Asli Sevinc

For my final project, I want to explore the transformation I’m going through currently and feeling very strongly about: language attrition; the loss of your first language.

Each day, I’m using my mother language, Turkish, less and less. Each day, English is replacing Turkish as my primary tool to think, to feel, to express myself, to talk to myself, to write, to communicate whatever I want to say to the world. As I’m completing my sixth year abroad, I can fully feel the effects of language attrition: my immediate reactions, my dreams are now in my acquired language. My mind speaks to me in English. I write in English when I’m drunk. I’m surprised to see that I started to talk to animals and babies in English, too, which I thought would always be in my mother tongue. Most interestingly to me, I’m at a point that I can picture myself communicating with my own children in English in the future.

This inevitable loss is not disturbing to me all the time. Usually, I don’t even think about it or notice it at all. But sometimes, it hits me that I’m losing my mother tongue, day by day. I feel that my most important connection to home is slowly weakening. Part of me, part of my identity is slowly eroding.

I want to build an interactive installation, where the viewer will experience the erasing of a language and replacing with another one. In my case, the viewer will erase Turkish and replace it with English, as much as she likes.

The interaction is two fold: The viewer will stand in front of the projected screen. She will be reduced to a silhouette. Once the silhouette is drawn, it’ll be filled up with Turkish words. The viewer, by waving her hand over her body, will scratch out the Turkish to reveal English underneath. The viewer may choose to scratch all of the first language, or she may choose to have some remainders left.

Here is a diagram of the installation.

I’m going to use a security camera for sensing, a projector for projection and Processing program for graphics.

déjà-vu is a sidewalk installation that aims to make the passerby articificially experience the feeling of déjà-vu. The system will sense the passerby, record her for 5 seconds, then project the video on a screen that is placed a few feet down the street, while the passerby is walking by the screen. The video will only be played once. If the passerby notices herself walking on the screen, she will experience a feeling very similar to déjà-vu.

Fresh-Back is a conceptual solution/therapeutic device designed for women to help them deal with sexism in the workplace and empower them via connecting with other women. Please visit the Fresh-Back blog for more information and to learn about how you can get your fresh-back, too!

Are you a history buff? Ever wondered how it would be like to have dinner with Marie Antoinette? Do you wonder what the Emperors used to eat at the Summer place during the Ming Dynasty? “If they can’t find bread, let them eat cake!” Table let’s you visit the tables of your favorite historic figures! Now you can travel back in time, transform your dining table into a refectory table of a historic figure of your choice and experience a dinner that actually happened at a time in their lives!

Our design team has teamed up with expert historians and culinary researchers to re-enact real meals of historic figures with the same menu items and guests they had on a chosen meal. The results of these extensive researches are then filmed into scenes taking place in their original locations, with servants explaining every dish that was served in that meal -to you, the guest of honor!-, in the company of exceptional character actors acting the historic figures and their guests. During the meal, your historic figure will tell you real stories about his/her lives, turning your dining experience into a feast of history!

Your table initially comes with 100 historic figures, including Napoleon Bonaparte, Abraham Lincoln, Genghis Khan, Suleiman the Magnificent and Mumtaz Mahal to name a few. More historic figures can be purchased for $1.99 from our website!

Technology:

Computer (Sensing): When you set your table and sit down, the computer will sense your presence and the system will turn on.

Sensing Device: The camera mounted on above your dining table.

Surface: The see through projection screen that will be activated once the system is turned on.

Display device: Rear projection behind the screen for the videos. Top projection on the table for the touch screen interface.

Computer (Graphics): Videos of the historic meals and the interface menu.

I made this piece in an effort to look at what technology means to me. For this particular project, I wanted to draw attention to our obsession with gadgets and how they seize to have any meaning after they are broken. But we still get a new one, even though we know it won’t last more than a few years. Because we just can’t seem to give them up!

The devices used in the video are all dead electronic devices. Even though they are essentially no different than any other piece of trash, I still keep them; possibly because of my obsession with objects! The camera is my first digital camera that fell and broke. The iPod was my first mp3 player, whose hardware crashed. The battery is the first battery of my laptop, which got drained completely.

I chose to shoot these images in the fire escape of my apartment to emphasize the meaninglessness of these objects. If they were working devices, I would never risk taking them out there!

The amazing music is by Camille, the song is called Katie’s Tea.

I just can’t seem to give it up. from Asli Sevinc on Vimeo.

I also want to post the video I put together from the footage I shot during the process of deconstructing a painting I made 7 years ago. This was for our first project: creating a collage of our personal identity.

Personal Collage from Asli Sevinc on Vimeo.