Post-Reality Art in a Post-truth World: Alkan Avcıoğlu on his Work

An interview conoducted by Adam Berninger with artist Alkan Avcıoğlu ahead of their release, 'All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace'.

Hi Alkan, I’m excited to complete our second large-scale project together, and I appreciate you spending some time with me to discuss this latest work!

We've had so many meaningful conversations about art and philosophy that I want to unpack in this interview, but I'll start with a few questions about your background. Immediately, we see your work as not only photographic, but cinematic – what about your background shapes this perspective and your aesthetic?

My work is undeniably shaped by an eclectic mix of influences spanning film, art, music, and literature, though it often carries a cinematic quality due to my extensive experience in the film industry. Over the years, I’ve worn many hats within this field.

I have an MA in film studies, for years I lectured on Narratology and film analysis courses and studied art theories at a scholarly level. I served as a FIPRESCI member professional film critic for over 15 years, I had regular columns in newspapers and magazines. I had curated sections for film festivals, highlighting banned, lost hidden gems. I also worked over a decade in theatrical distribution. I have expertise in movie poster design, having acted as a creative director for nearly a hundred posters, most famously including Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master.

Even though I worked in very different areas of film, I am mainly a film junkie watching anything from low budget exploitation to classic arthouse films. In my film studies work, I mostly studied the genealogy of visual conventions and tropes, which helped to refine my understanding of intertextuality, exploring how films borrow from and influence other art forms. 

This deep connection to film makes sense, but your references often seem even more eclectic…

Yes, because I am mainly interested in the field of narratology. This includes music, games, everything about storytelling. Alongside film, I experimented with digital painting and electronic music composition as early as 1999. During that period, I published a music magazine that quickly became a cult sensation, which led me to engage in theoretical studies on music and co-author an academic book. My professional music background includes over seven years as a DJ, working with vinyl records. Altogether, these experiences have deeply shaped my perspective and artistic vision.

In all of the fields, my background is a weird mixture of theory and practice. Two years ago, I left my professions behind, moved to the countryside and began focusing on the potential of storytelling through AI. Now away from the hustle of the city, I live a calmer life, splitting my focus between an unusual mixture of gardening and AI generation. I now work with AI, but it is obvious that the diverse range of creative endeavors of my background have helped the emergence of my style and multi-layered perspective. 

And since then, my journey has accelerated faster than expected and has taken on a more physical form than I initially imagined. I moved to the countryside to work with AI, thinking this path would be purely digital and isolated. Yet, my work has increasingly found its way into physical spaces, with print exhibitions becoming a regular part of my journey - even at the moment I have three more physical exhibitions coming up-. My first mint was in 2022 and just a year after that I found myself in Paris Photo among the first wave of AI post-photography artists featured there. With my first and second long form collections Overpopulated Symphonies and Strata, I frequently receive invitations for exhibitions, bridging digital and physical realms in ways I hadn’t anticipated. And it feels a bit surreal to do all this from rural part of Istanbul, at a point in my life where I thought I’d be more of a recluse.

Are there aspects of your hometown Istanbul, Turkey that influences your work as well?

Certainly. While it’s obvious that Istanbul’s sheer urban density, with its 20 million people, influences my work on a surface level, this is only a small part of the story. Beyond that, the city’s cultural in-betweenness profoundly shapes my artistic vision. Istanbul is neither fully East nor West, making it an invaluable vantage point to observe the complexities and the shortcomings of both cultural perspectives. It offers a unique space to synthesize polarized ideologies that shape our symbolic worlds—providing a critical lens on Western liberalism’s limitations and Eastern traditions’ constraints. This dynamic tension, an ongoing dialogue between old and new, underpins much of my work and offers fertile ground for questioning, reevaluating, and reconstructing ideology.

One of my favorite authors Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar captured Istanbul's unique position as both an embrace of and a struggle between Eastern heritage and Western modernity. In this context I can say that struggle between two worlds provides a unique perspective.

That makes sense… themes of human density and abundance certainly pervade each series of your work, and give a sense of vast human existence. The images seem to leave little room for individuality and connection though. What does this say about modern life, and why do these subjects appear so detached from one another?

In my work, I use themes of abundance, density, and repetition to critique modern life and the alienation it often breeds. A hundred years ago, people primarily produced essential items for survival: food, clothing, shelter. Over time, production shifted from necessity to an excess of luxury items, driving a consumer-focused society. Today, this has evolved further, where we produce not only goods but content, feeding a fluid and ever-changing sense of identity. This postcapitalist, pseudo techno-social world thrives on marketing, manipulation, and artificially constructed desires. This results in a spiritual detachment, a theme I convey through color and composition, creating a visual language that mirrors the very dehumanization it critiques.

