BIOGRAPHY
Born in İzmir, Turkey, Şölen Kıratlı, Ph.D. (she/her) is an independent artist and researcher in emerging technologies and digital media. Her work interrogates themes of power, agency, and resilience, often using interactive multimedia installations to explore narratives of resistance, empowerment, and ecological interconnectedness.
Kıratlı’s art has been showcased internationally, engaging diverse audiences in critical dialogues around feminism, digital realities, and ecology. She has received prestigious awards, including the “Best in Show” award from ACM SIGGRAPH (2020) Art Gallery, the Audience Award (2nd Place) at the New Technological Art Awards (NTAA, 2022), and Artistic Production Incentives from Fundación Telefónica’s VIDA 13.0 program. Her exhibitions include renowned venues such as Contemporary Istanbul, Zebrastraat, SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia Art Galleries, ISEA (International Symposium for Electronic Arts), CURRENTS New Media, IEEE VIS Art Program, and ACM Multimedia Art Gallery.
She served as Co-Chair of the ACM SIGGRAPH 2024 International Art Gallery exhibition Beyond Words: Transcending Language and has contributed as a juror and peer reviewer for numerous prestigious academic and artistic programs.
Kıratlı holds a Ph.D. in Media Arts and Technology (University of California, Santa Barbara), an M.Arch (University of Southern California), and a B.Sc. in Architecture (Istanbul Technical University). Before transitioning into digital media arts, she worked on several architectural projects in Los Angeles, California.
AWARDS
NTAA - New Technological Art Award (Nominated, forthcoming)
Liedts-Meesen Foundation, Belgium, 2022
SIGGRAPH Art Gallery “Best in Show “Award
ACM SIGGRAPH, 2020
Visual, Performing, and Media Arts Awards
Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, University of California Humanities Network, 2012
California-Centric Embedded Arts Research Grant in Social Ecologies
UCIRA (University of California Institute for Research in the Arts), 2011
Artistic Production Incentives Grant, Vida 13.0
Fundación Telefónica, Spain, 2010
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
NTAA (New Technological Art Award) - International Art Exhibition for New Technology
Ghent, Belgium, 2022 (juried 2% acceptance)
Cacophonic Choir (Collaboration with H.Wolfe and A.Bundy)
xCoAx (Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X) - Art Gallery
Graz, Austria, & virtual (due to the pandemic), 2021
Cacophonic Choir (Collaboration with H.Wolfe and A.Bundy)
NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression) - Art Gallery
Shanghai, China, & virtual (due to the pandemic), 2021
Cacophonic Choir (Collaboration with H.Wolfe and A.Bundy)
ISEA (International Symposium for Electronic Arts) - Art Gallery
Montreal, Canada (originally scheduled) & virtual (due to pandemic), 2020
HIVE (Collaboration with A. Cadambi)
IEEE VISAP (Visual Arts Program) - Art Gallery
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA (originally scheduled), & virtual, 2020
Cacophonic Choir (Collaboration with H.Wolfe and A.Bundy)
ACM SIGGRAPH - Art Gallery
Washington D.C., USA (originally scheduled), & virtual, 2020
Cacophonic Choir (Collaboration with H.Wolfe and A.Bundy)
Contemporary Istanbul / Plug-in “RW. [material]”
Istanbul, Turkey, 2019
Cacophonic Choir (Collaboration with H.Wolfe and A.Bundy)
CURRENTS New Media
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, 2018
HIVE (Collaboration with A. Cadambi)
ACM SIGGRAPH Asia - Art Gallery
Bangkok, Thailand, 2017
HIVE (Collaboration with A. Cadambi)
Santa Barbara Center for Art, Science, & Technology
Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2016
HIVE (Collaboration with A. Cadambi)
“White Noise” Media Arts and Technology End of the Year Show
Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2016
HIVE (Collaboration with A. Cadambi)
ACM Multimedia - Art Gallery: “Eternal/Moment”
Nara, Japan, 2012
The New Dunites (Collaboration with A. Burbano and D. Bazo)
Allosphere New Media & Research Facility, California Nanosystems Institute
Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2012
