You handle a lot of business at the same time. We know you both as a musician and an academic. Can you briefly talk about the things you do?

You are right, but I believe it would be more accurate to mention myself as a musician. In fact, it can be said that my academic career and my musician identity have developed together. I play bas guitar in Replikas since 1998. I spend most of my time with music; recording albums, composing soundtracks and giving concerts. But it’s not the same as before nowadays. We have a hardworking menager now. He undertakes most of our works except music. Other than that, I give lectures at Sabancı University Visual Arts and Comminication Design Department as a full-time lecturer.

When did you become a lecturer at Sabancı University Visual Arts and Communication Design Department and how?

In fact I studied maths. But it was already more than a hobby for me to be engaged in music. After my graduation, I got an offer from Sabancı University through Selim Birsel. I started to give a lecture about 'Sound and Image' on a part-time basis. After a while my interests broadened into interactive design and I also began to give lectures on that subject. So I started to work full-time there.

Can you broaden the interactive design subject? What do you usually talk about in your lectures?

I try to take the interaction thing one step away from a single mouse click. I generally do Flash designs for the market. But at the university, we do some works on physical media interactions using Max/MSP like environments, too. We developed a system with a camera that follows motions using color codes. I write some games that you play using neither keyboard nor mouse but an everyday object. For example, you put on a simple knee pad in front of a camera and you can hop a ball on the computer. Other than that, I produce some artworks using heat-sensors and distance-sensors that merge physical environment with computer environment. Then we share these with student on course and we produce new works.

New Media is a brand new field; it’s obvious just by looking the name. Do you feel lonely as an academic on that field?

Generally being an academic need some serious experience. But to be called "experienced" on this field, all you need is a few years. Day by day new technologies and softwares are put on the market, and the subjects you lecture about every year, change instantly. It turns out that learning is a never-ending profession on this field. According to me the main problem is not the application development but the lack of theorists. Thankfully, the theory of our profession is being put into writing. However, I feel that, the people, who seriously deal with theory, lack a lot in development; or vice versa. Eventually, the words and the works always dangle in air. It takes time to investigate which book is published or who is working on what, while monkeying about with a programme. I won't claim that I do both of these issues well, but there are only a few people around me who are aware of even this.

What is the design process of your creative behavior or your techniques?

Indeed, every work is a blank page for me. Mostly, I am aimed to get out of it and try to forget what I have learned. I am trying to contrive a special work. There are so many people who copy a website and sell it as their own website format. What I am trying to do is creating all designs and artwork by my interests and perspective. To ensure that one needs a clean, white piece of paper and start sketching on it. It is a positive way of creating ideas. In my opinion, it is not the way to develop someone's ideas, it is what i could not get with it. In fact the sketch is the conclusion. At least, some perceptible notions develop that I can tell I have seen this before. The next step is the application with computer, at this stage the platform also gives me some new ideas.

You have taken your master's degree on Sonic Arts in London. Can you tell a few words about Sonic Arts? And how does New Media progress in London?

Indeed, both questions will have a mutual answer. Let's start with Sonic Arts. Indeed, my school gives training of New Media profession under the Electronic Arts subject. Sonic Arts is an art division of which the main material is sound. While a sculptor gives a shape with stone or metal, here you make it with sound. Of course, the computer technology provides endless opportunities. You can synthesize and develop the sound that you want to use in your expression, or even, you can write computer software. When I was in London, there was a huge interest in Sonic Arts. There was a big sound installation by Bruce Nauman in Tate Modern. Indeed, there were many sound related exhibitions happening in Tate Modern. And ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts) has organised very beautiful events on New Media. As far as I remember, Interactive Institute exhibition from Switzerland was very good.

Who are your favourite designers and artists?

The ones I follow in web-media are Joshua Davis (www.joshuadavis.com), Jared Tarbell (www.levitated.net), Yugo Nakamura (www.yugop.com) and Ferry Halim (www.ferryhalim.com). About the sound subject, I try to read Curtis Roads’ and Trevor Wishart’s books as much as I can. The main names whom I like in Sonic Arts are Kit Clayton, Merzbow and Janek Schaffer.

You have a Flash photo album script that you distribute from www.hotscripts.com for free. Can you talk about it? Why do you distribute it free? Nearly thirty thousand people have downloaded it so far.

To be honest, I created the application based on my personal needs while I was designing a web site for Replikas. Later, I realized that it can be useful for other users too, so I decided to place it to a script coding website, Hotscripts, which was already one of my my favourite pit stops surfing the web. They enjoyed my software and started to serve it to community. I decided to charge no fee from downloaders because people always pay some amount of money for the softwares and the results may not meet the expectations. I haven’t had a strong belief that my software was arrogant enough but over 30 thousand downloads in less than six months had been a surprise for me. I receive e-mails everyday from the users of my application. I enjoy that very much, of course. Using these contacts, I was even able to do some business abroad. To me, the important issue is sharing the information, thus xmlphoto album was an important academic effort for me.

What are your plans for the future?

Nowadays, I am working on some projects. But I want to form workgroups which I can work with more people. It’s not an easy job though. It’s hard to obtain the harmony between people.