Özge Samancı

Özge Samancı and Linsey Seitz

This project is driven by process and culminates in a 4-minute, 38-second video, four original artworks, two etched metal plates, and an optional chemistry-based installation.

As we confront the realities of climate change and move toward decarbonizing our society, we must radically rethink our relationship with energy, fuels, and chemicals. This includes shifting to renewable resources and embracing innovative, sustainable production methods.

Hydrogen peroxide—a common antiseptic and a critical industrial chemical—is typically produced through energy-intensive methods that rely on hazardous materials. In contrast, we developed a zero-waste, electrocatalytic process that transforms water and oxygen into hydrogen peroxide using only sustainable inputs.

We then used the hydrogen peroxide we created to bleach quotations sourced from climate change denial publications. These bleached texts became the substrate for a limited-edition series of illustrated artworks that visualize the very electrocatalytic process used to produce the hydrogen peroxide—melding science, sustainability, and art into a unified narrative.

Creative Leads

Linsey Seitz

Özge Samancı

Graduate Students

Xiao Kun (Robby) Lu

Shameria Jones

Videographer

Coby Resnick

3D Animation

Austin Lopez

Printmaking Consultant

Craig Jobson

Thanks

Lark Sparrow Press, Tom and Mary Ellen Jackson, Allyson Hunter

This project was made with generous funds from NICO: Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems

Exhibitions

 2023, 27-29 October, Electronic Fields, Llerena, Fuente Del Arco, Reina (Badajoz), Spain

2023, 19 Sept – 30 Oct, NOVA-Supercreativity: The New Aesthetics of a Technologically Modified World, Museum of Tomorrow, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

2023, 4 July - 27 August, Electronic Language International Festival FILE, Sao Paulo, Brazil

2022, 17-20 November, Piksel New Media Festival,Bergen Norway

2022, 8-11 August, SIGGRAPH Art Gallery, Vancouver

2022, 10-16 June, 27th International Symposium on Electronic Arts ISEA, Barcelona, Spain

Humans once perceived oceans as boundless, and thus impossible to pollute—until we created the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The same pattern is now repeating in outer space.

VastWaste is a data-driven, projection art installation that illuminates the parallels and interplay between marine pollution and space debris. It can also be experienced in Virtual Reality.

Human activities have scattered millions of objects into Earth’s orbit. Since there is no friction, debris travel at 18,000mph. Even tiny paint flecks can create explosive crashes.

Approximately 4,000 operational satellites are currently in Earth’s orbit and the amount of space debris is already at a critical point. US and European Space Agencies track space debris and maneuver spacecraft to avoid collisions.

SpaceX’s Starlink plans to add 40,000 satellites in the next decade.

There is no known solution for mitigating the space debris.

If the amount of space debris passes a critical mass, each collision will lead to more collisions in a chain reaction, known as the Kessler Effect. Ultimately, future spacecraft launches from Earth may become impossible.

VastWaste generates an everchanging Kessler Effect in conjunction with a data-driven soundtrack.

In this installation, satellites spin based on the speed of marine debris. This is calculated by using ocean currents and ocean winds.

The number of fragments falling into the ocean is tied to human use of satellites, symbolized by number of tweets per second.

Generative music varies in each play based on collisions, number of fragments, their contact with the surface of the ocean and their descent into the ocean.

Humans observe marine pollution with satellites, and we bury dead satellites into our oceans. The future of two vast spaces is entangled.

EEG version of the same installation, Mind the Debris

Credits

Creative Lead: Özge Samancı

Computer Programming Leads:

Jenni Hutson

Jonathan David

Wren Gottschalk

Jack Burkhardt

Data Research: Rachel Kantor

Sound Design: Stephan Moore

3D Modeling: Liza Salvi

Documentation Video: Ian Bertorelli

3D Satellite Models: NASA 3D Models

Data sources:

-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Data Buoy Center

-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory

Mind the Debris, an interactive installation, projects colliding and fragmenting satellites in response to brain waves of a single participant. The generative music and collisions change based on the distraction levels of the participant as measured by an EEG sensor.

The ever-growing data economy relies on satellites and contributes to space debris. Satellite data feeding into media and internet, computer and phone screens is constantly competing with the human mind for sustained attention. While fragmenting space debris are gradually filling the orbit of the Earth, our exposure to limitless data is fragmenting our attention span. Mind the Debris explores the fragmented similarity between the human mind and the orbit of the Earth through a mindfulness experience.

