Berfin Ataman

Berfin Ataman is a Turkish media artist and designer. She explores the impact of new technologies on humans' relationships with their environment and the non-human. Her medium is fluid according to each collection but has been materialized as wearables, installations, and other soft, kinetic sculptures. Ataman has a range of expertise in digital and physical fabrication, as well as mechanical and interactive systems. She is a lecturer teaching digital and physical fabrication at UCLA and continuing her studio practice in Los Angeles and Istanbul.

She received her BFA in Scenic and Costume Design from the University of Southern California, her Post-Baccalaureate degree from the School of Art Institute Chicago, and her MFA from UCLA, Design Media Arts.

Her art has been showcased in galleries in Europe, United States and museums like CICA Museum in Korea and Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles. Ataman received the Design Award from the Architecture and Design Museum.

This is a series of soft kinetic sculptures. The series comes from the musical term "sympathetic resonance," which refers to the harmonic phenomenon where a passive string or vibratory body responds to external vibrations that share a harmonic likeness. Like the sympathetic resonance, the motion in these sculptures becomes unpredictable due to the interaction between their mechanical parts, the fabricated structures inside, and the fabric itself, as well as events that happen around them, like sounds, etc. The series studies how people's reactions to these objects change depending on the sculptures' different design qualities and movements due to the audience's preconceptions derived from culture, society, and their past. If we can understand what preconceptions affect human-to-nonhuman relationships, could we alter these preconceptions to change how we interact with the nonhuman?