"arura" is a solo exhibition resulting from a research project focused on biodiversity, transitional forms, the fractal geometric structures of these biological forms in nature, and the variability of this geometry over time.
“Transitional Forms” is a concept used in biology within the theory of evolution, although it is now also applied in AI classifications. The term, for example, describes intermediate forms between an aquatic organism from twenty-five million years ago and a terrestrial organism today. Of course, this concept carries not only an intellectual dimension but also social and psychological ones. As an idea develops, all intermediate forms become Transitional Forms. If we consider this as a process without beginning or end, everything is constantly in a state of Transitional Forms and continuous change.
Art On Pera is pleased to host new media artist Ozan Türkkan’s solo exhibition arura from October 27 to November 26.
Drawing on over fifteen years of research, Türkkan’s new media practice focuses on the generative systems used by life forms in nature to create themselves and on the cyclical processes of growth, death, reproduction, life, endings, and renewal that allow a form to re-exist through its finitude.
In his investigations, the fractal geometric structures of millions of life forms highlight concepts of infinity, complexity, and resemblance in Türkkan’s research process. Living in Vienna, Türkkan shares in arura the results of his research focusing on the temporal variability of these concepts and phenomena. During the production process, over two million life forms, studied for centuries in the Biodiversity Heritage Library, were re-analyzed; approximately ten thousand drawings and images were scanned, and the geometries of these life forms were reconstructed using over two thousand creative coding and AI tools. The primary inspiration throughout this process has been water and the relationship between life and life forms in nature.
Arura is a Homeric Greek word derived from the verb ἀρόω, which means “to plow.”
The term arura has also been used to refer to the “sacred mother earth,” which
typically sustains soil and life forms.
