Ozge Samanci

Ozge Samanci is a media artist and graphic novelist. Her areas of interest include media arts, interactive art, installation art, emerging technologies, AI, VR, XR, fabrication, critical making, creative coding, environmental studies, comics, and graphic novels. Her recent interactive art installations have roots in the natural sciences and explore the tendency of human beings to perceive themselves above all ecosystems.

Her interactive installations have been exhibited internationally at venues such as Museu do Amanhã, Siggraph Art Gallery, FILE Festival, Currents New Media, The Tech Museum of Innovation, WRO Media Art Biennial, Athens International Festival of Digital Arts and New Media, Piksel Electronic Arts Festival, and ISEA.

Her graphic memoir "Dare to Disappoint" (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2015) has been translated into six languages. Her second graphic novel, "Evil Eyes Sea" (Uncivilized Books, 2024), was named one of The Guardian’s best graphic novels of 2024. Her drawings have appeared in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and Slate Magazine.

Samanci has received the Berlin Prize in 2017, when she was also the Holtzbrinck Visual Arts Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. She was honored with the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Distinguished Alumni Award (2020) from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Artist Fellowship Award in Media Arts (2023) from the Illinois Arts Council.

Education

• PhD, Digital Media, Georgia Institute of Technology
• MA, Communication Studies, Ohio University
• MA, Film and Television, Istanbul Bilgi University
• BA, Mathematics, Bogazici University

Works

• VastWaste, 2022, Data-driven Projection Art and VR installation
• You are the Ocean, 2018, Brainwaves Driven Projection Art Installation

Publications

Books

• 2024 Fall, Evil Eye Graphic Novel, Uncivilized Books
• 2015, Dare to Disappoint (autobiographical graphic novel), MacMillan: Farrar Straus and Giroux
• 2004, Animasyonun Onlenemez Yukselisi (The Irresistible Rise of Animation), Istanbul Bilgi University Publications, Istanbul

Book Chapter

• 2022, Rejected Passport Photos, In IGNITE: A Justice-Forward Approach to Decolonizing Higher Education through Space, Place, and Culture. Writing and images, Vernon Press
• 2015, Earthquakes in Film: Exploring Visual Strategies, In Film on the Faultline, Edited by Alan Wright, Intellect Press.

Journal Articles

• 2022, Ozge Samanci, Stephan Moore, Jenni Hutson, Jonathan Davis, Wren Gotschalk, Jack Burkhardt, Rachel Kantor, Liza Salvi, VastWaste, SIGGRAPH '22 Art Papers in Special Issue of Leonardo, MIT Press.
• 2019, Ozge Samanci, Adam Snyder, Gabriel Caniglia, Fiber Optic Ocean, SIGGRAPH '19 Art Papers in Special Issue of Leonardo, MIT Press.
• 2018, Ozge Samanci, Gabriel Caniglia, You are the Ocean, SIGGRAPH '18 Art Papers in Special Issue of Leonardo, MIT Press.
• 2018 Ozge Samanci, Adam Snyder, Fiber Optic Ocean, Merging Media for Data Representation, VISAP 16-17 Special Issue, Leonardo Journal, MIT Press.
• 2015, Fast Forwarding through Turkey's Last Ten Years with Ordinary Things, Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 2.2 (2015): 307-334.
• 2014, Embodied site-specific animation, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 20.1 (2014): 14-24.
• 2011, From Site-specific Comics to Location-based Comics: Ordinary Things, Planting Comics, The Journal of the International Digital Media and Arts Association (2011): 25.
• 2006, Lynda Barry's Humor: At the Juncture of Private and Public, Invitation and Dissemination, Childish and Professional, International Journal of Comic Art 8.2 (2006): 181-199.

Peer Reviewed Conference Papers –Published by Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Machinery (ACM) Press and IEEE Xplore—-

• 2019, Ozge Samanci and Gabriel Caniglia, You are the Ocean: Interactive Installation, C&C '19 Proceedings of the 2019 on Creativity and Cognition pp. 414-421
• 2017, Ozge Samanci, Adam Snyder, Fiber Optic Ocean: Merging Media for Data Representation, IEEE VIS, VISAP 2017, IEEE Xplore
• 2014, Ozge Samanci, Blacki Li Rudi Migliozzi, Daniel Sabio, Plink Blink: Collaborative Music Production via Blinking Eyes, In Proc. Advances in Computer Entertainment (ACE'14), ACM Press.
• 2014, Ozge Samanci, Impact of Digital Media on Comics. In Proc. SIGGRAPH'14, ACM Press
• 2012, Ozge Samanci, Anuj Tewari. Expanding the Comics Canvas: GPS Comics. In Proc. Fun and Games Conference, In Proc. Fun and Games (FnG'13), ACM Press, 27-34.
• 2010, Ozge Samanci and Anuj Tewari, GPS Comics: Seeing thru Walls. In Proc. SIGGRAPH'0 Posters (single page publication), ACM Press.
• 2008, Aimee Rydarowski, Ozge Samanci, and Ali Mazalek, Murmur: Kinetic Relief Sculpture, Multi-Sensory Display, Listening Machine. In Proc. Tangible and Embedded Interaction (TEI'08), ACM Press, 231-238.
• 2007, Ozge Samanci, Yanfeng Chen, and Ali Mazalek, Tangible Comics: A Performance Space with Full-body Interaction, In Proc. Advances in Computer Entertainment (ACE'07), ACM Press, 171-178.

Recent Awards and Honors

• 2023, Artist Fellowship Award in Media Arts, The Illinois Arts Council.
• 2022, Finalist for the Wolinski Prize
• 2020, The Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Distinguished Alumni Award, Georgia Institute of Technology
• 2017, Berlin Prize, American Academy in Berlin
• 2016, Dare to Disappoint, Middle East Book Award
• 2016, Dare to Disappoint, 30th Annual New York Book Show
• 2015, Clarence Simon Award for Teaching and Mentoring

Courses

• Filmmaking with Emerging Technologies
• Critical Making
• Drawing for Media
• Virtual and Alternate Reality Storytelling
• Computer Code as Expressive Medium