Human activities have scattered millions of objects into Earth’s orbit. Since there is no friction, debris travel at 18,000mph. Even tiny paint flecks can create explosive crashes.

Approximately 4,000 operational satellites are currently in Earth’s orbit and the amount of space debris is already at a critical point. US and European Space Agencies track space debris and maneuver spacecraft to avoid collisions.

SpaceX’s Starlink plans to add 40,000 satellites in the next decade.

There is no known solution for mitigating the space debris.

If the amount of space debris passes a critical mass, each collision will lead to more collisions in a chain reaction, known as the Kessler Effect. Ultimately, future spacecraft launches from Earth may become impossible.

Mind the Debris generates an everchanging Kessler Effect in conjunction with a data-driven soundtrack.

A contemplative brain state will slow down the space debris, their collisions, and fragmentation. A more distracted mind, will speed up the process, triggering a more fragmented and chaotic scene. Increased distraction, measured by a brainwave sensor embedded in the Virtual Reality headset, fuels the number and the speed of satellites.

Generative music varies in each play based on distraction level, collisions, number of fragments, their contact with the surface of the ocean and their descent into the ocean.

Technology and our mind recurringly mirror each other. It is not a coincidence that both mental and outer space become more fragmented.

Standalone, projection art version of the same installation, WastVaste

Credits

Creative Lead: Özge Samancı

Computer Programming Leads:

Jonathan David

Jenni Hutson

Wren Gottschalk

Jack Burkhardt

Data Research: Rachel Kantor

Sound Design: Stephan Moore

3D Modeling: Liza Salvi

Documentation Video: Ian Bertorelli

3D Satellite Models: NASA 3D Models

Fiber-Optic Ocean is a virtual reality experience that generates procedural music and light from live data. Fiber-Optic Ocean portrays the struggle of human beings to survive in the age of corporations via the metaphor of sharks in an ocean invaded by technology and interprets what happens when technology invades the world’s oceans.

Exhibitions

2019, 21-23 November, Piksel Festival for Electronic Arts, Bergen Norway

2019, 28 July- 1 August, SIGGRAPH Art Gallery, Los Angeles

 2017, 2-6 October, Sustain and Decay, The IEEE VIS 2017 Arts Program VISAP, Phoenix, Arizona

Publications

2019, Ozge Samanci, Adam Snyder, Gabriel Caniglia, Fiber Optic Ocean, SIGGRAPH '19 Art Papers in Special Issue of Leonardo, MIT Press.

2018 Ozge Samanci, Adam Snyder, Fiber Optic Ocean, Merging Media for Data Representation, VISAP 16-17 Special Issue, Leonardo Journal, MIT Press.

This interactive installation allows participants to control a digitally simulated ocean using only their brainwaves. Calm seas and storms alike are powered by the viewer’s thoughts; the sheer act of concentration can conjure a squall or sunshine. Participants intentionally control their thinking while surrounded by the magnified consequence of their thoughts.

A participant wears an EEG (electroencephalography) headset that measures her approximate attention and meditation levels via brainwaves. Attention level affects storminess: with higher concentration, the waves get higher and the clouds thicken. By calming her mind, the subject can create a calm ocean.

Exhibitions

2024, 24-26 September, Ibrida Festival delle Arti Intermediali- Forlì, Italy

2019, 21-23 November, Piksel Festival for Electronic Arts, Bergen, Norway

2019, 25 June, Ecologies of Transformation, UCSD Gallery QI, San Diego

2019, 11 December – 1 February, Work in Progress Exhibition, Ann Arbor Art Center

2019, 31 March, Sense of a Future Ocean, SBCAST Art Gallery, Santa Barbara

2018, 29-30 December, Plexus Projects Art Gallery, New York

2018, 8-9 September, BrainMind Summit, Digital Consciousness Exhibit, Stanford University

2018, 12-16 August, SIGGRAPH Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

2018, 3 July to 12 August, Electronic Language International Festival FILE, SESI Gallery, Sao Paulo, Brazil

2018 8-24 June, Currents New Media, Santa Fe

2018 20-21April CommFest, Northwestern University, Evanston

Fiber Optic Ocean is a data driven interactive installation that composes music. This installation creates unique musical scores dependent on live data. Fiber Optic Ocean conveys the consequences of technology's invasion of oceans.

