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Deniz Uster

@deniz.uster

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Artist working with speculative fiction to create objects, spaces and films as well as sculptural headwear and footwear @otherscapes.studio

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“Toxodon: What Went Unnoticed”, 2025, resin clay, brass, wood, glass, modelling materials. Exhibition view from Ignition and Confluence: The River of Us.

This sculpture juxtaposes two different models of evolutionary history: the tragedy of the individual giant and the silent triumph of collective intelligence.

The skull of Toxodon, one of Darwin’s most prized specimens, stands as a relic of the past, in front of grain silos that serve as monuments to industrial agriculture and an abandoned civilisation.

This dormant scene is brought to life by a brass slime mould network. This life form, feeding on the wealth now accumulated in the silos, is actually composed of thousands of individual cells that lack central governance but unite for a common purpose, acting as a single mind. This fluid network of collective intelligence slowly engulfs and incorporates the skull, a symbol of individual power and an extinct giant, suggesting that evolution is not just a story of competitive individuals. On the contrary, it implies that cooperative, decentralized, and adaptable collectives can transform and dominate even the most rigid structures.

📷 2 and 3: @nazlierdemirel taken in artSümer by @deniz.uster

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10 months ago

T E R R A N U L L I U S: Harvesting Gravity, .artSümer, 2024.

This exhibition was kindly supported by @asassanat .

Exhibition text “New Space Age, The End of History and Repetition as Neurosis” by @asli_seven can be accessed at the link in bio.

📷 @nazlierdemirel

#terranullius #artsümer #artsumer #nasa #spaceage #moon #asteroid #nasamission #jameswebbspacetelescope #diorama #modelmaking #scalemodelling #scalemodels #glassdomes #ecosystem #aluminium #asaş #pakicetus #psyche16 taken in artSümer by @deniz.uster

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2 years ago

Arbor Vitae, 2025, variable dimensions, cherry tree, aluminium, glass, mahogany, resin modelling clay, oats, velvet fibres. Exhibition view at @artsumergallery . First four images 📷: @nazlierdemirel taken in artSümer by @deniz.uster

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a year ago

Beneath the surface of a single site lies an entire timeline. 🌌📜

“Deep Earth, Silent Chamber” brings together the multi-layered history of Paha Sapa (the Black Hills)—a sacred origin site for the Lakota and Dakota, a colonial gold rush epicenter, and today, a subterranean laboratory hunting for dark matter.

Encased in the form of an ancient Scottish Broch, the piece moves from a raw, primal hearth on the outside to a clinical, high-tech lab within. Down through its central well, a network of organic veins and a beating core link geological deep time, colonial exploitation, and quantum physics into one living, breathing body.

Special thanks to @my_cat_can_dj for his craftsmanship on the Xenon dark matter detector!

📷 @emrah.coban

#pahasapa #blackhills #scottishbroch #darkmatter #xenon by @deniz.uster

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25 days ago

Deniz Üster, “Kimliğin Plastiği: Canlı Sistemlerde Rejenerasyon, Entegrasyon ve Ortak Varlık” yazısında kimliği sabit bir öz olarak değil, canlı sistemlerin sürekli dönüşen, yenilenen ve birbirine geçen bir süreci olarak ele alıyor. Üster yakın zamanda yaptığı araştırmalarından hareketle ürettiği çalışmaları üzerinden kolektif bir yaşamın imkânlarını, doğanın aktörlerini düşünüyor.

Deniz Üster, “Hidra Tapınağı”, pirinç, çörten, paslanmaz çelik, bakır, 2025, 42x52 cm

#çapak #çapakyazıçizi #denizüster #sanat #artist by @deniz.uster

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a month ago

“Regolith Dreams” showcases a cultivation of Circinaria gyrosa, an extremophilic lichen, itself a symbiotic partnership of fungus and alga, housed within a glass dome. Such lichens, renowned for their capacity to survive the vacuum of space and mend damaged structures through biomineralisation, are envisioned by scientists as key to establishing off-world habitations and sustainable building on Earth. However, this scene is imbued with a quiet cynicism; it presents not a blueprint for a desirable future, but rather a reflective contemplation on the hubris inherent in colonising alien environments with terrestrial biology. by @deniz.uster

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2 months ago

Deniz Üster, “Kimliğin Plastiği: Canlı Sistemlerde Rejenerasyon, Entegrasyon ve Ortak
Varlık” yazısında kimliği sabit bir öz olarak değil, canlı sistemlerin sürekli dönüşen,
yenilenen ve birbirine geçen bir süreci olarak ele alıyor. Üster yakın zamanda yaptığı
araştırmalarından hareketle ürettiği çalışmaları üzerinden kolektif bir yaşamın
imkânlarını, doğanın aktörlerini düşünüyor.
.
.
#çapak #çapakyazıçizi #denizuster #art #artist by @deniz.uster

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3 months ago

🧿 14.5 saat elektrik kesintisi icerisinde erken dogum gunu kutlamalari 🧿 taken in Peynir Çiçeği by @deniz.uster

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3 months ago

Snapshots from the workshop I hosted during my residency at Cove Park. Our collective walk was an exercise in sensory translation, invitation and play.

