October 16, 2006
Interview with Burak Arikan
Pinkie and Open I/O ...
Since John Maeda's group at the MIT Media Lab has been renamed from Aesthetics + Computation Group (out of which Processing emerged) to Physical Language Workshop, also the focus of interest there slightly shifted. Physical hints less at physical computing than on a general interest in the mechanisms in which the world of networked systems interacts with the various worlds around it, for example with the world of art and that of economy.
We will have a closer look at the current main project Openstudio next week and start off with an interview of PLW's most recent graduate, Burak Arikan. In his work, he is indeed taking the interaction to a physical level by designing tools for "exploring electronic compositions through social means" in his projects Pinkie and Open I/O:
Burak, could you please tell us a bit about your background?
I grew up in Istanbul. It is a very complex place to live. Many social classes, lots of immigrants, beautiful geography, various religions, east west and in between, layers of culture, etc. etc. As a kid I played both on the streets and at home with computers.
I started designing and developing web sites with my friends during my civil engineering studies at Yildiz Technical University. I did some some personal projects and commercial work. After finishing the engineering degree, I went to graduate school and studied Visual Communication Design at Istanbul Bilgi University. While studying communication design, I also worked as a visual designer and information architect with several teams and Internet companies in Istanbul. I moved to Baltimore in 2003 and built commercial projects including community web sites, telecom / web products, shopping sites, and social networking services. I ceased all the commercial activity in the summer of 2004 to attend graduate school at MIT. [continue reading at we-make-money-not-art]
Posted by jo at October 16, 2006 10:35 AM
