Headshots at #headshots

b. Istanbul, TR, 1975

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456 words, 3025 characters

Memo Akten is a multi-disciplinary artist, musician, and researcher from Istanbul, Turkey, currently based in Los Angeles. He creates Speculative Simulations and Data Dramatizations investigating the intricacies of human-machine entanglements. His work explores perception and states of consciousness; the tensions between ecology, technology, science and spirituality; and for more than a decade he’s been working with Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and our Collective Consciousness as scraped by the Internet, to reflect on the human condition, drawing connections between intelligence in nature, intelligence in machines, perception, consciousness, neuroscience, fundamental physics, ritual and religion. He writes code and uses algorithmic / data-driven design and aesthetics to create moving images, sounds, large-scale responsive installations and performances.
He holds a PhD from Goldsmiths University of London, specializing in artistic and creative applications of Deep Neural Networks (aka “Artificial Intelligence”) with Meaningful Human Control, and in this field he is considered one of the world’s leading pioneers. He is currently Assistant Professor of Computational Art at University of California San Diego (UCSD). Akten is a frequent keynote speaker on topics involving art, science, technology and culture.

Akten received the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica – one of the most prestigious awards in New Media Art – for his work ‘Forms’ in 2013. His work has been shown internationally at venues such as The Royal Opera House (London UK), ZKM Center for Art and Media, Sonar Festival, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Mori Art Museum (Tokyo JP), File Festival (Sao Paolo & Rio BR), Ars Electronica; and at exhibitions such as The Grand Palais’s “Artistes & Robots” in 2018 (Paris FR), The Barbican’s “More than human” in 2019 (London UK) and the Victoria & Albert Museum’s landmark “Decode” exhibition in 2009 (London UK), amongst others.

Akten’s work is in numerous public and private collections around the world, and has been featured in many major publications such as Wired, The Guardian, Dazed, The Evening Standard, Nowness, The Financial Times; as well as a number of books. He has collaborated with celebrities such as Lenny Kravitz, U2, Depeche Mode and Professor Richard Dawkins; and brands including Google, Apple, Twitter, Deutsche Bank and Sony PlayStation. He has served as mentor and jury on numerous international awards, residencies and conferences such as SIGGRAPH, Ars Electronica, and Google Arts and Culture.

In 2007 Akten founded The Mega Super Awesome Visuals Company (MSA Visuals), a creative studio spanning art and technology. In 2011, with two new partners this evolved into Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF). In 2014, after a string of hugely successful, influential and large scale projects, Memo left MLF to pursue his PhD and focus on personal work, collaborations and research. In 2020 he joined the UC San Diego Visual Arts Faculty.

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234 words, 1634 characters

Memo Akten is a multi-disciplinary artist, musician, and researcher creating Speculative Simulations and Data Dramatizations investigating the intricacies of human-machine entanglements. His work explores perception and states of consciousness; the tensions between ecology, technology, science and spirituality; and for more than a decade he’s been working with Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and our Collective Consciousness as scraped by the Internet, to reflect on the human condition. He writes code and uses algorithmic / data-driven design and aesthetics to create moving images, sounds, large-scale responsive installations and performances. He holds a PhD from Goldsmiths University of London, specializing in artistic and creative applications of Artificial Intelligence, and he is currently Assistant Professor of Computational Art at University of California San Diego (UCSD).

Akten has received numerous awards including the prestigous Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica. His work has been widely exhibited and performed internationally at venues such as The Grand Palais, The Barbican, The Royal Opera House, ZKM Center for Art and Media, Sonar Festival, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai Ming Contemporary Art Museum and many others. He has been featured in major publications such as Wired, The Guardian, Dazed, Nowness, The Financial Times, and he has collaborated with celebrities such as Lenny Kravitz, U2, Depeche Mode and Professor Richard Dawkins. He has served as mentor and jury on numerous international awards, residencies and conferences such as SIGGRAPH, Ars Electronica, and Google Arts and Culture.

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146 words, 1075 characters 

Memo Akten is a multi-disciplinary artist, musician, and researcher creating Speculative Simulations and Data Dramatizations investigating the intricacies of human-machine entanglements. His work explores perception and states of consciousness; the tensions between ecology, technology, science and spirituality; and for more than a decade he’s been working with Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and our Collective Consciousness as scraped by the Internet, to reflect on the human condition. He writes code and uses algorithmic / data-driven design and aesthetics to create moving images, sounds, large-scale responsive installations and performances. He holds a PhD from Goldsmiths University of London, specializing in artistic and creative applications of Artificial Intelligence, and he is currently Assistant Professor of Computational Art at University of California San Diego (UCSD). Akten has received numerous awards including the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica, his work has been widely exhibited and performed internationally and featured in major publications.

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92 words, 691 characters

Memo Akten is a multi-disciplinary artist, musician, and researcher investigating the intricacies of human-machine entanglements. His work explores perception and states of consciousness, and the tensions between ecology, technology, science and spirituality. He writes code and uses algorithmic / data-driven design and aesthetics to create moving images, sounds, large-scale responsive installations and performances. He holds a PhD from Goldsmiths University of London, specializing in artistic and creative applications of Artificial Intelligence, and he is currently Assistant Professor at UC San Diego. Akten has received numerous awards including the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica.

(Actually more of a work-in-progress brain dump than a statement, but you get the idea)

Updated 2018

Introduction

I’m an artist, musician and researcher working with emerging technologies – particularly software, algorithms and computation – as a medium.

These days I’m mostly thinking about the tensions and intersections between science and spirituality. Or to be more precise, the collisions between nature, science, technology, ethics, ritual, tradition and religion; especially in the context of the current ecological collapse, social and political polarizations, moral crises and technological submission.