Using simple instruments like ear trumpets and lenses, we stepped outside of conventional observation and allowed ourselves to fully inhabit our senses. It was a beautiful process of suspending judgement, testing new possibilities, and deeply recalibrating how we connect with and experience the natural terrain.

Heartfelt thanks to @thebridgeawards for making this opportunity possible, to the marvellous @cove_park team for their incredible support, and to my wonderfully curious participants for bringing the experience to life. taken in Cove Park by @deniz.uster

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5 months ago

At @cove_park , we became cartographers of the senses, guided by curious lenses and ear trumpets, keen for subtle echoes. Across the vast mirror of Loch Long, past gorse fields ablaze with golden song, to a pond alive with jazzy whispers, and beneath the embracing presence of an ancient oak – we journeyed.

Here, the world unfolded not as seen, but as tasted, heard, felt. The loch tasted of liquorice, its expanse like air, like sound, like a million clicks. Our forms embraced the stream, becoming porous and unbound. Leaves rustled secrets, trees breathed, and tiny lives conversed in spice and fizz. Yellow blooms offered sweet chowder, yet guarded with scratchy comfort.

In this shared landscape, we dissolved into ‘an arriving,’ an alien collective perceiving for the very first time. Each glance through a copper trumpet, each touch of moss, each inhalation of sun-warmed gorse, wove us into a tapestry of shared sensation. We didn’t just observe; we merged. This was a suspension of disbelief, a collective consciousness finding essence, finding unity, in the vibrant, synesthetic heart of Cove Park.

A heartfelt thank you to @mo.jango whose beautiful voice breathes life into this film. This project was made possible with the support of @thebridgeawards

#covepark #synesthesia #sensory #theremin #yellow taken in Cove Park by @deniz.uster

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5 months ago

Embarking on a sensory odyssey! Delighted to announce my residency at @cove_park , supported by the @thebridgeawards . Over the next ten days, my theremin and I will be undertaking a focused exploration into the intricate relationship between our senses. Through close observation of Cove Park’s 50-acre grounds, we aim to uncover how one perception can inform another – from listening to the subtle textures of moss, to experiencing the nuances of sound, sight, and scent.

Wearing our synesthesia hats and utilising tools like ear trumpets, binoculars, and magnifying glasses, we will engage with microcosms, allowing for a deeper sensory immersion. This period of research is foundational for a new science fiction film project, to which it will also contribute essential audio material. It marks a significant step in my journey to explore sound as a new dimension in my practice.

I am profoundly grateful to @cove_park and @thebridgeawards for providing this invaluable opportunity to develop this interdisciplinary groundwork. taken in Cove Park by @deniz.uster

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5 months ago

Location update!

Due to temporary closure of the walking paths at Peaton Hill Nature Reserve, the ‘Ways of Seeing’ Workshop with multidisciplinary artist Deniz Uster will take place across Cove Park’s 50-acre grounds on Wednesday 13 May from 10am-12.30pm (Link in bio to book your place)

During this exploratory walk, we will engage with the landscape through a synesthetic lens. You will be invited to experiment with how one sense can awaken another, using simple tools and props like ear trumpets, and magnifying glasses. We will practice suspending disbelief and play with possibilities while thinking about different ways to experience the landscape and become more aware of our senses. Afterwards you are invited to join us in the Jacobs Building for creative journaling and reflection over coffee and biscuits.

These immersive experiences will lay the groundwork for a science fiction film to be produced at a future date, for which Deniz will be seeking around 10 volunteers to act within these extraordinary sensory landscapes.

Born in Istanbul, Deniz Uster is a Scotland-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans across geological and scientific inquiry to form pluralistic social narratives, using science fiction as her primary discipline, where fictional shifts in nature form the foundation for alternative social structures, cultures, and economic systems. She invites us to imagine a collectivity that exceeds multispecies approaches; to include not only microorganisms but also elements and forces, from water to minerals. Deniz is here as part of the Bridge Awards Residencies.

This workshop will take place outside and with limited facilities so please dress for the weather and wear appropriate footwear for walking.

Image: The Bridge at Cove Park (photography, Tommy Ga-Ken Wan) by @deniz.uster

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5 months ago