Customs and Borders
Zeynep Özcan

Customs and Borders is a transducer-based interactive live performance that challenges the audience’s perception on social identities through playful engagement and critical reflection. Utilizing objects symbolic of immigration, such as passports, stamps, and single-hole punches, the performance highlights the tangible artifacts of border crossing. As the performer takes on the role of a customs and border protection officer, the performance intentionally blurs the lines between authority and absurdity, inviting the audience to question the power structures at play in such contexts.

Become part of the performance!

This performance is interactive, and I invite volunteers to participate. Please pick up a passport near the stage and approach the performer with it. The performer will then decide whether to grant you entry with a stamp or deny it.


 
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Dr. Zeynep Özcan is an experimental and electronic music composer, sound artist and performer. She explores biologically inspired musical creativity, interactive and immersive environments, and generative systems. Her works have been performed and presented throughout the world in concerts, exhibitions, and conferences, such as AES, ICAD, ICMC, ISEA, NIME, NYCEMF, WAC and ZKM. s She is an Assistant Professor and a faculty director of Girls in Music and Technology (GiMaT), Summer Institute at the Department of Performing Arts Technology at the University of Michigan, School of Music, Theatre & Dance. She specializes in the implementation of software systems for music-making, audio programming, sonification, sensors and microcontrollers, novel interfaces for musical expression, and large-scale interactive installations.  Her research interests are exploring bio-inspired creativity, artistic sonification, playfulness and failure in performance, and sonic cyberfeminisms. She is passionate about community building and creating multicultural and collaborative learning experiences for students through technology-driven creativity.



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