 

Inspiration

My biggest inspiration is nature, and the nature of nature. I don’t just mean forests and flowers etc. – though that too of course – but the underlying processes that give rise to everything that happens around – and inside – us. On one level, the fundamental questions that drive me are the same questions that have been asked for thousands of years. What is the nature of the universe? What is the nature of life? What is the nature of the mind? Drawing from fields such as physics, biology, abiogenesis, evolution, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, history, and theology, I study the hidden processes that shape our world, and I develop systems that abstract behavior, hoping to create unfamiliar familiarities and encourage new perceptions.

Analogous to painting a sunset on a stormy sea, I’m fueled by the idea of studying the nuclear fusion inside the sun powering our planet, the photons scattering in the atmosphere to create a crimson sky, the fluid dynamics driving the wind and the waves crashing onto the shore. As opposed to taking inspiration directly from the observable aesthetics of what I see around me, I’m inspired by the processes and behaviour that create and shape them. And I’m inspired by our capacity to dig deeper and learn more about the poetry of nature.

 

Medium

My craft, so to speak, is that I write software – I design systems that abstract behavior. One crucial aspect of these systems that I’ve always been very interested in, is exploring interactive, realtime, computational systems to enhance artistic, creative expression. Here the emphasis is on realtime and interactive. In other words, systems that enable you to expressively create, manipulate and perform images and sound. Analogous to playing a musical instrument, like a piano, where there’s an immediate creative feedback loop between the user and the system. In fact, from a cybernetics or control systems theory point of view we can liken this to continuous control, but with emphasis on expressivity.  Photoshop, or Maya, as powerful as they are, do not fall into this category. Playing a piano does. Furthermore, a lot of my work also falls into the field known as expanded animation. Breaking away from a 2D screen, exploring ways of augmenting and hacking physical space.

 

PhD / Artificial Intelligence

Alongside my practice, I have completed a PhD in Artificial Intelligence (AI) – or to be more precise: Deep Learning (ML) – and expressive human-machine interaction. As well as technical (Computer Science) perspectives, I’m equally (if not more) interested in the cultural, social, ethical, legal, philosophical and religious implications of the recent and ongoing developments in AI. (More on this in the following section)

I’m delighted to learn that Leonardo, the prestigious peer-reviewed journal focusing on the intersections of art, science and technology, has selected my thesis abstract to be amongst their highest-rated, and to be published in their October 2022 issue (Vol 55, No 5). https://leonardo.info/labs-2021

Thesis can be downloaded from https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/30191/

This work was made primarily between 2014-2019, and published in 2021. Completed in the Department of Computing, Goldsmiths University of London; under the supervision of Dr. Mick Grierson and Dr. Rebecca Fiebrink; funded by the EPSRC.

Title:

Deep Visual Instruments: Realtime Continuous, Meaningful Human Control over Deep Neural Networks for creative expression

Abstract

In this thesis, we investigate Deep Learning models as an artistic medium for new modes of performative, creative expression. We call these Deep Visual Instruments: realtime interactive generative systems that exploit and leverage the capabilities of state-of-the-art Deep Neural Networks (DNN), while allowing Meaningful Human Control, in a Realtime Continuous manner.

We characterise Meaningful Human Control in terms of intent, predictability, and accountability; and Realtime Continuous Control with regards to its capacity for performative interaction with immediate feedback, enhancing goal-less exploration. The capabilities of DNNs that we are looking to exploit and leverage in this manner, are their ability to learn hierarchical representations modelling highly complex, real-world data such as images. Thinking of DNNs as tools that extract useful information from massive amounts of Big Data, we investigate ways in which we can navigate and explore what useful information a DNN has learnt, and how we can meaningfully use such a model in the production of artistic and creative works, in a performative, expressive manner.

We present five studies that approach this from different but complementary angles. These include: a collaborative, generative sketching application using MCTS and discriminative CNNs;
a system to gesturally conduct the realtime generation of text in different styles using an ensemble of LSTM RNNs; a performative tool that allows for the manipulation of hyperparameters in realtime while a Convolutional VAE trains on a live camera feed; a live video feed processing software that allows for digital puppetry and augmented drawing; and a method that allows for long-form story telling within a generative model’s latent space with meaningful control over the narrative.

We frame our research with the realtime, performative expression provided by musical instruments as a metaphor, in which we think of these systems as not used by a user, but played by a performer.

 

Description

This research investigates how the latest developments in Machine Learning – with an emphasis on Deep Learning – can be used to create intelligent systems that enhance artistic expression. These are systems that people can interact with and gesturally ‘conduct’ to expressively produce and manipulate text, images and sounds – in effect, collaborating with a ‘creative’, ‘talented’ agent. These systems learn – both offline and online – and have a level of autonomy that could be perceived as creative behaviour.

The desired relationship between human and machine (software) here is analogous to that between an Art Director and graphic designer, film director and video editor, concept / story teller and ghost writer – i.e. a visionary communicates their vision to a ‘doer’ who produces the actual output under the direction of the visionary (though often the doer also shapes the output with their own vision and skills). Crucially, the desired human-machine relationship here also draws inspirations from that between a pianist and piano, a conductor and orchestra, an abstract expressionist painter and the system comprising of brush + paint + canvas + gravity + fluid dynamics. I.e. again a visionary (human) communicates their vision to a system which produces the actual output, but this communication is real-time, continuous and expressive; it’s an immediate response to everything that has been produced so far, creating a closed feedback loop.

