Oculus is a site-specific installation blending digital technology with spatial design to reinterpret historical architecture through immersive light and sound, offering visitors a dynamic experience between the real and virtual at the 2016 Istanbul Design Biennale.

Oculus is a site-specific installation blending digital technology with spatial design to reinterpret historical architecture through immersive light and sound, offering visitors a dynamic experience between the real and virtual at the 2016 Istanbul Design Biennale.

Oculus was a site-specific installation designed for Istanbul Design Biennale in 2016, and exhibited in Tophane-i Amire. A selection of HAS Architects’ projects is presented in a performance that blends digital technology with spatial design, forming a synthesis between the past and the present within the magical atmosphere of the historical Single-Dome Hall of the Imperial Arsenal.
                Taking the Single-Dome Hall as the focal point, the exhibition uses contemporary interpretations to alternate between old and new, whole and fragment, real and virtual, balanced and unbalanced states. Notions of time and space become blurred and the exhibition surrounds the visitors, offering them an unusual spatial experience.
                The installation is further developed by the inverse “light dome” which simulates the historical dome. In contrast to the perfection of the dome geometry, the “light dome” has been planned as an edifice which forms a dialogue with the historical building through its contemporary interpretation. The audiovisual performance uses the newly-produced dome as a background and through referrals to the dome, integrates the works of HAS Architects with the spatial atmosphere and thus re-interprets the space. The visitors go back and forth between real and virtual spaces through the movements of surrounding light and sound.

                Oculus was a site-specific installation designed for Istanbul Design Biennale in 2016, and exhibited in Tophane-i Amire. A selection of HAS Architects’ projects is presented in a performance that blends digital technology with spatial design, forming a synthesis between the past and the present within the magical atmosphere of the historical Single-Dome Hall of the Imperial Arsenal.
                Taking the Single-Dome Hall as the focal point, the exhibition uses contemporary interpretations to alternate between old and new, whole and fragment, real and virtual, balanced and unbalanced states. Notions of time and space become blurred and the exhibition surrounds the visitors, offering them an unusual spatial experience.
                The installation is further developed by the inverse “light dome” which simulates the historical dome. In contrast to the perfection of the dome geometry, the “light dome” has been planned as an edifice which forms a dialogue with the historical building through its contemporary interpretation. The audiovisual performance uses the newly-produced dome as a background and through referrals to the dome, integrates the works of HAS Architects with the spatial atmosphere and thus re-interprets the space. The visitors go back and forth between real and virtual spaces through the movements of surrounding light and sound.

ROLE: Direction & Design, Animation
TYPE: Site Specific Audiovisual Installation
DATE: 2016
DURATION: 8' 31''
LOCATION: Tophane-i Amire, Istanbul
COMMISSIONED BY: Has Architects

ROLE: Direction & Design, Animation
TYPE: Site Specific Audiovisual Installation
DATE: 2016
DURATION: 8' 31''
LOCATION: Tophane-i Amire, Istanbul
COMMISSIONED BY: Has Architects