AION: A Space Deriven at Infinity

AION is an immaterial spatial experiment - continuously in motion, constantly regenerating itself through the reciprocal interaction of body, perception, and environment.

Category: Temporary Installation

Architects: İlişimler

Design Team: Ayçin Atukeren, Betül Uçkan, Tolga Aydoğdu

Event: International Architecture Biennial Antalya 2025 – IABA 4.5

Location: Kepez Battery Factory, Antalya, Türkiye

Area: 25 m²

Year: 2025

Photography: Doğan Kütükçü

Video: Bulut Gümüşboğa

Supporters: İstanbul Medipol University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Design and Architecture & Prof. Dr. Attila Dikbaş (Dean of the faculty), Dicle Kahraman, Soner Çollu, Batu Demirkol, Çağlar İşbilir

Installed at the Kepez Battery Factory within the International Architecture Biennial of Antalya 2025 - IABA 4,5, AION responds structurally and experientially to the biennial’s theme ‘In-Between’. It creates an in-between state — shifting between stillness and observation, touch and becoming the very substance of space; between experiencing the environment and actively producing it.

AION is an immaterial spatial experiment that emerges through the co-agency of time, space, and bodies. By interacting with the user, it envelops them physically, emotionally, and cognitively- constructing a layered immersive experience. As sensory intensities accumulate through this interaction, the space continuously regenerates itself into infinity. The user is no longer merely a spectator but becomes both part of the content -and therefore its co-producer- as well as an active experiencer. In this way, AION transcends static architectural boundaries; it is dynamic, performative, and constantly becoming.

AION does not propose a conventionally defined volume; instead, it aims to offer a relational field shaped by user movement. In this hybrid space, constructed through the convergence of material and immaterial layers, generative visual content is projected onto semi-permeable surfaces via projection mapping.

The spatial process begins within a completely darkened 5×5×5 m³ volume, where a soft structure is suspended from the ceiling. The translucent textile surfaces act simultaneously as boundaries and thresholds, creating an environment that behaves not as a solid mass but as a fluid spatial body. Calibrated to the human scale and its spatial reach, the environment unfolds as a multidirectional, multilayered field with no fixed beginning, end, or center.

Within TouchDesigner, a dynamic generative system is constructed by integrating data from motion, transformation, density, and sound. This system forms a drifting cloud of particles, each with its own rhythm and lifespan, dispersing freely across space. Sound merges with this visual flow, amplifying intensity, timelessness, and rhythm. The audiovisual stream becomes an enclosing field with the potential to immerse the user. This evolving content is then projected onto semi-transparent surfaces via three projectors, enhancing the particles' multidirectional motion.

Participants are then invited into the installation. They move freely, touch the immaterial surfaces, and guide both their bodies and the layers they encounter. No longer mere observers, they become co-creators of the space. Bodily gestures transform the visual, sonic, and physical layers. Each interaction deepens sensory intensity, unfolding a synesthetic experience. With every step, the space is reconstructed; each moment offers a unique, personal encounter.

AION proposes a shift from ‘space as a static object’ toward ‘space as an ongoing process of becoming’. Wherever the body exists, space is born again, an infinite cycle of regeneration. Here, space becomes a Thing, sensed, shared, and collectively produced, shaped by relations and intensities rather than by objects and forms.

“An empty pitch-black void,

gaining semi-boundaries through tulle—

light and sound awaken its stillness;

through the presence of the body,

it becomes a dynamic field

that immerses its users.”

#ImmersiveSpace #ImmaterialSpace #ProjectionMapping #GenerativeDesign #SynestheticExperience #InternationalArchitectureBiennialofAntalya2025 #IABA4,5