Within this very broad topic, the key problem area that the research tackles is as follows: Given a very large corpus of example data (e.g. thousands or millions of examples), we can train a generative deep model. That model will hopefully learn something, and contain some kind of ‘knowledge’ about the data (and its underlying structure). The questions are: i) What exactly has the model learned? how can we investigate what knowledge the model contains? ii) how can we do this interactively and in real-time, and expressively explore the knowledge that the model contains iii) how can we use this to steer the model to produce not just anything that resembles the training data, but what *we* want it to produce, *when* we want it to produce it, again in real-time and through expressive, continuous interaction and control.

2024 Vanhaerents Art Collection Commission for La Biennale di Venezia [link]

2024 Society of Hellman Fellow [link]

2020 Artist in Residence at RNCM (Royal Northern College of Music) Centre for PRiSM (Practice & Research in Science & Music), Manchester, UK [link]

2019 Stochastic Labs Fellow, Berkeley, CA, US [link]

2018 Somerset House Studios & Chase Foundation, Commission, London, UK [link]

2017 STRP Biennale, Commission, Eindhoven, NL

2016 Google Artists & Machine Intelligence, Artist in Residence, Seattle, US

2016 Somerset House Studios, Artist in Residence, London, UK [link]

2015 Japan Media Arts Award, Jury Selection for Simple Harmonic Motion for 16 Percussionists, JP [link]

2015 Future Everything, Commission, Manchester, UK [link]

2014 Blenheim Art Foundation, Commission, Oxfordshire, UK [link]

2013 Golden Nica Award, Prix Ars Electronica, Linz, AT [link] [link2] [link3]

2013 STRP Biennale, Commission, Eindhoven, NL

2012 National Media Museum, Commission, In the Blink of an Eye: Media and Movement, Bradford, UK [link]

2008 Glastonbury Festival, Commission, Trash City, UK

2023 SIGGRAPH 2023, Art Gallery Jury, US [link]

2021 SIGGRAPH 2021, Art Gallery Session Chair “Q&A: Forms and Reflections” US [link]

2021 SIGGRAPH 2021, Art Gallery Jury, US [link]

2019 Google Jacquard x Arts & Culture, Residency Jury & Mentor, London UK & Paris FR [link]

2019 Prix Ars Electronica, jury, Artificial Intelligence & Life Art category, Linz, AT [link]

2018 Somerset House with Google Arts & Culture, Residency Jury & Mentor, “N-Dimensions”, London UK & Paris FR [link]

2017 Prix Ars Electronica, jury, Animation category, Linz, AT [link]

2012 SIGGRAPH 2012, General Submissions Juror, US

2011 SIGGRAPH 2011, General Submissions Juror, US [link]

2024 M+ Museum of contemporary visual culture, Hong Kong – Learning to see (interactive, table edition)

2024 Vanhaerents Art Collection, Belgium – Boundaries

2023 Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Public, Buckinghamshire, England – Body Paint

2019 Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation – Deep Meditations

2019 Trapholt Museum for Moderne Kunst, Kolding, Denmark – Body Paint,

2018 Hansen House, Jerusalem, Israel – Learning to See

2018 High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, US – Body Paint

2017 Yıldız Holding Collection, Istanbul, Turkey – Equilibrium

2016  Public, City of London, UK – Body Paint

2014 Blenheim Art Foundation, Oxfordshire, UK – Simple Harmonic Motion #11 for 80 Lights

2013 EYE Film Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands – Body Paint

2013 Public, City of Paris, France – Body Paint, Webcam Piano 2.0

I try to keep a copy of all papers also on arxiv.org and non peer-reviewed (more speculative) articles at memo.tv/texts/

2023

Epstein, Ziv, Aaron Hertzmann, Investigators of Human Creativity, Memo Akten, Hany Farid, Jessica Fjeld, Morgan R. Frank et al. “Art and the science of generative AI.” Science 380, no. 6650 (2023): 1110-1111. [link]

Epstein, Ziv, Aaron Hertzmann, Investigators of Human Creativity, Memo Akten, Hany Farid, Jessica Fjeld, Morgan R. Frank et al. “Art and the science of generative AI: A Deeper Dive” arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.04141 (2023). [link]

Akten, M. Invited essay “Distributed Consciousness“, ACMI Online, 15th June 2023 [link]

2021

Akten, M. “Deep Visual Instruments: Realtime Continuous, Meaningful Human Control over Deep Neural Networks for Creative Expression“. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London [link]

Akten, M., Invited essay for “Toward a New Ecology of Crypto Art: A Hybrid Manifesto“, Flash Art, 26 February 2021 [link]

2020

Akten, M., “Foreword” to The Machine as Art (in the 20th Century) and The Machine as Artist (for the 21st Century): A Book Reprint of the two Arts Special Issues, Frederic Fol Leymarie, Juliette Bessette, and G. W. Smith, eds. Basel: MDPI Books [link]

2019

Akten M., Fiebrink R., Grierson M.,”Learning to see: you are what you see“, ACM SIGGRAPH 2019 Art Gallery [link]

2018

Akten M., Fiebrink R., Grierson M., “Deep Meditations: Controlled navigation of latent space” 2nd Workshop on Machine Learning for Creativity and Design at Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2018) [link]

2017

Akten M., “Machines that learn, what can they learn? What will they learn?“,  Digicult Digimag 76 [link]

Berio D., Akten M., Leymarie F., Grierson M., Plamondon R., “Calligraphic Stylisation Learning with a Physiologically Plausible Model of Movement and RNNs“, 4th International Conference on Movement Computing (MOCO 2017) [link]

Deterding, S., Hook, J., Fiebrink, R., Gillies, M., Gow, J., Akten, M., Smith, G., Liapis, A., Compton, K., “Mixed-initiative creative interfaces” Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 628-635) [link]