The piece procedurally composes music made with trombone and choral voices generated by live data coming from the live sharks and human use of internet. The group of fiber optic cables going through the sharks blink at a rate based on speed of live sharks tracked with GPS data. Fiber optic threads composing the ocean blink based on the speed of the internet, symbolized with the number of tweets per second.

Human beings’ selfish invasion of nature expands to the depth of oceans. Underwater surveillance cameras are revealing that sharks are drawn to fiber optic cables and biting down on them. One theory is that the magnetic field around the fiber optic cables is stimulating the receptors in sharks’ mouths and luring them to perceive the cables as prey.

The current struggle between sharks and technology corporations is a pristine symbol of the ongoing conflict between nature and culture. The two sides clash nose to nose on a thin fiber optic line.

Interactive Art Installation by Ozge Samanci, 2016

Data Visualization, Sound Design, Coding: Adam Snyder
3D Modeling, 3D Printing: Michael Villa
Shark Bones Research Resource: The Field Museum, Caleb McMahan
Documentation Video: Deborah Libby

Exhibitions

2019, 21-23 November, Piksel Festival for Electronic Arts, Bergen Norway

2019, 28 July- 1 August, SIGGRAPH Art Gallery, Los Angeles

 2017, 2-6 October, Sustain and Decay, The IEEE VIS 2017 Arts Program VISAP, Phoenix, Arizona

Publications

2019, Ozge Samanci, Adam Snyder, Gabriel Caniglia, Fiber Optic Ocean, SIGGRAPH '19 Art Papers in Special Issue of Leonardo, MIT Press.

2018 Ozge Samanci, Adam Snyder, Fiber Optic Ocean, Merging Media for Data Representation, VISAP 16-17 Special Issue, Leonardo Journal, MIT Press.

An interactive installation by Ozge Samanci, 2019.

Exhibition

2019, 31 March "Sense of a Future Ocean" at SBCAST Gallery, Santa Barbara

This piece was created during artist residency at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and Squire Foundation.

Blink Detection Code: Blacki Migliozzi

Each time participants blink their eyes, droplets of water fall on dry ice and the system releases carbon dioxide.

Nothing lasts. Life on earth will vanish eventually.  All we can do is to live our time on this planet meaningfully.

In our fast-paced-capitalistic system, in every breath, in every heartbeat, in every blink we leave a carbon footprint. Increasing temperatures cause the expansion of water and the rise of sea levels. Glaciers are melting. Ocean acidification is increasing. Shells and bones of marine organisms are dissolving.

We have heard so many times that since the industrial revolution our carbon dioxide creation has increased. We have become immune to this statement.  This installation slows time and magnifies the impact of our smallest actions on carbon dioxide release. My aim is to enable visitors to feel their individual and collective impact through an action-based metaphor.

Even though we are concerned, we continue to use the systems and services, transatlantic flights, online shopping, server spaces, meat-based diets, and so on. Core change happens with policy change. Our individual sadness without political action forms an ocean of tears around the glaciers, still speeding the release of carbon dioxide and triggering catastrophic consequences. Feelings that lead to actions create change.

The human body could be compared to a clock. Heartbeat, blinking, and breathing, the rhythmic functions of the autonomic nervous system, mark the passage of time. Sneaky Time is an interactive art installation using a quartz clock display and blink detection input. Sneaky Time reminds the participant of the passage of time and its connection to the human body. The quartz clock ticks when the participant blinks her eyes. In addition, Sneaky Time points out the relativity of time. When a clock is watched time seems to progress slowly. When we do not pay attention time sneaks by us. If a participant closes her eyes, the clock ticks ten times faster. The clock’s ticking sound is amplified so that the participant can perceive the response even though her eyes are closed.

 2013 November 12-15, International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling ICIDS’13, Istanbul, Turkey

 2013 November 12-15, Creative Showcases, Advances in Computer Entertainment ACE’13, Twente, Netherlands

 2013, June 13-23 , 19th International Symposium on Electronic Arts ISEA, Sydney, Australia

2013, June 7-9, Athens International Video Arts and New Media Festival ADAF, Athens, Greece

2013, May 9-18, WRO Media Arts Biennial, Galeria Entropia, Biennale WRO, Wroclaw, Poland

Plink Blink, an interactive art installation, allows three participants to make collaborative music by blinking their eyes.

