Pinar Yoldas on Art, Science and a Planet Awash in Plastic

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• Molly Wofford - [email protected]

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• Mika Ono - [email protected]

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A new exhibition by University of California San Diego Associate Professor of Visual Arts Pinar Yoldas will explore the evolutionary impacts of microplastics in the environment, a long-standing problem that Yoldas first depicted in the Gallery QI exhibit EcoSystem of Excess in 2014 and will continue to explore in "There Exist Microplastics in My Subconscious and They are Seeping into My Dreams" at Gallery QI in May and June. A UC San Diego Qualcomm Institute (QI) team member caught up with Yoldas as she prepared for the launch of her new project and asked her about the experience of being an "infradisciplinary" artist-scientist. (Note: The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.)

QI: According to your Wikipedia page, you had your first solo painting exhibition at the age of five. What was that like?

PY: To be perfectly frank, I do not remember much. I was only five years old. Hundreds of people came to see it, including the Minister of Culture of the Republic of Turkey and his spouse. The exhibition was covered in notable newspapers. One highlight for me was I was allowed to drink as much soda as I wanted - which was normally prohibited because I was allergic to sugar. My father organized the show in a public library. It was the second time a child had a painting exhibition in Turkey, and I happened to be the youngest. The motivation behind it must have been that I had over 4,000 drawings by then.

I started drawing very, very early, by 16 or 18 months old. I don't remember a moment when I didn't have a pen or pencil in my hand. I always say that line, form, color and the act of taking an idea and putting it on a flat surface has been a very fundamental way of thinking for me. Before I could even speak, I was doing these drawings.

QI: Was there a point in your life where you felt like you were officially an artist?

PY: This is interesting to talk about on a STEM-heavy campus like ours. Because, on top of this talent I had for drawing, I was always intrigued by math and science, and I was pretty good at it. When you excel in analytical fields - math, science and language - and score highly on standardized tests, people tend to say, "Why become an artist? You'd be wasting your potential."

I was 17 when I won a bronze medal in the Chemistry Olympics [in the National Science Olympics organized by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey]. I loved organic chemistry, probably because it's 3D thinking. At 18, I faced a pivotal choice: I had secretly taken the entrance exam for one of Turkey's top fine arts schools in Ankara and was offered a scholarship. Yet, shaped by the cultural expectations around me, I felt I couldn't accept it. Instead, I chose architecture - a path that was somewhat in the middle.

So, to answer your question, it took me a long time to call myself an artist. In my mid-30s, I attended the MacDowell as a "new genre" fellow, working with code and software. It was deeply technical, not exactly what people imagine as art. I still thought of myself as a designer, though my work, like my architectural imagery, was anything but conventional. Each night featured presentations by residents - Grammy-winning composers, established artists, Pulitzer-winning novelists - an absurdly accomplished crowd. It was all these ridiculously accomplished people and me. But after my presentation, everyone was like, "You're a great artist! We love your art!" And I'm like, "Oh! I think I have to come out of the closet because I guess what I'm doing is art!"

QI: You hold five degrees from universities all across the globe. If you had to pursue yet another degree, what would it be and where would you study?

PY: I have to get an MBA at some point. I need to understand how this money thing works! That's my practical answer, but my fantasy degree would be topology, a realm of geometry where unimaginable forms still exist. Wherever math is the best, I would like to go there. I trained in cognitive science and neuroscience, and I recently read work suggesting that thoughts emerge as geometric patterns in neural activity. They're incredibly complex - almost beyond visualization - but they feel very close to how I think through sculpture and architecture. It makes me want to understand the mathematics of form as a way into understanding the mind.

QI: In your UC San Diego bio, you describe yourself as "infradisciplinary." Can you explain what you mean by that?

PY: The speed at which knowledge is produced is so fast right now. A domain that was established 200 years ago might suddenly shift, and there are a lot of new fields opening up that we haven't named yet. So "infra" - as in infrared or infrastructure - is basically underneath disciplines and looking at what's to come. You might say the word "interdisciplinary" covers this, but "inter" is in between. So, we're talking about going one layer down and thinking about: How did this discipline originate? How did this other discipline originate? And what will the offspring of these two disciplines lead to? So "infradisciplinary" is really about emerging disciplines and what's going to happen in the next five, seven or 10 years, because things are changing so fast. I mean, look at how things have changed in the last three years just around the topic of AI.

QI: Speaking of AI, 10 years ago, you created a work in which an AI kitten becomes the first nonhuman governor in the year 2039. Has your vision for the year 2039 changed since you did that show?

PY: It honestly feels like I made that work two years ago! With many of my projects, they emerge before their time. No one pays attention at first, and then a decade later they suddenly became topical.

I don't think we're culturally ready to outsource political sovereignty to AI. There's still a gap between our technological capabilities and where our collective unconscious sits. So, 2039 may still be a reasonable timeline, perhaps even a bit optimistic. It might happen sooner, but more likely at the level of local governance than national leadership, which is why I imagined a governor. It's more manageable.

Even then, I was thinking about practical and cultural frictions and the energy costs of running an AI that knows everything about its citizens, which I called "kittizens." Another challenge, of course, is the dog people. Would they accept a cat as governor? If they don't, maybe we shelve the whole experiment for another election cycle.

QI: Your art is very accessible. Is there an audience that you try to reach with your shows? Or is there an audience that you haven't reached that you would like to?

PY: My work sits at the intersection of art and science, and I see clear, direct communication as essential, especially if it helps society grow and stay healthy. I don't like hiding ideas under layers; if there's a joke, I want it to land - hence the AI kitten.

At the same time, my ideal audience is simply someone present and open to being transformed, someone willing to get lost in the experience. If the work sparks new ideas or becomes an exchange, that's enough for me. I'm less interested in who the audience is, and more in creating work that can resonate with different people at different moments.

QI: If you were to do an art project depicting Pinar Yoldas's brain, what medium would you choose?

PY: How big would my budget be? The dream would be to do a sculptural work and design organs with certain functionalities. I do a lot of [3D] printing, and right now I'm pretty confident in my ability to think and problem solve in that domain, but if I could buy or print an organism or cells or make organoids, that would be excellent. I love that you ask that question. Sometimes I tell my students that, at the end of the day, the medium is the brain cell, the nerve cell. Did you change that person's perception? Were you able to change their emotion? Were you able to give them a new perspective on the problem they were dealing with? Were you able to convey new information they weren't aware of? Were you able to impact their behavior at any scale? All of those responses have to do with the brain and nerve tissue. So, it would be a very meta project -- thinking about my own brain using brain tissue.

QI: Last question: The planet is dying. However, a superior alien race appears and says they can save your world, but you must make a choice between art or science. Humans can't have both. Which do you choose?

PY: I have two answers for this. One: if you're really going to bring back whale populations, make people realize there shouldn't be this many fires, give elephants their kingdom back and put Amazon River dolphins into clean water, I say take away both art and science. I see something sacred in the mere existence of life, so I don't need either if you're really going to let life flourish as it did before human intervention. But my other smart answer is: Excuse me! Have you taken my art and science class? You have to take my art and science class and then we can talk about this because, to me, art and science are inseparable.

This interview was conducted by Molly Wofford, a grant writer whose services are available to support projects to be submitted through QI Sponsored Programs, as well as other offices and organizations. For more information, contact her at [email protected].

To learn more about Pinar Yoldas, see her website.