2016

Akten M., Grierson M., “Collaborative creativity with Monte-Carlo Tree Search and Convolutional Neural Networks“, Constructive Machine Learning workshop at Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2016) [link]

Akten M., Grierson M. “Real-time interactive sequence generation and control with Recurrent Neural Network ensembles“, Demo and poster presentation at Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2016), RNN Symposium [link]

2025

“Radical Science“, screening of SUPERRADIANCE at Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Spain [link]

Athens Digital Art Festival [link]

ctrl.gallery.la, solo show [link]

Xtopia, Hope Alkazar, Istanbul, Turkey

 

2024

“Boundaries” (Solo exhibition) at Venice Biennale, Chiesa di Santa Maria della Visitazione, Fondamenta Zattere Ai Gesuati, Venice [link]

“Execute Photography“, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, Australia [link]

“Embodied Simulation” at Tribeca Film Festival, New York [link]

“Sous la surface : une étude Solaristique“, Sporobole, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada [link]

“Superradiance. Embodying Earth” as part of Getty’s PST. Birch Aquiarium, La Jolla, CA, USA [link]

“Color in Motion“, Academy Museum, Los Angeles, CA, USA [link]

“Digital Body Festival“, London, UK [link]

“Superradiance. Embodying Earth” at London Film Festival, UK [link]

Unfold X, Seoul, South Korea [link]

“Creative Machine 4“, Taikang Art Museum, Beijing, China

2023

“Co-Created: The Artist in the Age of Intelligent Machines“, Burlington City Arts, Vermont, USA [link]

“Computational Realism“, VerticalCryptoArt x NFT Gallery London UK, NYC USA [link] [link]

“The Perfect Error“, Unit Gallery London, UK [link]

“Distributed Consciousness“ (Solo exhibition), ACMI (formerly Australian Centre for the Moving Image), Melbourne, Australia [link]

Wonderspaces, TELUS Spark Science Center, Calgary, Canada [link]

Creative Machine Oxford Symposium 2023, Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub, Jesus College, Oxford, UK [link]

“Artificial Intuition“, co-curated by ChatGPT in the metaverse [link]

“Surreal Futures“, Max Ernst Museum, Brühl, Germany [link]

“Crypto, Art and Climate“, RIXC Art Science Festival, Riga, Latvia [link]

Festival X, Dubai [link]

2022

“Take your time“, Tongyeong Triennale, Tongyeong-si, Gyeongsangnam-do, Republic of Korea [link]

“Seeing with no eyes“, Microscope Gallery, NYC, USA [link]

“The Beauty of Early Life“, ZKM, Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany [link]

“Stranger Dreams”, Mains d’Oeuvres, Saint-Ouen, Paris, France [link]

“Intelligence Artificielle: Nos Reflets dans la Machine”, Le Musée de la Main, Lausanne, Switzerland [link]

“Kaunas European Capital of Culture” BLON Animation Weekend, Kaunas, Lithuania

“AI: More than Human“, Guangdong Science Centre, China

Wall Street Journal “The Future Of Everything Festival”, Spring Studios, New York, USA | Online, [link]

“Proof of People“, Fabric, London, UK [link]

“Connect Me“, Trapholt Museum of Modern Art And Design, Kolding, Denmark [link]

“SonarMàtica“, Sonar+D, Barcelona, Spain [link]

Electric Dreams, 1st CMA annual symposium and exhibition, invited keynote speaker. Computational Media and Arts, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) China [link]

“I Am Not A Robot – on the borders of the singularity“, Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest, Hungary [link]

“The Unrestricted Society“, Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab [link]

“Splintered Realities“, RIXC Art Science Festival, Riga, Latvia [link]

“In Plain Sight“, The Wellcome Collection, London, UK [link]

“Not About Money“, The Sea World Culture and Arts Center, Shenzhen, China [link]

“Spiritual Urgency“, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Netherlands [link]

2021

“You and AI: Through the Algorithmic Lens“, Onassis Stegi, Pedion Areos, Athens, Greece [link]

“Im/possible Images“, Lothringer 13 Halle, München, Germany [link]

Future Music Festival, online [link]

MUTEK Festival, Montreal, Canada [link]

BLON New Wave Animation Festival, Klaipėda, Lithuania [link]

“HYDRA. New Media Art in the Context of Eco-Anxiety“, Sevkabel Port cultural center, St. Petersburg, Russia [link]

“New Elements“, LABORATORIA Art & Science Foundation, Krymsky Val, 10, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia [link]

“A new Digital Real”, Ars Export, TCCF Taiwan Creative Content Fest Expo, Taipei, Taiwan [link]

“CryptoRoots“, Sonar+D, Barcelona, Spain [link]

“IconicMints“, Wall Street Journal Live [link]

“When Machines Dream the Future“, Goethe Institute, online [link]

“Art for the Future” Biennale, Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, Russia [link]

2020

Istanbul The Light, Istanbul, Turkey

Watermans Art Centre, London, UK, online exhibition [link]

“Götzendämmerung“, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany and online exhibition [link]

“How we make meaning“, QUAD Gallery, Derby, UK [link] [link]

Ars Electronica “Returning the gaze”, online exhibition [link]

“Thin as Thorns, In These Thoughts in Us: An Exhibition of Creative AI and Generative Art”, Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, USA [link]

“The Question of Intelligence: AI and the Future of Humanity“, Kellen Gallery, New York, USA [link]

“Immaterial/Re-material: A Brief History of Computing Art“, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China [link]

“A Message to Space“, SUPERCOLLIDER (formerly the Nook Gallery), Los Angeles, CA, USA [link]

