ARK : Ayshe R. Kizilçay (b. 1980, Neuchâtel, Switzerland), is an audiovisual and digital artist based in Geneva, Switzerland.
ARK’s artistic practice is a sustained inquiry into the hidden architectures of perception, meaning, and the multiplicity of reality. Her work arises from a lifelong fascination with all things media and early digital systems, first sparked as a "xenial child" by encounters with VHS tapes and the Commodore 64. This early enchantment evolved into a complex exploration of time, memory, and often, an implicitly critical position toward the histories of women in art and technology.
She left formal schooling at 16, finding its structures too rigid for her non-adaptive temperament. Yet, her abiding obsession with learning, driven by a curiosity for how systems function, whether in machines, the human mind, or the realms of art ultimately led her back into academia. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Media Art before completing a Master’s degree with jury distinctions at the HEAD, Geneva. She subsequently studied Information Systems in an advanced studies program at the CUI, Geneva, and is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Psychology at the University of Geneva, all while continuing her artistic practice.
ARK's creative process draws from disparate yet interconnected realms : analytical psychology, chaos magick, steganography, and cryptographic systems. She approaches images and words as interchangeable ciphers, each concealing and revealing truths in layered, symbolic strata. Her practice has an almost devotional intensity, treating code, pattern, and symbol as sacred architectures through which the ineffable might be glimpsed.
Her art navigates the paradoxes of the human–non-human continuum, delving into Freud’s "Unheimliche" as a zone where rationality dissolves into discomfort. Her work resists easy categorization, balancing rigorous conceptual inquiry with a sensibility that borders on the mystical, seeking to render visible the invisible logics that shape existence itself.
Exhibited widely in institutional contexts as well as cyber and independent spaces throughout Europe and Asia, ARK sustains a practice deliberately positioned outside the commercial art market, as both philosophical stance and political choice, true to her underdog nature. A former member of the Mac Gyver Manifesto (a DIY collective engaged in artistic experimentation and hacktivism), she also became a member of the Internet Defense League when it first launched and is a strong advocate for neurodiversity, drawing from personal experience to challenge dominant narratives and the powers in place.
She likes the number 7 but loves the number 4.
✚ Blind Visions, ScreenSaverGallery, Czech Republic, 2024 ✚ Biennale.NO, Nowhere, Norway, 2024 ✚ One-Off Moving Image Festival, Valencia, Spain & Gol, Norway, 2024 ✚ Gol Days Festival, Near Field Digital Art Biennale Anniversary, Gol, Norway, 2024 ✚ Vorspiel (Transmediale), Berlin, Germany, February 2024 ✚ TIGDA, Taipei City, Taiwan, October 2021 ✚ Cartopodes, Les Topophoniques, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2021 ✚ Expo A3/A6, Espace DémArt, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2021 ✚ One-Off Moving Image Festival, Valencia, Spain & Gol, Norway, 2020 ✚ The Wrong Biennale, Circle/Triangle Gallery, Wrocław, Poland, 2019-2020 ✚ NRW Forum, Düsseldorf, Germany, 2018 ✚ Valencia LEG, Parque de la Cultura (MUVIM), Valencia, Spain, 2018 ✚ NFCW, Wrocław, Poland, 2018 ✚ Near enough, BrowserBased &Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2018 ✚ NFCW, Warsaw, Poland, June 2018 ✚ NFCDAB (Near Field Communication and Digital Art Biennale), Gol, Norway, May 2018 ✚ Kulturnat, Institut Français du Danemark, Copenhagen, Denmark, October 13, 2018 ✚ International Autonomous Biennale (OR Cf), The Research Pavilion, Venice, Italy, 2017 – not credited, as part of a program curated by Bjørn Magnhildøen ✚ Piksel17, Free Arts & Technology Festival (festival for elektronisk kunst og fri teknologi), SKUR 14 (PIKSEL STUDIO), Bergen, Norway, 2017 ✚ Une Vue, Ateliers Ouverts, Meisenthal, France, 2017 ✚ Hotel Europa, Concordia Centre of the Arts (Concordia Arts Center), Enschede, The Netherlands, 2016 ✚ DAF (Deviant Art Festival), La Reliure, Geneva, Switzerland, 2016 ✚ Leap Second Festival, cyberspace, Norway, 2015 ✚ LUFF, Humus Library, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2014 - curation of Pornorthopedia exhibition, with the Starlope collective ✚ The else { } statement, solo exhibition part of "from sand grains to rock, and back", Kunstunion, Zürich, Switzerland, 2014 ✚ Monstre Festival, L’Usine, Geneva, Switzerland, 2013 – with the Mac Gyver Manifesto collective ✚ Salefriche Festival, Geneva, Switzerland, 2013 ✚ Emergency, Usine Kugler, Geneva, Switzerland, 2013 – hacking gutter press workshop ✚ The Heap (w/ Mac Gyver Manifesto), Live In Your Head Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012 ✚ Festival Tous Écrans, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012 – member of the international short film selection committee ✚ Vous êtes ici, MAMCO, Thomas Huber exhibition, Geneva, Switzerland, 2012 – conceptual design, management & actuation of a performative mediation system with Marine Froeliger & Maud Le Monnier ✚ Les Urbaines Festival, Marelle, Raphaël Julliard exhibition, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2011 – theatricalized guided tour, conceptual design, curating & Julliard-related authoring with Marine Froeliger & Maud Le Monnier ✚ Café des Rêves, work selected for the media library, Helmhaus, Zurich, Switzerland, 2011 ✚ Fenêtre sur Lac, Live Art Club, Nuit des Bains, Geneva, Switzerland, 2011 ✚ GNOK GNIK, Agent Double Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland, 2010 ✚ Electric Rendez-Vous, Plug In – New Media Institution, Basel, Switzerland, 2009