FUTURE NOSTALGIA: CES AND THE RHYTHM OF A NEW TURKEY

Ces is part of a new generation of digital artists redefining identity through aesthetics, motion, and memory. His work moves between pixels and pavement, between a dream of the future and the streets of Istanbul. What you see in his visuals is not only design, it’s an autobiography written in engines, fabrics, and light.

1. Your work feels like a collision between car culture, fashion, and Turkish heritage. What connects those worlds for you?

For me, these worlds are connected through identity and rhythm. Growing up in Turkey, I was surrounded by everyday chaos — street vendors, old Mercedes W140s, the smell of tea, and knock-off Nikes. Later, fashion and car culture became symbols of aspiration and expression. So when I mix them, it’s like building a bridge between reality and dream — between where I come from and where I want to go.

2. You often use technology to explore identity. How do you keep cultural roots alive inside such a futuristic medium?

Technology is just another language. What matters is what you say with it. I feed the machine with my own memories — Istanbul streets, my grandmother’s patterns, the way people stand or look at the camera. Even if the tool is futuristic, the soul behind it is still local, emotional, human. That’s how the roots survive — through memory, not medium.

3. Automotive design carries this language of speed and progress. How do you slow it down enough to make it emotional?

By showing what exists around the machine — not the speed, but the silence after it passes. I treat cars almost like characters, symbols of power and ego, but also nostalgia. When I place them in Turkish streets or next to people from daily life, they stop being objects of desire and start becoming mirrors.

4. Fashion is about surface, cars are about structure, heritage is about memory — how do you balance all three in your art?

I think balance comes from imperfection. My work isn’t about harmony; it’s about tension. Fashion gives me texture, cars give me form, and heritage gives me emotion. When these collide, something honest appears — a kind of beauty that feels both rough and divine.

5. Your visuals feel like archives from a future Turkey. What story do you hope people will read in them years from now?

I hope people see a generation that turned struggle into style. A Turkey that embraced both tradition and technology, without losing its humanity. Maybe years from now, someone will look at my images and say, “This is how they dreamed — even when reality was heavy.”

His images remind you that progress does not mean losing roots. It means carrying them forward through chrome, pixels, and memory. In Ces’s world, Mercedes headlights reflect Istanbul sunsets, sneakers become relics, and technology turns into emotion.

Ces’s work captures the rhythm of modern Turkey. His visuals show how culture and innovation can move together without losing their heart. Through cars, clothes, and light, he turns local memories into a universal story, one where identity keeps evolving but never forgets where it began.