Ces XC

Where are you from, where are you based now and can you tell us a little about both?

I’m from Istanbul, Turkey, a city that’s always been more than a background to me. It’s chaotic, cinematic, spiritual, and alive at every corner. I’m still based here, between the noise of the streets and the calm of the Bosphorus. Istanbul gave me the contrast of luxury and decay, movement and stillness, and that duality shaped how I see everything today.

You started photographing Istanbul’s streets as a teenager, what initially drew you to capture those moments and experiences?

I was fascinated by how much emotion could exist in a single frame. The people, the cars, the textures, the colors… They were all stories waiting to be told. Photography became my way of freezing those small, invisible moments that most people walk past.

At what point did photography shift from being a way to “preserve memories” into something deeper for you?

When I realized that a photograph doesn’t have to document something and that it can create it. That’s when I started to mix my memories with imagination, bending reality instead of just recording it. That’s also when I began to understand that my camera could be a tool for storytelling, not just nostalgia.

How did growing up in Istanbul, a city of contrasts and crossroads shape your visual identity as an artist?

Istanbul is a constant collision – between East and West, old and new, spiritual and mechanical. That tension lives in my work. I like to combine the familiar and the surreal, the street and the luxury, the human and the digital. Growing up here taught me how to find poetry in contradiction.

What drove you to start digitally manipulating your images and exploring AI-assisted visuals?

Curiosity. I wanted to see how far I could push an image while still keeping its soul intact. AI gave me a new language to expand the stories I already had but not to replace photography, but to evolve it. It’s like using a new kind of lens that sees beyond the physical world.

Your work blurs the line between photography, design, and digital art. What excites you about working at that intersection?

It’s the freedom. I don’t have to choose a medium. One image can live as a photo, a collage, a sculpture, or a digital dream. That space in-between is where new aesthetics are born and where imperfection meets imagination.

How do you see AI influencing or transforming the future of photography and visual storytelling?

AI won’t kill photography. It’ll redefine it. We’ll see more artists using AI as an extension of their eye, not a replacement. The future will be about curation, vision, and narrative – who uses the tool with intention, not who just presses “generate.”

Your visuals merge tradition and modernity such as Nike logos on camels, chromed scooters in old Istanbul streets. How do you find balance between humor, critique, and beauty in your compositions?

I try not to overthink that balance. Life here is already absurd! Luxury brands in crumbling neighbourhoods, tradition next to consumerism. I just hold a mirror to that reality, but I try to make it poetic. Humor and critique are part of the same language.

When working on an image, what comes first? The concept, the emotion, or the visual experiment? How much of it is planned versus intuitive?

It usually starts with a feeling – a color, a sound, a memory. Then it evolves visually. I plan the structure but let intuition lead the way. The best images happen when something unexpected appears, something you can’t design… It just happens.

You often reference Turkish culture, music, and street life. What role does cultural documentation play in your work and your self as an artist?

It’s everything. I want to archive the soul of where I come from, but in my own language. The tea glasses, the cars, the streets, the uncles and aunts. They’re all symbols of memory and identity. My work is a bridge between nostalgia and evolution.

Your pieces often evoke nostalgia and futurism at once – What do you want the viewer to take away from your work?

I want them to feel something familiar yet new – like remembering a dream they never had. My goal isn’t to explain, it’s to trigger emotion. Maybe a bit of longing, maybe wonder, maybe confusion — that’s fine too.

What’s next for you? Artistically or personally…

I’m focused on pushing my hybrid visual language further by mixing analog, AI, and physical exhibitions together. More collaborations, more travel, and more projects that connect cultures. Personally, I just want peace, good work, and the people I love around me.

Where can we find you online?

You can find me everywhere and nowhere at once… Scattered across the internet like fragments of a dream. Sometimes it’s Instagram, sometimes a magazine, sometimes an unexpected corner of someone’s moodboard. My work lives in digital spaces, but also in the feelings it leaves behind. So maybe you’ll find me not just online, but anywhere you feel something – in a color, in a streetlight, in a moment that quietly stays with you.