As part of the second gathering of STS TURKEY Science and Technology Studies Conference to be taken place at Istanbul Technical University Ayazaga Campus between September 10-12, this year’s event will also provide artistic medium for the current discussions in science and technology studies.

Graduate students of Özyeğin University Design, Technology and Society program, are going to exhibit their artworks that have been produced within the ‘Cyborgs and Technobodies’ course supervized by Dr. Melike Şahinol.

Intention of the artworks can be found below.

Cyborg Encounters

Contributors:  Ayşe Melis Okay, Beyza Dilem Toptal, Burak Kaynar, Burak Taşdizen, Umut Özöver, Öykü Sorgun, Pelin Günay

 

‘Cyborg Encounters’ offers an experience of a universe; in between past, present and future constituted of hybrids born from the coupling of humans and nonhumans, beyond species and genders. It lives in the duality of integrated circuits and feelings of monachopsis, defying the order of things.

As a placeless local, you will encounter sections from the cyborg universe. In this creation; cyborg is a political, poetic, living or inanimate, digital or mechanical intervention; with or without a body and flesh. In this exhibition, a narrative in which fiction and reality intertwine, cultivates the theories of the cyborg, feminist technoscience, human enhancements, laboratory studies and politics of disability/ability and artifacts.

‘Cyborg Encounters’ had emerged from the readings and discussions during the ‘Qualitative Approaches in STS: Cyborgs and Technobodies’ course lead by Dr. Melike Şahinol within 2018-2019 Academic Year Spring Term at Özyeğin University Design, Technology, and Society graduate program. Works at the exhibition are aiming to introduce the notion of cyborgs to the audience, by taking them on a journey through an imaginary cyborg universe. Referring to the literature in dialogue with the course sessions; each piece at the exhibition emphasizes the uniqueness and authenticity of the cyborgs’ existence with the agency of art and design practices.