2019

“D3us Ex M4ch1na“, Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón, Spain [link]

“Mind the Deep“, Shanghai Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai, China [link]

“AIxMusic“, Ars Electronica Center, Linz, Austria [link]

“Understanding AI“, Ars Electronica Center, Linz, Austria [link]

“Future and the Arts: AI, Robotics, Cities, Life“, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan [link]

“Sinnesrausch – Art and Motion“, OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria [link]

“Automat und Mensch“, Kate Vass Gallery, Zurich, Switzerland [link]

Sonar+D Festival, Barcelona, Spain [link]

“Charged“, Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, VA, USA [link]

“Sense Me“, Trapholt Museum of Modern Art And Design, Kolding, Denmark [link]

“Cybernetic Consciousness“, Itaú Cultural, Sao Paulo, Brazil [link]

“More Human than human“, Barbican, London, UK [link]

“Art Innovation“, Kyoto University / Kenninji Temple, Kyoto, Japan [link]

“ULTRACHUNK” performance, Rewire Festival, The Hague, Netherlands [link]

2018

“Assembly“, Somerset House, London, UK [link]

“Creative Machine 2.0“, Hatcham Church Gallery, London UK [link]

“Daemons in the machine“, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, Russia [link]

“Fundamental Frequencies“, Axiom Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (Solo exhibition) [link]

“Artistes & Robots“, Grand Palais, Paris, France [link]

Athens Digital Art Festival, Athens, Greece

2017

“Artists & Robots“, Astana Contemporary Art Centre, Astana, Kazakhstan

“The Other I“, Ars Electronica Festival, Linz, Austria [link]

DocLab, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), Amsterdam, Netherlands

Sonar+D Festival, Barcelona, Spain

“Treviso Ricerca Arte“, Treviso, Italy

STRP Biennale, Eindhoven, Netherlands

2016

“Quantum Entanglement 2.0“, National Center for Contemporary Arts, Arsenal, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

“Art of Neural Networks“, Gray Area Foundation, San Fransisco, USA

“Resound“, Simon Center, Long Island, USA

“Pattern Recognition” performance, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK

2015

“Simple Harmonic Motion for 16 Percussionists” performance, Future Everything, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, UK

“Reflection“, Opera Gallery, London, UK

“Monochrome“, AkSanat, Istanbul, Turkey

“Pattern Recognition” performance, Sadler’s Wells presents at Platform Theatre, London, UK

Dallas Aurora Festival, Dallas, Texas, USA

Europalia, Brussels, Belgium

2014

“Quantum Entanglement“, Laboratoria Gallery, Moscow, Russia

“Digital Revolutions“, Barbican, London, UK (as Marshmallow Laser Feast)

“The Measures Taken” performance, Royal Opera House, London, UK

“The Measures Taken” performance, EXIT Festival, Creteil, France

Blenheim Art Foundation, Blenheim Palace, Oxford, UK

“Nouées“, La Briqueterie, Saint-Brieuc, France

“New Realities“, Alphaville, Barcelona, Spain

“Creative Machine“, St James’ Church, Goldsmiths University of London, UK

Polytechnic Museum, Moscow, Russia

Infoversum, Groningen, Netherlands

90db Festival, Rome, Italy

“A Taste of London“, le Cube Gallery, Paris, France

2013

Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Lisbon, Portugal (as Marshmallow Laser Feast)

Prix Selection, Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria

Popular Science Festival, Kaluga, Russia

6th Annual Imagine Science Film Festival, NY, USA

Glitch festival at Rua Red, Dublin, Ireland

Royal Institute of British Architects, Manchester, UK

Plums Festival, Moscow, Russia

Cube Gallery, Manchester, UK

Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dublin, Ireland

The Center for Recent Drawing, London, UK

SXSW Interactive, Austin, Austin, Texas, USA

STRP Biennale, Eindhoven, Netherlands

Node13 Festival, Frankfurt, Germany

2012

Ottawa International Animation Festival, Ottawa, Canada

“In the Blink of an Eye: Media and Movement“, National Media Museum, Bradford, UK

File Festival, Sao Paolo + Rio, Brazil

“Of this Event, I cannot foresee the end“, Forman’s Smokehouse Gallery, London, UK

2011

“Decode: Digital Design Sensations“, Holon Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel

Ron Arad’s Curtain Call, The Roundhouse, London, UK

Bouillant festival, Vern-Sur-Seiche, France

Digital Shoreditch festival, London, UK

“Decode: Digital Design Sensations“, Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow, Russia

2010

Yota Space Festival, St Petersburg, Russia

Cube Festival, le Cube, Paris, France

Vigo Transforma Festival, Vigo, Spain

“My Secret Heart” performance, Sydney Biennale, Australia

Future Gallery, London, UK

Lovebytes Digital Arts Festival, Sheffield, UK

Phoenix Spark Festival, Leicester, UK

Mapping Festival, Geneva, Switzerland

2009

“Decode: Digital Design Sensations“, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK

Tent Digital at London Design Festival, London, UK

“My Secret Heart” performance, Edinburgh Film Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Exhibit Festival, Venice, Italy

“Clicks or Mortar? : Designing a future for cultural venues in the digital age“, Newcastle, UK

2008

“My Secret Heart” performance, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK

“Trash City“, Glastonbury Festival, UK

2023

AI generated art: A Panel discussion, invited guest speaker and panelist. Oceanside Museum of Art [link]

Designing Human-AI Systems for Creativity and Beyond, invited speaker, Design Lab, UCSD, San Diego, USA [link]

Crypto, Art and Climate, keynote speaker, RIXC Art Science Festival, Riga, Latvia [link]

2022

Electric Dreams, 1st CMA annual symposium and exhibition, invited keynote speaker. Computational Media and Arts, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) [link]

Media Arts and Technology Seminar series, invited guest lecture. Media Arts and Technology, UC Santa Barbara [link]

Field of Vision, Lecture series, invited guest lecture. Department of Visualization, Texas A&M University, College of Architecture [link]

2021

Hybrid Futures Symposium: Re-Imagining Human-Machine Encounters, invited speaker and panelist. Central Saint Martins, London, UK. [link]

AI, Neuroscience and Creativity, invited speaker and panelist, FIU School of Architecture, College of Communication, Architecture & The Arts.

