The sixth Istanbul Digital Art Festival is set to take place in Istanbul from June 3 to 7, bringing together international artists in a showcase that explores the intersection of art, science and emerging digital systems.
The festival will feature works spanning artificial intelligence, neuroscience, robotics, bio-art, data ecology, immersive audiovisual installations and light-based environments. The program positions digital art not only as a technological display, but as a framework for examining human perception, ecological crisis and the shifting relationship between biology and computation.
Among the featured works, Mental Garden converts visitors’ brainwave activity into evolving digital floral structures, creating a living visual system shaped by neural data. SYMBIONT explores the interdependence of humans and machines, dissolving the boundary between observer and artwork through an interactive digital environment. Neural Nectar combines robotics, AI and beekeeping metaphors to reinterpret cognition through biological systems, using wax sculptures, video and mechanical elements. d.memo examines memory and identity through REM sleep aesthetics, using hyperrealistic sculpture, animatronics and projection to question how consciousness is reproduced in digital form.
Environmental themes are also central. An immersive installation simulating the melting of the Brenva Glacier translates climate breakdown into a sensory experience, while Computational Compost highlights the environmental cost of data storage and digital infrastructure.
Other works blur natural and artificial systems. Seedlings creates a biosonic network between plants using underground speakers and microtonal sound, while Planatorium stages a mechanical system sustaining plant life, reflecting on technological intervention in nature.
The program also includes augmented reality and holographic environments in The Pond, speculative AI structures in T.A.H.I.R.A – 108 and a dynamic audiovisual installation in Array Afterglow. A performance by artist Michela Pelusio, SpaceTime Helix, explores links between physics, vibration and cosmology through live visual composition.
GastroDigital’s Journey of Spice | 5 Sense VR Experience offers a multi-sensory VR exploration of Anatolia’s historic spice routes, linking gastronomy, cultural heritage and digital simulation.
