Palimpsestic Umurbey

Izmir

2025

An interactive audio-visual exploration that translates the physical essence of the Umurbey neighborhood into an immersive digital experience. By sonifying original photographs, this project uses the resulting audio data to drive real-time, generative visuals in TouchDesigner, creating a dynamic and reactive "sensory copy" of the physical space.

This is my first long-term project where I also get help from a lot of tox files.

elekktronaut

Pj Creations

Palimpsestic Umurbey

Here is an image from Umurbey and outcome from Touch Designer.

False Invitation

If you enter from the Alsancak side, this is likely the first thing you see. The entrance of the Şark Sanayi Kumpanyası. It is alive with paint, layers of graffiti that seem to change every year. It draws you in, begging for your attention, promising something vibrant.

But it feels like a trick. The gate is locked, and behind this colorful skin, the inside is hollow just ruins and silence. It creates a strange feeling of futility. All this effort, all this detail... for what?

It felt like a wasted invitation. A beautifully decorated cover for a book with no pages. It steals your time and your gaze, only to remind you that sometimes, the loudest surfaces are hiding the emptiest spaces.

Forgotten

You could easily miss this place. In fact, you probably would. To find it, you first have to be tricked by the colorful graffiti at the main entrance. Only if you stop and look deep to the right will you see this small, ruined structure hiding in the shadows.

It feels personal to me. It is like a deep wound that no one notices because it does not bleed on the outside. It has taken so much damage, yet it stands in total silence, waiting for healing that might never come.

I wanted to respect its loneliness. I did not make a loud or chaotic animation. Instead, I created a small, simple visual with a sound that is barely noticed. It represents the feelings of a quiet character—someone who is broken and suffers alone.

Joy

I almost walked past it, just another worn-out facade in the row. But then I saw the bottom. A bright, unapologetic turquoise, standing out against the gray like a sudden laugh in a quiet room.

It felt like a glitch in the system, a playful deviant. While everything around it was busy decaying or trying to look serious, this wall decided to keep its color. It wasn't trying to hide its age or its cracks; it was wearing them with a strange kind of joy.

The animation I saw in it wasn't heavy. It was fast, soft, and round no sharp edges, just a fluid energy. It reminded me that resilience doesn't always have to be hard and cold. Sometimes, the strongest way to survive a crumbling world is simply to refuse to be dull.

Cumulative Trauma

I stopped at the wall. It no longer looked like a solid structure, but a collection of old wounds. Brick, plaster, wood each layer was not just a repair, but a memory of breaking. It carried the effort of everyone who tried to save it, yet those repairs only made it seem more fractured.

This was not ordinary strength. It was a tired, messy kind of survival. Proof that sometimes, simply refusing to fall is the hardest fight of all.

Latency

This image was the catalyst for the entire project. It was one of the first photographs I took in Umurbey. The contrast struck me immediately: the blinding brightness of the day crashing into a pitch-black interior. It felt dangerously tense, yet strangely peaceful.

Today, it is an olive oil factory. But in the records, it was an old soap factory. That is where the mystery lies. Standing there, I was sure I smelled soap. A clean, sharp scent that should not exist anymore. Was it residue trapped in the walls, or was my mind reconstructing a memory of the space?

To visualize this phantom scent, I took a more rational approach. I used the iridescent colors of soap bubbles and the physics of fluid motion. The resulting animation is a liquid, audio-reactive flow, a digital attempt to capture a smell that was historically real but physically impossible.

Fire and Water

This huge space in the middle of Konak has been empty for five years. It is nothing but concrete, trash, and wire fences. It feels strange to see such a valuable place left to decay.

But there is a contrast here. With the old building destroyed, nothing blocks the view anymore. The ugliness of the ground lets me see the beautiful blue sky.

I wanted to show this conflict in my animation. I used soft blue shapes to represent the sky, then mixed them with sharp red and yellow signals flashing from the concrete. It looks like the ground is trying to burn, interrupting the sky’s peace.

Void

The Pierre Verbek Fountain. Built in 1941 by a grieving father for his son, who died at only 17. The silence of the dry stone matches the silence of a life cut short in its prime.

This story required a different language. I inverted the colors: a stark white background representing the purity and infinite potential of a 17-year-old. But the motion cutting through it is pitch black.

It represents a tragedy hidden in plain sight. The black forms are his dreams, trapped in a void. It is the feeling of wanting to scream but having no voice. A suffocating darkness expanding inside the bright white canvas of a future that never happened.

Fading Legacy

This building is massive. Even though it is hidden behind the trees, its sheer size makes it impossible to fully ignore. Yet, I wonder: How many people walking by every day actually know it is there? How many remember its history?

Unlike the other ruins, this one feels different. It doesn't want to hide. It feels like it is trying to be seen, standing tall to remind us of its past.

But it is a losing battle. As the trees grow thicker and the city moves faster, the building is being slowly erased. It is a giant disappearing in plain sight rotting away not just from the weather, but from our collective lack of memory.