Meet the community: Deniz Kurt
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Shall we meet a new community member this month? We are excited to introduce you to Deniz Kurt: a media artist, creative technologist, and the project lead in our exploration of Mechanic — a generative design tool!
AIxDesign: Hi Deniz! So amazing to have the time to sit down and chat with you! Would you like to share a bit about yourself with our audience?
DK: I’m a Media Artist / Creative Technologist based in Amsterdam. In my body of work, I use Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning algorithms, creative coding, and generative art. As an interdisciplinary artist/designer/programmer, I like making art in the digital realm, such as VR, AR, and metaverse as well.
Besides my art/work persona, I’m a sci-fi & horror nerd who loves movies, video games, and board games that bring these passions into my works.
AIxDesign: That is really fascinating and your generative arts are amazing! I am wondering what background and experiences have led you to where you are now?
DK: I currently work with different new media and generative mediums, and I explore new things, programs, and tools. I work as a full-time UX/UI designer and developer in a software company, and I do my art practice in my free time with exhibitions, workshops, installations, and collabs.
My interdisciplinary approach is also coming from my academic background. After completing my BA in Linguistics, I obtained my academic background in Media & Cultural Studies (MSc), and Creative Industries (MA). In my dissertation “Artistic Creativity in Artificial Intelligence (2018)”, I explored the field of computational creativity, by defining how creativity works in human intelligence as a cognitive ability, and if/how we can mimic this ability in machine intelligence. Furthermore, can we classify this process or the outputs of this process as creative?
As a programmer and designer, I recently work on the synthesis of technology and art as a medium. I create a variety of artworks in my design studio Warpglaze, to manifest the human perception in the age of AI and a post-machine era, expressing the existential challenges in a digital world.
AIxDesign: That is so cool! With technology, the ways that art could manifest itself are expanding. Is there anything you are working on that lies between art and technology?
DK: I recently worked on two AI exhibitions, one called “Plantasmagoria”, which will be installed in Luxembourg AI Pavillon, a collaboration with Luxembourg University. In addition, I work on an expo in NDSM Fuse In Amsterdam, which will be held between 1 October 2022 and 26 March 2023.
AIxDesign: Looking forward! With your background and experiences, you have become a great asset to the AIxDesign team. What are you currently working on and what do you find intriguing in the process?
DK: I’m currently leading the Design Systems project in AIxDesign, where we explore the generative maker tool Mechanic, experimenting on this JS-based program to create a boilerplate and discover the opportunities with this tool.
I find AIxDesign very relatable to my work, as we share the same interdisciplinary synthesis. I like how AIxDesign creates a network and hub with people with shared interests and passions, as we are a niche community. This community is growing every day, and I’m happy to contribute more to it.
AIxDesign: Taking about tools, is there any tool or method you have experimented with and enjoyed using?
DK: I work a lot with Touchdesigner and I find it very amazing. Even though the learning curve is pretty long, I love working with it and creating generative artwork with it. I’m also very excited about Dall-E since I started using it 2 months ago. It awes and excites me a lot, how fast and how far text-to-image algorithms came in such a short time. Only a couple of years ago, when I was writing my thesis in 2018, it was a very controversial topic, how creative AI could be, and now in such a short time, we experience the marvel of creative AI programs.
AIxDesign: Lovely! Lastly, would you like to recommend any book or podcast you’d like to share with our audience?
DK: I’m personally a big fan of Lex Friedman podcasts :)
AIxD: Thank you so much Deniz! It was really fun chatting with you and learning about your work! We would love to see more of your work in the future!
About AIxDesign
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