The New Dunites (Collaboration with A. Burbano and D. Bazo)
INVITED TALKS &
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Digital Futures
“New Media Architectures: A Vision for Change in the Arts, Design, & Sciences Panel”
Invited panel, virtual, 2021
York University, Digital Media Program
“Sounding Agents---a praxis of embodied and technologically mediated voices”
Invited seminar, virtual, 2021
ACM SIGGRAPH Spotlight Podcast
“Art in the Age of Tik Tok”
Invited podcast (episode 41), 2021
xCoAx (Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X)
“Cacophonic Choir: An Interactive Installation”
Conference presentation, virtual, 2021
NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression)
“Cacophonic Choir”
Conference presentation, virtual , 2021
ACM SIGGRAPH - Art Papers
“Cacophonic Choir: an interactive art installation embodying the voices of sexual assault survivors”
Conference presentation, virtual , 2020
IEEE VISAP (Visual Arts Program)
“Cacophonic Choir”
Conference presentation, virtual, 2020
Tokyo University of Arts & University of the Arts London (UAL)
“SOUND:: GENDER:: FEMINISM :: ACTIVISM (SGFA)”
Conference presentation, Tokyo, Japan, 2019
ACM SIGGRAPH Asia
“Explorations in Sonic Intelligence”
Artist talk, Bangkok, Thailand, 2017
NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression)
“HIVE: An interactive sculpture for musical expression”
Poster presentation, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2017
Media Arts & Technology Seminar Series
“The New Dunites”
Seminar presentation, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2012
PUBLICATIONS
(* denotes equal contribution)
Ş. Kiratli*, H. E. Wolfe*, and A. Bundy, Cacophonic Choir: An Interactive Art Installation Embodying the Voices of Sexual Assault Survivors, Leonardo 53 (July, 2020) 446-450. Publisher: MIT Press. ISSN: 0024-094X
Ş. Kiratli*, H. E. Wolfe*, and A. Bundy, Cacophonic Choir:An Interactive Installation, in Proceedings of the Ninth Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X, xCoAx ‘21 (July, 2021) 510-516. Publisher: i2ADS (Research Institute in Art, Design and Society). ISBN: 978-989-9049-06-2
H. E. Wolfe*, Ş. Kiratli*, and A. Bundy, Cacophonic Choir, in International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, NIME ‘21 (May, 2021). Publisher: PubPub.
H. Wolfe*, Ş. Kiratli*, and A. Bundy, Cacophonic Choir, in Proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH ‘20, SIGGRAPH Art Gallery (August, 2020) 457. Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery. ISBN: 9781450379526.
Ş. Kıratlı, A. Cadambi, and Y. Visell, HIVE: An Interactive Sculpture for Musical Expression, in Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, NIME ‘17 (May, 2017) 267-270. Publisher: Aalborg University Copenhagen. ISSN: 2220-4806
A. Burbano Valdes, D. Bazo, Ş. Kıratlı DiCicco, A. Forbes, The New Dunites, in Proceedings of the 20th ACM international conference on Multimedia, ACM MultiMedia ‘12 (October, 2012) 1501-1502. Publisher: Association for Computing Machinery. ISBN: 978-1-4503-1089-5
PRESS
[Selected Printed and Digital Media Coverage]
“Mirror: Art and the Internet in LA 1969+” (Featured artist at forthcoming online platform featuring Los Angeles based artists)
“Cacophonic Choir”, DiVA online journal, Society of Art and Science Publication, Vol.50, 2021, pp.21-22
“Cacophonic Choir, outside the choir”, Neural Magazine, Issue #67 “Adversarial Tactics”, fall 2020
“AI-driven Cacophonic Choir amplifies voices of sexual assault survivors”, CNET, Leslie Katz, 08.2020
“SIGGRAPH 2020 : Cacophonic Choir, une oeuvre artistique dans le sillage de #MeToo”, 3DVF, by Shadows, 08.2020
“’Cacophonic Choir’, the Sounds of Survivors’ Stories”, ACM SIGGRAPH Blog, 06.2020
“Explore the Year’s Most Innovative Digital Art Projects, Research via Virtual SIGGRAPH 2020 Exhibit”, Businesswire
“2020 in Review: 10 AI-Powered Art Projects”, Synced, 12.2020
“Sonic symphony: Sölen Kıratlı and Akshay Cadambi's HIVE”, by M.W. Simpson, in Pasatiempo, Santa Fe, New Mexico, June 8, 2018
“On the intricacies of Hollywood archaeology”, by J. McNeil, Wired Magazine (UK edition), August 2012 issue, pp 76-77, 08.2012