audience in the exhibition space.
Some of the works in the exhibition are directly inspired by historical sources: a 14th-century pattern from the Karatay Madrasa, motifs taken from the architecture of a madrasa in Niğde, and a video composition combining Seljuk-era patterns with Asano patterns from Japan are among the most prominent. This last video is being shown for the first time in Turkey at this exhibition; it had previously only been exhibited in Osaka.
Artut's production process is based on a layered method that connects tradition with computation. Upon discovering a historical pattern, the artist first deciphers its structural logic; then, by writing code, he recreates this structure in a computer environment. Thanks to the dynamism provided by the code, the patterns transcend static images, transforming into dynamic, vibrant narratives.
The sculptures in the exhibition are made of stainless steel and aluminum and shaped using CNC cutting techniques. Small-scale models prepared with a 3D printer were used as a testing ground to experiment with possible combinations during the design process. Beyond an aesthetic experience, the exhibition also offers a powerful discussion of history and culture. Artut and curator Pektaş share a common concern: Western-centric art history writing has long ignored the mathematical and visual heritage produced by the East. Today, as new museology approaches begin to fill this gap, the exhibition offers a concrete contribution to this rewriting process.
From this perspective, “Autonomy: Fluid Geometry” establishes invisible links between Asia, Anatolia, and the Far East across a vast time span from the 13th to the 21st century. As they point out, facts such as the Arabic origin of the word “algorithm” and the spread of “algebra” from Islamic mathematicians to the world remind us of the profound contributions these regions made to science and art.
The fact that the Terakki Foundation Art Gallery is located within an educational institution provides a meaningful context for the exhibition. Artut will also be organizing workshops for students during the exhibition period. These workshops begin not with screens and keyboards, but with compasses and rulers: children first create geometric patterns using traditional methods, then experience the same logic in a digital environment by writing code. Thus, the abstract concept of "creative coding" becomes a tangible, visible experience.
According to curator Nazlı Pektaş, this choice is not accidental. Selçuk Artut's background in mathematics, his way of combining the art of geometry with technology, and his interdisciplinary perspective make him a perfect fit for this exhibition. The works of an artist who considers music and rhythm together, transforms code into a narrative tool, and blends the visual heritage of different cultures under one roof, offer a strong foundation for children to rediscover both their own culture and world art.
The exhibition is open to the public until April 24th. Seeing this delightful exhibition being used in a useful and creative way during a confusing and anxiety-inducing era of Generative AI filled me with hope and made me very happy. It was particularly exciting to see young people gaining access to many tools in a productive and enjoyable way at such a young age.
Source: https://www.themagger.com/otonomi-akiskan-geometri-sergi/