A Journey to Center (2026)

A Journey To Center

AV PERFORMANCE
SONAR ISTANBUL FESTIVAL (TURKEY, 2026)

This piece is a generative mandala with real-time visuals that react to live singing and music. It revolves around the idea of sacred geometry, which is used in this work not so much as a system of symbols, but rather as a visual language perceived on a pre-rational level.

Displayed on the massive 6 x 24 m LED screen, the work addresses the psychological dimension, where sacred geometry remains in a spotlight. For example, the psychologist and psychiatrist Carl Jung attached great importance to sacred geometry, considering its forms to be archetypal codes.

Thus, the work is placed within a framework of ideas about the psyche and its self-regulation, where the mandala, for instance, is used as one of the tools. However, its interpretation as a spiritual/religious symbol can also be considered, and the work remains open to such interpretations.

Music and, specifically, vocal livelooping in this work become a guide between calm and meditative states, encouraging the viewer to pause and contemplate the constantly re-emerging patterns and forms.

The mandalas are formed in real time for a multilayered perception of image and sound, where - just as in the human psyche - the whole becomes visible only from a certain distance, while fragments are perceived through immersion into the structure.

Technically, I used one pc to perform both visuals and music in real time. It was a project where I was excited to first play with SOP nodes in TouchDesigner. I made various parameters of the SOP systems that I built reactive to sounds. The music was written in Ableton Live and was composed of two parts - the more meditative part in the beginning and the more energetic one for the second part of the performance. I used vocal live-looping to weave these two parts together and blend the music and the visuals. During the performance, I relied on Ableton Push II for controlling the music and the overall pace of the performance. Some parameters of the generative graphics and video effects were mapped onto Akai MPK Mini mkII.