26 hand-made 3D-printed sculptures + AR app + VR environment. A semi-open structure where any boundary between inner and outer worlds is inherently permeable — a wormhole between urban and cosmic scales. bang. Prix Art Innovation Prize 2017.
Concept
İçlek (içlek — "each lack") is a Turkish word created for this project only: a semi-open structure that allows an environment to flow into its interior — one of the key motivations and architectonics of evolution. The project presents new ways of shifting reality through bodily experience, examining the architectonic transformation of inanimate to animate (intelligence), and the reciprocal relationship between people and the spaces they inhabit: every environment and its user continually co-produce one another.
The "wormhole" metaphor bridges interior and exterior, urban architecture and cosmic architecture — not only a physics category, but a sculptural form and a way of engaging with the politics of the day.
The three stages
- Physical reality — 26 independent 3D-printed sculptures (10×10×10 cm), similar on the outside but radically different inside. They can be opened to experience the differences — physical "wormholes" suggesting hidden internal complexity.
- Augmented reality — each sculpture is paired with a dedicated AR experience activated through a mobile device. The augmented layer extends geometry beyond what is materially possible; everything opaque becomes transparent and distinguishable, dissolving the boundary between physical and virtual.
- Virtual reality — the viewer breaks the bounds of the physical world entirely. Scale constraints are removed; roles of sculpture and viewer shift; the viewer travels through the sculptures — "like Alice in the rabbit hole."
Credits & recognition
- Project & design: Oguz Emre Bal · Team: Ayhan Karaca, Zafer Masalci
- Photography: Volkan Erkan, Omer Sedat Yenidogan
- Awarded bang. Prix Art Innovation Prize 2017 for its integration of digital art and architectural thinking — among the early wave of XR art projects in Istanbul
- Video: https://youtube.com/shorts/YooMnyMkIew
Acquisition
Physical sculptures (set of 26 or curated subsets) plus AR app build and VR environment license. Sculptures on plinths or shelves with discreet AR markers; adjacent VR station(s).