On Art & AI, invited speaker and panelist, Onassis Stegi, Athens, Greece [link]

2020

Ars Electronica, “Returning the Gaze” Panel: Surveillance, Gaze and Ways of Seeing [link]

2019

Kikk Festival, keynote lecture, Namur, BE [link]

TodaysArt, keynote lecture, The Hague, NL [link]

SciArc guest lecture, Los Angeles, CA, US

AI in the Arts and Design, invited panelist and speaker, ACM Siggraph, Los Angeles, CA, US [link]

Gray Area Festival, San Francisco, CA, US [link]

Art and Artificial Intelligence / Open Codes, ZKM, Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, DE [link]

Symposium of Interdisciplinary Artificial Intelligence Studies (SIAIS), Yeditepe University, Istanbul, TR [link]

Cybernetic Consciousness Symposium, Itaú Cultural, Sao Paolo, BR [link]

Art Innovation Symposium. Kyoto University / Kenninji Temple, Kyoto, JP [link]

TOCA ME Design Conference, Munich, DE [link]

Muovo Conference on Motion Design, Prague, CZ [link]

Art Machines: International Symposium on Computational Media Art (ISCMA), Hong Kong City University, HK [link]

2018

Innovative City Forum, invited panelist and speaker, Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, Tokyo, JP [link]

Smart cities and urban tech conference, Strelka Institute, Saint Petersburg, RU [link]

Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) guest lecture, NYU Tisch School of the Arts

Frank-Ratchye Studio for Creative Inquiry guest lecture, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

Workshop on Human-Computer Collaboration in Embodied Interaction (HAMAC), IRCAM, Paris, FR [link]

i-Docs, Bristol, UK [link]

2017

Kikk Festival, Namur, BE. “Intelligent Machines That Learn: What Do They Know ? Do They Know Things?? Let’s Find Out!” [video]

The Other I Symposium, Ars Electronica, Linz, AT [link]

The role of Artists in the AI Revolution, invited panelist and speaker. Sonar+D, Barcelona, ES [link]

Conference for the curious: Senses & Sensors, STRP Biennale, Eindhoven, Netherlands

DocLab, International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA), Amsterdam, NL [link]

2016

Resonate Festival, Belgrade, RS. “A digital god for a digital culture: Surveillance, artificial intelligence, data dramatization, poetry and God” [text]

2015

Disruptive Innovation, Digital Utopias, Hull, UK [video]

2014

Visuelt Conference, Oslo, NO

Human Interactive, Goldsmiths University of London, UK

Digibury Weekender, University of Kent, UK. “Art, science, technology and society”

2013

New Stage of the National Theatre, Prague, CZ

Eyeo Festival, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, US [video]

Resonate Festival, Belgrade, RS [video]

Semi-permanent, Wellington, NZ

New Cinema Lab, Abandon Normal Devices, Liverpool, UK

Expanded Animations: Mapping an Unlimited Landscape, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz, AT

Spring Sessions, Gratz, AT

Future. Innovation. Technology. Creativity (FITC) Conference, Toronto, CA

Bartlett Nexus, School of Architecture, The Bartlett, London, UK

STRP Biennale, Eindhoven, Netherlands

TOCA ME Conference, Munich, DE

Future. Innovation. Technology. Creativity (FITC) Conference, Tokyo, JP

Flying Tokyo, Tokyo, JP

2012

OFFF Festival, Barcelona, ES

Future. Innovation. Technology. Creativity (FITC) Conference, Amsterdam, NL

In the Blink of an Eye, National Media Museum, Bradford, UK,

2010

Victoria & Albert Museum, invited artist lecture, London

Lovebytes Digital Arts Festival, Sheffield, UK,

2009

Atelier Hypermedia lecture and workshop, Aix en Provence, FR

University College London guest lecture, London, UK

Mobile Art && Code, The Studio for Creative Enquiry, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, US

2008

New Music New Media, Aldeburgh Music. Snape, UK

Books featuring my work

Christiane Paul. World of Art: Digital Art. Thames & Hudson, 2023

Leach, Neil. Machine Hallucinations: Architecture and Artificial Intelligence. Architectural Design, 2022.

Audry, Sofian. Art in the Age of Machine Learning. MIT Press, 2021.

Levin, Golan, and Tega Brain. Code as Creative Medium: A Handbook for Computational Art and Design. MIT Press, 2021.

Futuri Possibili – Scenari d’arte e intelligenza artificiale (Possible Futures – Art and Artificial Intelligence Scenarios). Jaca Book Publishing, 2021

Leach, Neil. Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: An Introduction to AI for Architects. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021.

Miller, Arthur I. The artist in the machine: the world of AI-powered creativity. MIT Press, 2019.

Hagler, Juergen, Michael Lankes, and Alexander Wilhelm, eds. Expanded Animation: The Anthology: Mapping an Unlimited Landscape. Hatje Cantz, 2019.

Schwartzman, Madeline. See yourself sensing: redefining human perception. Black Dog, 2011.