Within this context we may now be past the alienation of globalization and modernization; we’ve become mechanized, unseen entities in a sea of others, reduced to tiny dots in a flood of information. This is a recurring theme in my body of work and with my new collection I question whether we are still free individuals or workers for an invisible machine.

Despite living in an age of unprecedented connectivity, true individuality and connection are lost in the sheer speed and volume of information. We are cogs in a relentless machine that never stops. Through vast human existence I explore the paradox of modern individualism, the inherent contradictions in individualist Western ideals themselves. This ideology, which promises freedom and self-determination, has led to a subtle conformity, trapping us in echo chambers and standardized identities. Personal freedom is compromised and stifled by the very systems that claim to empower us, as we all work now to be seen to be heard. We become cheap labors of content creation.

Attempts to define ‘reality’ feel unavoidable (and unsuccessful) these days – in media, in philosophy, and in the use of artificial intelligence. We’ve talked a bit about Baudrillard’s *Simulacra and Simulation* – so how does your work relate to a sense of truth and reality? 

We don’t even live in reality anymore so it is impossible to define it. Elias Canetti wrote that “Without noticing it, all mankind suddenly left reality; everything happening since then was supposedly not true; but we supposedly didn't notice.” 

Baudrillard’s idea of simulacra—that images and simulations have replaced reality itself—is one of the core foundations of my work. In the postmodern era, overarching truths and clear paths have largely disappeared, leaving people adrift in a hyperreal world where we live with custom constructed realities. This hyperreal landscape, where the line between real and representation dissolves, traps humanity in a cycle of manufactured images and illusions that mimic reality yet lack its substance. Because today, our reality can be carefully curated to align with personal beliefs and biases. Living within these layers of simulation, we experience a world that’s more mirage than truth, where fact and fiction, real and fake are indistinguishable and equally compelling.

Traditional forms of representation fall short in depicting the disorienting, layered world we navigate today. This is where AI post-photography becomes crucial—it aligns with our era’s fragmented, paradoxical reality, allowing for storytelling that is as multilayered, fake, and constructed as the digital age itself. With their peculiar errors and synthetic existence, AI generated images have a chance to capture the strangeness and complexity of hyperreality.

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace is a large series composed of incredible individual images. Looking at it as a whole, what does it say about our relationship to digital devices, that one image alone might only suggest?

There are more screens than humans in the world; over 10 billion screens compared to around 8 billion people. First and foremost, I wanted to create a visual universe where screens feel like the new majority on the planet.

As a whole my new work is a powerful allegory of postcapitalist digital era. Through an excessive style with lots of chaotic repetition, it shows the dehumanizing effects of technology by portraying how we are drowning in screens. The series blurs the lines between user and producer, freedom and enslavement.

I’ve used factory settings, bustling offices, vast stores, and cityscapes of screens as symbolic backdrops. Together, these elements depict the digital consumer as a modern factory worker, endlessly manufacturing and consuming realities through screens. Rather than realistic scenes of people on laptops or mobile devices in cafes or streets, I chose a metaphorical storytelling approach, crafting a universe where rows of factory workers represent us at home, glued to our screens.

From the other perspective, what is something that each individual image says about our world, on its own?

Each individual image reinforces the notion that our freedom may be more limited than we assume. We exist within a flood of visual noise and information overload, elements I aim to amplify to create cognitive dissonance. This effect invites the viewer to pause, question, and reflect on their relationship with technology, which, rather than liberating, has become a tool for control and entrapment.

Instead of showcasing futuristic technologies, I often pull from past visual conventions, presenting outdated or absurd settings as a metaphor. For me, the reason we’re overwhelmed by technology today doesn’t lie solely in advanced devices but is rooted in the mass production era and the consumerist mindset of the past. This choice alludes to the idea that the mechanisms of mass production and consumption continue to shape us, trapping us in a cycle that technology now extends.

This series is laden with references to photographic and digital art, from the hyper-detailed images of abundant consumer culture by Burtynsky and Gursky, to the title of this work itself (pulled from Brautigan’s poem, and repeated across myriad important projects in the arts). Can you share some other artists who have informed your work and processes, and what inspires you about them?

Art is never created in isolation; I view it as a continuous dialogue with past works, building meaning through intertextual references. One of the collection’s iconic pieces, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace #10, pays direct homage to Burtynsky’s Manufacturing No 17 and Ron Fricke’s Samsara. In this image, I adapt the famous composition of chicken factories with workers in pink outfits to highlight the alienation of mechanized human activity, updating the visual metaphor with computers for our digital age.

