Istanbul Ticaret University Faculty of Communication, Department of Visual Communication Design organized the first Human, Art & Technology Symposium with the theme of “Human and Art in the Transformation Process” with the participation of many academicians, researchers and students.

Making the opening speech of the symposium, Vice Rector V. Prof. Dr. Rahmi Deniz Özbay expressed his gratitude on behalf of our university to the academicians who organized the symposium and the researchers who contributed to the symposium with their papers, saying that it is a great hope to be a speaker at a human-themed symposium in these days that question the value of human beings and that the outputs of this symposium will support this hope. Prof. Dr. Özbay continued his words as follows:

“The word transformation can lead us to anxiety or questioning. That is to say, the most important characteristic of human beings, which distinguishes them from other living creatures, is not that they are what they are, or that they are constantly changing in the course of time, but that they are human beings. As Shakespeare put it, ‘the whole matter of man is not to be or not to be, not to exist with the motive of maintaining his existence in the world in the face of the death he will surely face, not to change and transform aimlessly at the expense of alienation, but to be or not to be’. Human beings come into the world not to be what they are like other living beings, but to be human and face the danger of not being human. No other creature but human beings face this danger. This danger, which only human beings face, compels them not only to devote their lives to happiness and pleasure, but also to prepare themselves for death and to become human before death. Perhaps all human knowledge, thought and artistic activities can be valuable only insofar as they take this will to be and the anxiety of not being as a reference. History tells us that different conceptions of man and art have gained validity in various periods and regions. The relationship between human and art should not be accepted as a simple phenomenon, and the historical transformation processes in the ontological relationship between them should also be questioned. This questioning is especially important in our century, where technology has taken over almost all human functions in an increasing sense, and the end of art and history is being talked about.”

Vice Rector V. Prof. Dr. Rahmi Deniz Özbay thanked the academics who organized the symposium, the contributing professors and the whole team and stated that the symposium will make important contributions to the questioning and reasoning process.

After the speech, the symposium was moderated by the faculty members of the Department of Visual Communication Design.
the symposium sessions started. Academics and researchers from many different universities presented their papers for two days. Dr. İsrafil Kuralay, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, made a presentation titled “Aesthetic Reflections of Change in Communication Technologies and Illusions of Reality” in the first session.