YUSUF DEMIRORS

ABOUT
CONTACT

FILM
Suya Dokun (Touch the Water)
Archura Leaves New York Forever

PHOTOGRAPHY
Kopek Gunler (Dog Days)
Uzayli
Prints

EXPERIMENTS
Wingless Bird a Mirror Be
Kovboy Makine

A lost and amnesiac narrator explores the toxic and alien waterways of New York City in order to discover his relationship to this environment and what it means to be human.

Touch the Water is a short speculative-fiction documentary (2023). It was shot with 16mm and almost entirely at contaminated water sites in NYC. It documents the waterways of the city, the environmental history of the city’s industrialization, and sites of de-industrialization, while also navigating these sites through the perspective of an alienated immigrant. 

Past screenings:
Belfast Film Festival - 2024
Rockaway Film Festival - NY 2024
Ultradogme (Now Serving: Experimental Shorts by Trans  Filmmakers) -  2024
Yofi Queer Fest - NY 2024
Moviate  Underground Film Festival - Harrisburg,  USA 2024
Videoart.Ist Screening Program  -  Istanbul, 2024
Film Diarcy NYC - Brooklyn, NY 2024
Baby Teeth Film Festival - Brooklyn, NY 2023
Light Mater Film Festival - Albery, NY 2023
Antimatter [Media Art] - Victoria, Canada 2023
Beijing International Short Film Festival - Beijing, China 2023
ARCHURA LEAVES NEW YORK FOREVER (WIP)
A lost forest spirit named Archura explores New York and tries to find a home while confronting an urban landscape that is rapidly taken over by luxury developments. Archura Leaves New York Forever (2024) is a performative reenactment of the myth of Archura in order to reframe the housing crises and the commodification of land. The mythical creature from Central Asian Folklore is lost and powerless in the city, failing to draw boundaries between where he and humans should live. He is confused in the maze of ever-growing luxury towers that become impenetrable fortresses threatening this spirit’s very existence. 

This is an ongoing project as part of my fellowship at Third World Newsreel.
When I See the Ocean I Want to Cry

Moving diary and surf film. Queer Surf Camp, Mendocino / California, 2024.
Music by Joe Asprea
KOPEK GUNLER // DOG DAYS

DARKROOM PRINTS
UZAYLICreated as part of a series of phozines in collaboration with FAZ collective, an artists collective based in Ankara/Turkey, and the art-book publisher FAIL books, based in Stockholm and Istanbul. UZAYLI was created (2020) during the lockdown and is a response to the experience of isolation and deformation in and beyond the pandemic.
A WINGLESS BIRD A MIRROR BE

A Wingless Bird a Mirror Be is an ongoing series of experiments in programming digital video synthesizers from scratch to manipulate low-resolution video tapes like hi8 and vhs-c. This project is working to create alternative, patchy, and irrational ways of using existing technology as a response to the development of tech in capitalism and modernity as a tool for “advancement” or accumulation. The name for this project comes from a quote from Rumi after going through an algorithmic process which I later developed into a video-based program. I use p5js and shaders to code visual effects that work with low-resolution video. The interface can be interactive and used in a web-based platform to create live visuals by translating between analog signals from a camcorder and the language of code. My aim is to explore different ways of moving across analog and digital, hand-made or recycled hardware and software. I have been building this program so it can incorporate various hardware tools, such as my hand-made breadboard video synthesizer, old webcams found in estate sales, analog TV’s, and other e-waste. 
The project has two sides: one manifested physically through the hardware that I build as a sculpture in my apartment and the web-facing program that this sculpture operates through.


KOVBOY MAKINE is a Turkish-language poetry e-zine. It can be navigated by word and image association. The reader can click on words or drawings to navigate the long-form poem. It consists of poems written entirely on subway rides on my way to work at a children’s art studio. It deals with the themes of immigration to the USA, childhood, green card applications, and tech-induced nightmares. Written with the spirit of “poetry is not a luxury”.
ABOUT
Yusuf Demirors is a multidisciplinary media artist currently based in Brooklyn, NY. He was born in Turkey and moved to NY in 2020 to create a safer space for practicing as a transgender artist and researcher.  He works with alternative mediums in film and photography and explores the interfaces between analog and digital technologies. He holds a BA in Anthropology from the University of Oxford and an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from CUNY. During this time, he researched committed film and literature in the context of the history of Palestine. His most recent film, Suya Dokun, was screened in festivals and venues worldwide. He is currently a Production fellow at Third World News Reel. 

Email: yusufdemirors97@gmail.com
Past Group Shows:
Territorial Imperative - Deluge Contemporary Art (Victoria, Canada) 2023. Media installations that explore issues around ecology, colonialism, commodified landscapes and interspecies communications. 
TUYAP International Istanbul Arts Festival - Photo Show on Queer Love, 2018
Herschel’s Shadow - Atelier Marvy, 2018. Alternative printing showcase.

Past Screenings:
Suya Dokun (Touch the Water)
   Yofi Queer Fest - NY 2024
   Rockaway Film Festival - NY 2024
   Moviate  Underground Film Festival - Harrisburg,  USA 2024
   Videoart.Ist Screening Program  -  Istanbul, 2024
   Film Diarcy NYC - Brooklyn, NY 2024
   Baby Teeth Film Festival - Brooklyn, NY 2023
   Light Mater Film Festival - Albert, NY 2023
   Antimatter [Media Art] - Victoria, Canada 2023
   Beijing International Short Film Festival - Beijing, China 2023
   Film Diarcy NYC - Brooklyn, NY 2024
   Baby Teeth Film Festival - Brooklyn, NY 2023
   Light Mater Film Festival - Albery, NY 2023
   Antimatter [Media Art] - Victoria, Canada 2023
    
Past Publications:
Bahis Disi Kiz Kardes -  Turkish language translation of Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider (Otonom Press) https://www.otonomyayincilik.com/en/kopyas%C4%B1-jacques-lacan-feminist-bir-4
Alien - Photozine in collaboration with FAZ collective and FAIL books.
When Saeed Betrays Fuad: Laughing at the Mechanized Occupation (2020) https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5458&context=gc_etds
Donmeh -  Poety https://velvele.net/2021/01/17/yeryuzu-agaci-yusuf-demirors/

Teaching Positions:
Creative Technologist at GIANT ROOM 2021 - 2022
Teaching Assistant in Introduction to Visual Culture, with Margot Bauman (Parsons, NY) - 2022/23
Research Assistant for Amir Husak -2023/24
Research Assistant for Benoit Challand - 2023/24
Course Assistant in First Person, with Lana Lin (New School) - 2024

Production:

YUSUF DEMIRORS © 2024