Aras Gökten

German photographer Aras Gökten (Ostkreuzschule Berlin 2014) focuses in his series Arkanum on today’s metropolis and investigates man’s relationship to its urban environment and architecture. The cores of different major cities in Germany built the stage for this work. But also places like trade fairs, outlet centers, shopping malls and airports. These places are designed with certain functions and have become generic around the world, easily recognizable for those who have a need for them. However, within these artificial environments, architects and designers have placed motifs that refer to nature in an effort to make people feel more at home in this concrete urban jungle. These places primarily serve to inspire fictitious, inner images. They are artificial, a result of simulations and hundreds of technical discussions between bureaucrats, engineers and financial supporters. As a subject of the urban and corporate kingdom that resides in these structures one hardly notices anymore the strangeness and the alienation this actually implies. With his photographs Gökten points it out to us again, resulting in uncanny images we can all recognize of our daily life.

www.arasgoekten.com