Press, articles and interviews

San Diego Union Tribune “Artists create connections between the way humans dance and nature moves in ‘Superradiance’”, 9 February 2025

Whitewall Art, “Best of Venice Exhibitions: Pierre Huyghe, Memo Akten, Zeng Fanzhi, and More”, 25 April, 2024

SPHERE Magazine, “Venice Biennale 2024: Our Insider Guide”, 18 April 2024

Stirworld, “Exploring ArtScience Museum’s ‘Notes From the Ether: From NFTs to AI'”, 23 September 2023

Artsy, “6 Artists Who Were Using Artificial Intelligence Before ChatGPT”, 5 June 2023

Unit-on-chain podcast, S2E3: Memo Akten & Tom White – Exploring the Algorithmic Gaze, 6 April 2023

Washington Post, “TikTok’s trendy beauty filter ushers in new tech and new problems“, 8 March 2023

The Spectator, “TikTok’s revealing ‘bold glamor’ filter“, 2 March 2023

The Verge, “Why won’t TikTok confirm the Bold Glamour filter is AI?“, 2 March 2023

Yahoo, “Why TikTok users are appalled by new Bold Glamour filter”, 1 March 2023

Daily Dot, “TikTok’s New Beauty Filter Might Be Too Realistic“, 1 March 2023

Fortune, “‘Psychological warfare’: TikTokers are right to be horrified by the new Bold Glamour filter“, 1 March 2023

Fox News, “New ‘bold glamour’ TikTok filter blasted as ‘psychological warfare and pure evil’“, 28 February 2023

We make money not art, “RIXC Art Science exhibition: Splintered Realities”, 30 September 2022

Echo gone wrong, “Issuing Eidolons”, 13 September 2022

Abandon Normal Devices, “The Networked Condition: Memo Akten Case Study“, 12 April 2022

Slate, “There Is a Greener Way to Mine Crypto“, 18 March 2022

Right Click Save, “Clip Art and the new aesthetics of AI“, 24 February 2022

Wired, cryptoart.wtf, “Can You Be an NFT Artist and an Environmentalist?”, 17 February 2022

Art Press #492, “De l’intelligence en art”, p.42-47. October 2021

Nature World News, cryptoart.wtf, “NFT Marketplace Chronicle Commits to Sustainability Focus Through Partnerships with NEAR Protocol and Pandas International“, 22nd September 2021

Tech Times, cryptoart.wtf, “Doja Cat Launches NFT Collection As Tezos’ Price Skyrockets in 24 Hours–Greener Alternative to Ethereum?“, 10th September 2021

Rolling Stone, cryptoart.wtf, “Doja Cat Gets Into the NFT Game“, 8th September 2021

ArtNews, cryptoart.wtf, “How Artists Are Seizing the NFT Moment to Transform the Debate About Tech and the Environment”, 12th August 2021

Art Rights, cryptoart.wtf, “Memo Akten: the environmentally conscious digital artist“, 13th May 2021

Independent, cryptoart.wtf, “How bad are NFTs for the environment?“, 22nd April 2021

NY Times, cryptoart.wtf, “NFTs Are Shaking Up the Art World. They May Be Warming the Planet, Too“, 13th April 2021

NBC News, cryptoart.wtf, “The crypto art community is having a sustainability reckoning“, 24th March 2021

New Yorker, cryptoart.wtf, “How Beeple Crashed the Art World“, 22th March 2021

The Verge, cryptoart.wtf, “The climate controversy swirling around NFTs“, 15th March 2021

Hyperallergic, cryptoart.wtf, “As NFT Sells for $69M, Artists Question Environmental Impact of Blockchain“, 11th March 2021

Telegraph, cryptoart.wtf, “Neither Beeple’s $60 million JPG nor the NFT art craze should be taken seriously“, 11th March 2021

Art Forum, cryptoart.wtf, “Chain Reaction“, 11th March 2021

Coin Telegraph, cryptoart.wtf, “True or false? A single NFT can power a European household for 1.5 months“, 11th March 2021

Network Cultures, cryptoart.wtf, “Cats, Frogs and Cryptoartists: What if Auteur .jpgs Become a Luxury Good“, 11th March 2021

The Defiant, cryptoart.wtf, “People Are Outraged About NFT Energy Consumption“, 10th March 2021

Wired, cryptoart.wtf, “NFTs Are Hot. So Is Their Effect on the Earth’s Climate“, 6th March 2021

Art Now LA, “An Exhibition of Creative AI and Generative Art: ‘Thin as Thorns In These Thoughts in Us’ “, 3rd February 2021

Dazed, feature, 19th February 2020

Clash Magazine, feature and interview, 29th August 2019

Art in the digital age, article, 18th January 2019

Artnome, feature and interview, 16th December 2018

HKW Machine Listening, Ultrachunk, 15th December 2018

Art+Technology, Video Feature, May 2018

Digital Trends, Learning to see: Gloomy Sunday, 23rd March 2018

shazoo.ru, Learning to see: Gloomy Sunday, 22rd March 2018

Boingboing, Learning to see: Gloomy Sunday, 21st March 2018

CreativeApplications.Net, Learning to see: Gloomy Sunday, 20th March 2018

fllabber.nl, Learning to see: Gloomy Sunday, 20th March 2018

tech.onliner, Learning to see: Gloomy Sunday, 20th March 2018

popmech.ru, Learning to see: Gloomy Sunday, 20th March 2018

Gizmodo, Learning to see: Gloomy Sunday, 19th March 2018

Prosthetic Knowledge, Learning to see: Gloomy Sunday, 18th March 2018

We make money not art, Learning to see: Hello World at IDFA, 28th November 2018

Creators Project, feature and interview, 27th June 2017

Kadenze, feature and interview, 24th May 2016

BBC Click (@15:50), interview on Pattern Recognition, 2nd Apr 2016

Guardian, Art of Neural Networks, 28th Mar 2016

Washington Post, Art of Neural Networks, 10th Mar (Online) / 14th Mar (Print) 2016

