Panel Statement

Panel: East & West

I will try to give a brief vi­sion of the dig­i­tal art scene in Turkey. I will talk about the re­flec­tions of so­cial and cul­tural cur­rent state on the dig­i­tal art scene in our local and the re­gion. I will try to ex­plain why the state of the con­sump­tion and usage of the cur­rent dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies in daily life does not have a cor­re­spond­ing ef­fect in the art scene.”

• Ekmel Ertan works as an artist, cu­ra­tor and ed­u­ca­tor. Ertan is the founder and artis­tic di­rec­tor of Is­tan­bul based BIS, Be­den-Islem­sel Sanat­lar Dernegi (Body-Process Arts As­so­ci­a­tion), which is a re­search and pro­duc­tion plat­form – also known as am­ber­Plat­form – on art and new tech­nolo­gies. Ertan has been the cu­ra­tor and di­rec­tor of the an­nual “amber Art and Tech­nol­ogy Fes­ti­val” since its in­cep­tion in 2007 in Is­tan­bul. He is the ini­tia­tor of am­ber­Con­fer­ence, the only Sci­ence, Tech­nol­ogy and Art Con­fer­ence in Turkey. He has cu­rated many local and in­ter­na­tional ex­hi­bi­tions and per­for­mances. Ertan is also work­ing as the site co­or­di­na­tor of sev­eral in­ter­na­tional pro­jects based in Turkey and Eu­rope in the field of art and tech­nol­ogy.  Ertan has ex­hib­ited his pho­tog­ra­phy work at La Mama Gallery in 1997, in 2003 in New York and Turkey. He has also ex­hib­ited his new media in­stal­la­tions and co­op­er­a­tive per­for­mance works in sev­eral local and in­ter­na­tional venues.  Ertan re­ceived his BSc de­gree in Elec­tron­ics / Com­mu­ni­ca­tion En­gi­neer­ing from Is­tan­bul Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­sity and his MA de­gree on In­ter­ac­tive Media De­sign from Yildiz Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­sity. He worked as a de­sign and test en­gi­neer on telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems in Turkey, Ger­many and Bel­gium. He started a mul­ti­me­dia de­sign com­pany in 1997 in Is­tan­bul. Be­tween 1999 and 2006, he taught mul­ti­me­dia / vi­sual com­mu­ni­ca­tion de­sign at Is­tan­bul Bilgi Uni­ver­sity, Is­tan­bul Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­sity, Yildiz Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­sity and since 2006 he has been teach­ing at Sa­banci Uni­ver­sity. amberplatform.org