From Andreas Gursky to Georg Sievers, Michael Wolf to Bernd and Hilla Becher, many photographers have inspired me. I’ve revisited the monumental visual language of industrial photography, evoking the scale and orderliness of mass production, to create an update for the screen-dominated age—a sea of repetition with screens and workers.

Adam Curtis, who also used Brautigan’s sarcastic poem as a title for his docuseries, is one of my biggest influences. Other inspirations include Terry Gilliam, with his absurd, Kafkaesque retro-futuristic vision, and Paul Virilio, with his striking analyses of the information society.

Above all, the director Godfrey Reggio is perhaps my most significant influence for this series. “It’s not that we use technology, we live technology,” he says. Most technology critiques focus on environmental concerns or create futuristic dystopias, but Reggio is one of the few artists I’ve encountered who views technology as the air surrounding us—a system of cultural and behavioral condition. His speechless visual narration technique also profoundly inspires my work.

There is a mix of screen types that appear to come from different times in this series: past, present, future, and even devices amalgamating technological vernacular across time. Do you think technology will indefinitely increase in complexity and integration with daily life, or are we nearing a threshold or mass backlash that will halt its advance?

There’s certainly always been backlash against technology, and it’s likely to grow. Yet once a technology exists, it rarely disappears. I can’t think of any major advancement in human history that, once discovered, wasn’t used.

But for me this isn’t entirely about technology itself; it’s about human psychology. And the opportunistic, individualistic ideologies that drive technology companies today. Think for a second, despite our era’s big data and technical advancements, why can’t we still do multi-genre filtering on Netflix or do advanced search, a capability even websites could handle 25 years ago? Or why can’t we choose the type of algorithms driving our feeds on social media platforms like Twitter or Instagram? Why these companies don’t offer differently priced packages for algos? Even satellite TV offered different packages to purchase. Why are we being locked into engagement-driven defaults worldwide?

The reason is that digital giants make decisions heavily informed by cognitive science, leveraging human psychological tendencies studied by figures like Daniel Kahneman. They shape algorithms that exploit our natural biases, not to empower choice, but to optimize engagement. Currently, we are trapped in an algorithmic culture that knows only to offer the most populist content, or same similar stuff that we like. 

Originally, technological disruption promised greater choice and freedom, liberating us from the limited options of old world (linear TV channels, newspapers, limited content etc.). But now, instead of expanding our options, these designs often lock us in echo chambers under the guise of personalization, perpetuating an illusion of choice while reinforcing addictive feedback loops. What we’re hooked on isn’t technology itself but the psychological strategies embedded within its design—strategies that hijack dopamine circuits and keep us in a cycle of endless consumption. Unless we break from this cycle, I don’t think we can talk about real freedom. 

With a thick commentary about the abundance, invasiveness, and overwhelm of life with computers, what are your thoughts on the increasing influence of digital technologies on the arts? Is this use-case exempt from criticism, or is there a meta-commentary on your own work with screens and artificial intelligence embedded in this series?

Surely it is a meta-commentary, because I think the synthetic image making is the perfect medium to mirror the chaotic absurdity of the post-truth era.

Beyond that, I think the art world has long been dominated by an ego-centric focus on the artist's control over every aspect of creation. Digital Technologies and now especially AI are diminishing the importance of the creator, especially the type of perfectionist artist that controls everything. To me, this shift is liberating and subversive. It’s an erosion of traditional artistic authority that places a heavier weight on the image itself, on what it holds and reveals without the artist’s hand guiding every aspect. 

One of my idols, Chilean experimental filmmaker Raúl Ruiz, describes how “the image exists by itself,” carrying immense information beyond what the creator imposes. Ruiz's view resonates strongly with my own. In Western art traditions, the image is often considered passive, molded into meaning by the artist’s stylistic decisions. I view images as dynamic, almost organic entities connected to historical context and collective unconsciousness. As digital technologies and autonomous creativity continue to grow, I believe we’ll increasingly appreciate the role of chance, randomness, and collective input in art.

I hope all of your art-making screen time is balanced out by the gardening that you’ve taken up : ) Before we wrap, would you share what’s growing in your garden that brings you the most peace right now?

Well, I am just a newbie gardener, trying to learn things from my father. But I can tell you that here in our garden we grow over 5 types of veggies and more than ten fruit trees, not to mention countless types of flowers. With the fruit season almost over, now growing lavender is quite a joy.