Wired, Art of Neural Networks / All watched over… Deepdream edition, 29th Feb 2016

Wall Street Journal, Art of Neural Networks / All watched over… 28th Feb 2016

recode, Art of Neural Networks / All watched over…Deepdream edition, 27th Feb 2016

Gizmodo, Art of Neural Networks / All watched over… Deepdream edition, 25th Feb 2016

Evening Standard, Pattern Recognition, 26th Feb 2016 (Online and Print)

Creators Project, Waves 2015, 25th Feb 2016

Fastcodesign, Journey Through the Layers of the Mind, 7th July 2015

Redshark News, Journey Through the Layers of the Mind, 6th July 2015

Creators Project, Journey Through the Layers of the Mind, 6nd July 2015

Laughing Squid, Journey Through the Layers of the Mind, 6th July 2015

Motionographer, Journey Through the Layers of the Mind, 2nd Jul 2015

a-n, Simple Harmonic Motion #12 for 16 Percussionists, 28th Feb 2015

Saketekilla, U2 “Invisible” RED promo 2014

Vice, U2 “Invisible” RED promo 2014

lbbonline, U2 “Invisible” RED promo 2014

Russian National Culture TV news interview, 3rd Dec 2014

Rooms Magazine profile, online and print, issue 15, 26th Sep 2014

Nowness, Simple Harmonic Motion #11 at Blenheim Palace 2014

The Creators Project, Simple Harmonic Motion #11 at Blenheim Palace 2014

Kein Magazine, Simple Harmonic Motion #11 at Blenheim Palace, 2014 (Turkish)

Guardian, Waves, 2014

Financial Times, The Measures Taken, 2014

Wired, The Measures Taken, 2014

Telegraph, The Measures Taken, 2014

Guardian, The Measures Taken, 2014

Evening Standard, The Measures Taken, 2014

Financial Times, Blaze, 2014

Telegraph, Blaze, 2014

Idealog, Semi-Permanent NZ Talk, 2013

Creators Project profile and interview on MLF, 2013

Wired interview on Just for Hits, 2013

Wired interview with Prof. Richard Dawkins on Just for Hits, 2013

Huffington Post, Just for Hits, 2013

Buzzfeed, Just for Hits, 2013

Slate, Just for Hits, 2013

Gawker, Just for Hits, 2013

Business Insider, Just for Hits, 2013

Guardian, Just for Hits, 2013

Independent, Just for Hits, 2013

BBC, Just for Hits, 2013

Metro, Just for Hits, 2013

Creators Project, Just for Hits, 2013

Huffington Post, Laser Forest, 2013

Creators Project interview on Laser Forest, 2013

Creative Applications, Laser Forest, 2013

This Is Colossal, Laser Forest, 2013

Laughing Squid, Laser Forest, 2013

Interview with Kyle McDonald, 2012

Dazed profile and interview, 2012

Wired, Forms, 2012

Creators Project interview, 2012

Digital Arts Online, Forms, 2012

Motionographer, Forms, 2012

Digitcult, Forms, 2012

Design Envy, Forms, 2012

DotMogo, Forms, 2012

Creators Project interview on Forms, 2012

Motionographer profile on MLF, 2012

Creators Project, MediaCity ScreenLab residency, 2012

Forward Council, Simple Harmonic Motion, 2012

Create Digital Motion, Simple Harmonic Motion, 2012

Alphaville, Simple Harmonic Motion, 2012

Creators Project, Simple Harmonic Motion, 2012

Creative Applications, Simple Harmonic Motion, 2011

Dazed, Meet Your Creator, 2012

Creators Project interview on Meet Your Creator, 2012

Create Digital Motion, Meet Your Creator, 2012

Creative Applications, Meet Your Creator, 2012

LISA Software and Art interview, 2011

Creators Project interview, 2011

Create Digital Motion, Sony Playstation ‘Holodeck’, 2011

Creators Project, Wombats, 2011

Creative Applications, Wombats, 2011

ABC News, Kinect Hacks, 2010

Creative Applications, Kinect Hacks, 2010

Motionographer, Gold, 2009

Creative Applications on Zoetrope for iPhone, 2009

Create Digital Motion, My Secret Heart, 2009

EyeForFilm, My Secret Heart, 2009

Guardian, My Secret Heart, 2008

Telegraph, My Secret Heart, 2008

Creative Applications, Reincarnation, 2009

Cube Festival interview on Body Paint, 2010

Creative Applications on Body Paint, 2009

Eye Magazine, Decode, 2010

BBC, Decode, 2009, 2, 3

NY Times, Decode, 2009

New Scientist, Decode, 2009

Dezeen, Decode, 2009

Create Digital Motion, ofxMSAPhysics, 2009

Create Digital Motion, MSA QT Player, 2008

Create Digital Motion, Amoeba Dance, 2008

2014-2021. PhD, Computational Art / Artificial Intelligence, Dept of Computing, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK.

• Thesis: “Deep Visual Instruments: Realtime Continuous, Meaningful Human Control over Deep Neural Networks for creative expression“

1993-1997. B.Sc., Civil Engineering, Bosphorus University, Istanbul, TR.

• Awarded second prize for final thesis “Automation of Reinforced Concrete Frame Structures“

1986-1992. High School Degree, Robert College of Istanbul, Istanbul, TR.

• Awarded (highest) Sait Halman Prize for “Excellence in Computer Science“