Go back 
Guvenc Ozel
Architect, technologist and researcherGüvenç Özel is an architect, technologist and researcher working at the intersection of architecture, technology and media. He leads research and design studios at UCLA’s IDEAS platform and directs Ozel Office, an interdisciplinary design practice in Los Angeles. His work explores artificial intelligence, robotics, interactive environments and responsive architecture. His projects include Cerebral Hut, an installation that changes shape in response to audience brain activity, and award-winning research into 3D-printed habitats for future Mars missions. His work has been exhibited internationally and supported by organisations including Google, Autodesk, Microsoft and Oculus.
Cypher is a faceted sculpture with a soft robotics skin made up of silicone, held up by an aluminum frame that encases a series of linear actuators, air compressor and a computer. Through an array of infrared sensors and depth sensing cameras embedded on the skin, the sculpture has the ability to change its form, triggered by the physical proximity, gestures and moods of the users around it. Tethered to the sculpture is a virtual reality headset, allowing a user to have a real time simulation of the interior of the sculpture, turning the sculpture into an architectural scale experience. Not only the user can view the interior of the sculpture and its surface deformations real-time, but also can change the shape of the sculpture through natural gestural motions. Through the use of artificial neural networks, the sculpture starts developing its on behaviors through time as it interacts with more participants. This technological setup combines digital fabrication, physical computing, soft robotics and VR, employing machine learning and machine vision to explore telepresence as an artistic experience. Physical changes in the environment affect the digital design and make up of a space, and the changes happening in a digital environment have an ability to transform the physical environment and object. Cypher is a sculpture that exists simultaneously in the digital and the physical worlds; it has an ability to respond to changes in its environment as data, media and material.