 Exhibitions

2015 August 14-19, 21st International Symposium on Electronic Arts ISEA, Vancouver, Canada

 2015, June 15-August 16, Electronic Language International Festival FILE, SESI Gallery, in Sao Paulo, Brazil

 2014, November 11-14, Advances in Computer Entertainment ACE, Madeira, Portugal

Publications

2014, Ozge Samanci, Blacki Li Rudi Migliozzi, Daniel Sabio, Plink Blink: Collaborative Music Production via Blinking Eyes, In Proc. Advances in Computer Entertainment (ACE’14), ACM Press.

GPS Comics: Seeing thru Walls is a GPS based comics story that expands the comic canvas and explores the idea of location-based comics. In Seeing thru Walls, in order to receive the meaning in a comic frame the player must experience a sensory detail (a smell, sound, breeze or an object) in her surroundings in the physical world.

Publications

2010 The Journal of International Digital Media and Art Association, volume 7, no:1 From Site-specific Comics to Location-based Comics: Ordinary Things, Planting Comics, and GPS Comics

2014, Ozge Samanci, Impact of Digital Media on Comics. In Proc. SIGGRAPH'14 Studio, ACM Press

2012, Ozge Samanci, Anuj Tewari. Expanding the Comics Canvas: GPS Comics. In Proc. Fun and Games Conference, In Proc. Fun and Games (FnG’13), ACM Press, 27-34.

2010, Ozge Samanci and Anuj Tewari, GPS Comics: Seeing thru Walls. In Proc. SIGGRAPH’10 Posters (single page publication), ACM Press.

Embodied Comics is a computer vision based full-body interactive
storytelling environment. The participants, regardless of their gender, play out the
story of the female egg in the reproductive system. Each participant,
by collaborating with the audience or acting as a rival to them, tries
to reach the fertilization site and select the best profile among the
sperm that are rushing to the egg.

Publications

2014, Ozge Samanci, Impact of Digital Media on Comics. In Proc. SIGGRAPH'14 Studio, ACM Association for Computing Machinery Press

2014 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, Sage Journals, Volume 20 Issue 1, February 2014 Embodied Site-Specific Animation

2007, Ozge Samanci, Yanfeng Chen, and Ali Mazalek, Tangible Comics: A Performance Space with Full-body Interaction, In Proc. Advances in Computer Entertainment (ACE’07), ACM () Association for Computing Machinery Press, 171-178.

Ph.D. Dissertation

Relative Friend is an interactive sculpture built with wall clocks and pendulum clocks. The clocks are arranged in a life size human form. If a visitor approaches to Relative Friend, all clocks respond by turning faster. This piece explores meaning making possibilities through procedural manipulation of distance and the relativity of time in communication process.

Exhibitions

2012, February 19-April 15, Crossing Wires: Technology and Play, Evanston Art Center, Evanston

On the Air is a full-body interactive installation that uses sensor data and animations. Most commonly, physically passive viewers watch an animation or a live action movie on a screen. However, On the Air uses the viewer’s distance to the installation as part of the content creation.

The installation includes a proximity sensor attached to an old radio, a pocket projector, an Arduino board, and a computer. Animated musicians are projected onto the wall walking toward and into the radio. If a visitor approaches the radio, the animated musicians speed up and run quickly into the radio and the music begins. The visitor is able to see the animated musicians walking calmly into the radio from approximately 20 feet away. As the viewer approaches the installation the animated musicians speed up and the viewer can only catch a glimpse of the musicians.

Exhibitions

 2012, August 8-11, University Film and Video Association New Media Exhibition UFVA, Chicago

Personal Storm is an interactive installation that portrays a large picture frame mounted on a large LCD screen. The animated water waves on the screen respond to the distance of a viewer. If there is no one the waves are calm. As the visitor gets closer to the screen, waves get choppy. The piece reflects the unique relationship between an artwork and an audience member. The artwork becomes animated, gains meaning and life if there is a viewer to interpret the art piece.

Contribution to Murmur, Aimee Raydorowski's interactive kinetic sculptural installation. Grillwork allows a participant to activate 100 hundred small square fans through sound which will then stimulate hundreds of pieces of paper to create dramatic black and white.

Exhibitions

2007, April 6th, Listening Machines Show, Eyedrum Art Gallery, Atlanta

Publications

2008, Aimee Rydarowski, Ozge Samanci, and Ali Mazalek, Murmur: Kinetic Relief Sculpture, Multi-Sensory Display, Listening Machine. In Proc. Tangible and Embedded Interaction (TEI’08), ACM Press (Association for Computing Machinery Press), 231-238.