No.1 How would you describe this week in a sentence?
This week in a sentence?
It can be more than a sentence
I don't know… I feel like this week is - trying to open some portals kind of week. Trying to make things possible and trying to find a better structure, because now I don't have any immediate projects due, but I have stuff I want to work on, but also… this is not a sentence [laughs]
It doesn't have to be
A week of opening up some portals and figuring out how to sustain them.
Beautifully said.
No.2 An artwork that inspired you this week. It can be be any format.
Last night I was looking up some work by Tony Oursler. Someone mentioned him to me before and I ran into this stuff again, and that gave me a lot of [inspiration]. Because, you know, sometimes you'll see something, but then you'll see it again and it will give you a new look.
This guy made me really think last night.
May I ask what in his work sparked something in you?
I think [the] transformation of objects, that's always something I'm interested in. And the use of projection, because projection is such a crazy tool, right? Not only to show something, but what makes it interesting is, ‘how do I change this thing?’ ‘How do I change this narration to reality?’ I think that [it] was really seeing the way he uses projection, and the things he projects upon, [that] was very useful in a way. Getting some good ideas.
No.3 A memorable moment from this week
Yesterday I was with my Turkish friends. A few weeks ago I finally bought Turkish teacups. I bought it for a performance art piece I was doing, but it just gave me this... I felt validated in my culture when I got them. And yesterday we just sat at the park, brought the teacups and made tea and it felt like a little portal of feeling home. Even though it's just a different form of a cup, it changes the experience so much because it's like, ‘oh, this is home, this is culture’. And being able to share that with someone that is also from the culture made it feel like traveling. Like world traveling.
Wow. That’s beautiful.
This is a two-part question, feel free to answer either, or both, or none.
No.4 A motto you swear by, and or any advice you received and would like to share.
I’m going to say one for each. I don't know if it's a motto necessarily, but it’s kind of. A phrase that I think about a lot is, ‘If object exists, object has possibility’. And I think, with anything in life, whenever you feel hopeless, or whenever you’re stuck on a project, it’s nice to remember [that] there are many configurations to things. It's also a good way of being delusional, which I think is important as well. It allows the delusion to happen because it's like, ‘Okay, yeah, if I'm here, I have possibilities, and I have many configurations’. It's a way of finding the relation, which during stressful times and exciting times is something that really fuels me.
And the advice, which is funny because I feel like both derive from my philosophy professor. He told me this in 2021 probably, but I think about it a lot. He said ‘resist friction’. And that is something I think about during times when, again, things get tough. It's like, ‘okay, I have to just resist through this friction, and make something of this.’
No. 5 What would you like to share about any upcoming projects?
Well, many of my projects were in April, but I have some that I'm plotting.
There is an album I made last year, it was all improv based. I was making these lucid dreaming practices for a project I was doing. It was with Tibetan Dream Yoga, and drawing from different practices. I made my own practices and I was using that as a way of… I mean, the ultimate goal was making stuff in dreams and bringing them here. All the tracks were one-seat-made, you sit once and you make it. But I want to merge that with the live sets that I’ve been doing. This mixture of nature and technology, that's something I wanted to welcome back, since now I have the time. And I think it's been long enough that I don't know the songs by memory, so I can actually do something with them. Because when you work on something too much and you keep hearing the original, you can't change anything because you’re like, ‘this is stuck in my head right now’.
I have some hijacking projects I want to do, which I will use augmented reality to make these digital sculptures that are kind of in revolt.
Naz shared a few extra details, but we decided to keep them for when the projects are out.
I have this other idea for an XR project, so probably those and some more, but those are still in development.
Always some ideas.
I was lucky enough to see your set this past weekend, which was incredible.
Thank you so much
I will mention for the readers that it included a live DJ set, an interactive virtual reality game, where the audience members were handed a controller and could manipulate the visuals, and live vocals performed by you, which were incredible.
How did you come up with the setup, having all those [elements] at the same time?
