“Holoflux” was summarized as a digital architectural opera.
Güvenç Özel is an award-winning architect, artist, and technology expert. Indeed, he refers to himself as a cyberphysics architect and is widely considered to be a leading expert in Extended Reality (XR) in architecture, interactive robotics and machine learning. Özel’s technological sculpture was recently featured in the famous annual Coachella Music and Arts Festival.
Özel graduated from Bennington College and completed his graduate work in architecture at Yale University. He worked at the offices of leading architects such as Frank Gehry, Rafael Vinoly, and Jürgen Mayer, before founding his own, Özel Ofis. He is also an academic. He co-founded IDEAS, the graduate program and industry collaboration center of the UCLA Architecture and Urban Design Department. He teaches graduate classes in design and runs the Technology Studio, where research on design is conducted.
The digital sculpture Özel created for Coachella, “Holoflux”, was 18 meters high and was summarized as a digital architectural opera. The sculpture played with the perception of three dimensions and changed according to the changes in the environment and light conditions. It also showcased videoclips of real-time Coachella moments. The sculpture was characterized as a “hyper-object.”
Özel views his work as embodying multiple disciplines ranging from art to architecture: “At RC, I learned how to synthesize multiple interests in a cohesive whole. Many of the extracurricular activities offered at RC allowed me to be able to communicate my ideas more clearly with confidence, along with being persistent about my passions.”
Özel had previously been in the news for having won third place in a NASA competition on colonization of Mars and possible living spaces there. He shared third place with the European Space Agency.
Published July 2023