I mean the music.. I'll start with that because that came first. I've been doing Ableton Live sets for a while. I've been very interested in all the sounds. The synth, the bass, the stabs, are all sounds I’ve designed, and the other elements, all the weird sounds.
It begins with traffic noise, construction sounds, things I've recorded around the city and manipulated [and] are the sounds [being used]. And that kind of echoes itself in the visuals, because [for] a lot of the visuals I use are things I’ve scanned [3D scanned], found objects. The trees, I made those out of cables. I made them in real life and then I scanned them and I put them [in], so I think there's this communication with that.
I've been interested in XR [Extended Reality] for a minute, but even before I started, I was having these dreams about VR [Virtual Reality], which pushed me to investigate that world. It was so funny, because I started this whole concept in April, having XR and live music at the same time
Really?
And it was because I was working with an artist [and] I made her an XR Verse. It was five verses connected, and [on] the first week of April I developed my first XR app for her. And I got home and I was thinking about it, because I had a set with arTIfiCE, and I was going to make a video. And I was thinking, [since] the development process was way easier than I thought it would be, instead of making a video, why don't I make another XR verse and give the controller to people? Then I kind of make a little bridge between the audience and me. And so I did that, and I was like, ‘okay, I just have to do one more [verse]’, because it felt exciting to do something different. So I did that, and then I did another one, and I wanted to do another one basically [laughs]. And I just did an XR residency with Loop Art Critique [a part of ICA Miami]. I really want to get more into those worlds of extending reality, expansion.
I would have never guessed you started in April.
When you mentioned portals earlier, or even the Turkish [tea] cup, and examining objects from different angles and different realities, it made so much sense to me.
There was a part in the game with an egg, it was so cool.
I love the eggs [laughs]
How does the audience interaction component affect the set?
That's something I want to definitely bridge more [in] the next set, because the thing is, since it's an open world [and] there's not that much.. the live element [is] just a little soundtrack in the back for now. But what I want to do for my next thing is have it in a way where you get to have different rooms, different places, and different settings. And when that happens, what I want to do is, basically, the audience, how they interact changes the music. With every new verse I would start playing something different, compose something live specifically for that. Since it's been more [of an] open world, traveling around, it has been more [of] ‘Okay, I'm just going to do a soundtrack type thing’, but the next step is definitely to have some real time composition based on the space, based on how people interact.
What softwares did you use to develop the visuals?
I used Blender, I used Polycam, I used Unity, and I also did some AI art. I know it's controversial, but I'm a big supporter of hybrid human machine relationships. There was some AI art that I used to capture [objects]. There are a few different things - there's the AI art, and some [of the] AI art I made I put it through Polycam, which turns [it] into 3D. I also put [through it] some of the old videos I made, and the weird photoshops, and that uses an AI system be like, ‘how could this be if it was 3D?’, which was weird to see, because they came out so weird.
I love how you combine the two, because I feel like technology can be very intimidating. But clearly the human component here is very important, and the everyday of, like you said, the cables, or household objects. You found a very cool way to combine the two.
And this is world building! You are building a world. ‘If an object exists’ - there are possibilities.
Exactly!
Prior to our interview, Naz mentioned the holiday Hıdırellez, which was celebrated on that day. One of the traditions of the holiday is to write notes with wishes and manifestations, and bury them at the bottom of a rose tree.
Would you want to add a little something about Hıdırellez, since we are meeting today and it is [a] holiday?
What type of thing would you imagine?
[Maybe] making a note that we met on this day, that happens to be a holiday, and [that] we might look for roses later.
Exactly. I hope that it will be [an] expansion for both of us. Of you doing your interview, and your passion for the arts, and your questions. And the things I'm talking about now, I hope it will be a little portal as well. I hope this day will be a little portal of being able to expand our passions and our desires.
Opening doors, opening doors at all times.
Cheers to that!
Snapshots by Rachel Bard
Keep up with N/A(Z)’s upcoming projects -
https://www.instagram.com/naz__live
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To learn more about Hıdrellez - https://www.ktb.gov.tr/EN-98558/hidrellez-traditions.html