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Video Art | Projection Mapping | Live Visual Performance | Installation

Mahir Duman is a visual artist who builds spaces where image, sound and body meet. Originally from Ordu, Turkey, he studied Industrial Engineering in Istanbul and Digital Film Production & VFX at SAE Institute Berlin, and has lived and worked in Berlin since 2011.

Music gives his images their rhythm and their story. With projection, video, installation and audiovisual performance, often made with musicians, dancers and theatre makers, he works on the border between reality and imagination, where perception and consciousness begin to blur.

His work has been presented at Humboldt Forum, Konzerthaus Berlin, the Max Planck Institute, Fusion Festival and Athens Digital Arts Festival, and he contributed projection mapping to an exhibition at Gropius Bau.

He is co-founder of Licht Nomaden Art Collective and a member of the Zuhause, Werkstatttraum and Rummelstilzchen art collectives.

His works are part of the TFM (Institut für Theater-, Film- und Medienwissenschaft, University of Vienna) archive and remain available for research and educational purposes.

Artist Statement

Every piece begins with a sound. Before there is an image, there is a rhythm, a breath, a pulse, and the image learns to move by following it.

I work on walls, facades, tulle and bodies, wherever light can be given somewhere to land. A building becomes a screen for what it remembers, a dancer becomes a landscape, a familiar street turns into a place you cannot quite name. I build spaces that exist only while the light is on.

I am drawn to the border between reality and imagination, where perception differs from person to person and a private experience becomes something we share. What I look for are the moments when we lose ourselves in a piece, and then find ourselves again, slightly changed.

Nature, technology and the human body keep meeting in my work, along with questions of isolation, belonging and home. Projectors, tulle, mannequins and, in some recent works, AI-generated imagery are my materials. The work stays unfinished and questioning, open to whoever steps inside.

Fragments

reality, surrealism, subjective, illusion, emotion sharing, relationship, openness, wish to tell something, wish to feel together, interaction, aiming the pleasure in the process of production and of the medium being used, wish to be known, wish to change something, wish to stand against the system, focusing on the different perception of reality, subjective, personal war, difference between personal perceptions and the perceptions of people, freedom and a fiery atmosphere, habitat, art, questionings, necessity principle and art, art as a beautiful world, call for help, realizing the situation in the world, forgetting oneself, wish to escape and disconnect from reality, wish to fly, wish to die from overdose, fears and paranoias, mind games and openness, meditation, sharing, communism, openness. love, enjoy, love, rhythm and harmony in the same feeling, openness of perceptions, dance and movement, non-stop movement, from time to time hide and seeks…

About Video

discovering, showing, being the displayed one, relating and dancing, removing the borders, reinterpreting relationships, dialectic, interaction, wish to reveal new and now, catching the rhythm, catching the wave, swimming, wish to be the wave, combining sound and video on a personal perception.

Selected Artistic Projects

• HOME — 2026, 48 Stunden Neukölln, CANK, Berlin. Installation and live visual performance with tulle projections (45-minute loop). Concept, visual art & installation: Mahir Duman; performance: Lola Lustosa; sound design & music: DE FEO.
• INNER CONNECTION — 2–3 October 2026, HaNeon Art & Light Festival, Halle-Neustadt. Audiovisual performance and interactive installation, with Lev Radagan.
• transCULT — 11 April 2026, MONOM, Funkhaus Berlin. Live visual performance and projections based on Tahar Ben Jelloun’s The Sacred Night. Visual art & projections: Mahir Duman; music: Mischa Tangian & RUSNAM, with Babylon Orchestra.
• Stardust — 3–6 September 2026, at.tension Festival, Kulturkosmos Lärz, Germany. Interactive projection installation: sensors react to visitors’ movement, driving a hand-tuned particle system that evokes a galaxy.
• From Water to City: The Metamorphosis of Life — 2025, 48 Stunden Neukölln, Fernheizwerk Neukölln, Berlin. Audiovisual performance and projection mapping with AI-assisted imagery.
• Echoes of the Sky — 2024, Pandora Art Gallery, CTM Vorspiel, Berlin. Audiovisual projection mapping installation (concept: Urban Mycelium).
• Iso-liiert — 2024, 48 Stunden Neukölln, public space, Berlin-Neukölln. Projection mapping installation, supported by SIGNAL funding.
• Smart Murals — 2024, Halle-Neustadt. Projection mapping and interactive sound-light performance, commissioned by the City of Halle (Smart HaNeu).
• Metapeacock – Terra — 2024, TERRA XOXO Festival, Prieros. Visual performance with dance, puppet theatre and sound; co-created with Lola Lustosa, curated by Art Hock.
• When These Mountains Turn to Oceans — 2021, video art, 15 min. Official selection, 18th Athens Digital Arts Festival (2022).
• Geography of HATE — 2021, video art, 8:34 min.

Selected Commissions & Collaborations

Visuals, artistic concept and production by Mahir Duman, unless stated otherwise.

• 2024–2026 — Bullseye, theatre production: video art, projection mapping & live control (Bielefeld, Berlin, Leipzig, Münster)
• 2026 — True Romance, theatre production: video art, Berlin
• 2025 — Max Planck Institute: Prelude 2026, video art, Berlin
• 2025 — Deutsches Auswandererhaus: 20th Anniversary Celebration, visual performance, Bremerhaven
• 2024 — Gropius Bau: projection mapping contribution to Pallavi Paul’s installation Salt Moon, part of her solo exhibition How Love Moves, Berlin (artistic concept: Pallavi Paul)
• 2024 — Humboldt Forum: DurchLüften Festival, live visual performance, Berlin
• 2024 — Paradiso: Shugar – Pink Istanbul Edition, live visual performance, Amsterdam
• 2023 — Unsere Fremden with Babylon Orchestra: theatre performance, visual performance, ufaFabrik, Berlin
• 2022 — Casino de Paris: Verlier Dich in Berlin, musical theatre, visual performance, Paris
• 2021 — Konzerthaus Berlin: The Sounds of Berlin Festival, visual performance
• 2021 — Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin: Mensch, Musik! #1 – Über Brücken (Bridges), Haus des Rundfunks, Berlin

Performances, Installations & Exhibitions

2026

• HaNeon – Art & Light Festival — INNER CONNECTION, Audiovisual Performance & Interactive Installation, Halle-Neustadt (2–3 October)
• At.tension Festival — Stardust, Interactive Visual Installation, Lärz, Germany (3–6 September)
• Bucht der Träumer — Interactive Installation, Frankfurt (Oder),Germany.
• 48 Stunden Neukölln — HOME, Installation & Live Visual Performance, Berlin
• True Romance — Video Art for a Theatre Production, Berlin
• Fusion Festival — Live Visual Performance, Lärz, Germany.
• La Nature Festival — Visual Performance & Art Installation, Vielsalm, Belgium.
• Bullseye — Visual Art, Projection Mapping & Live Control for a Theatre Production Münster, Germany.
• transCULT — Live Visual Performance for Babylon ORCHESTRA, MONOM, Funkhaus Berlin

2025

• Max Planck Institution — *Prelude 2026*, Video Art, Berlin 
• Bullseye — Theater Performance, Video Art & Projection Mapping, Politik im Freien Theater Festival, Schaubühne, Leipzig
• Deutsches Auswandererhaus — 20th Anniversary Celebration, Visual Performance, Bremerhaven
• Feel Festival — Live Visual Performance, Bergheider See, Lichterfeld-Schacksdorf  
• 48 Stunden Neukölln Festival — *From Water to City: The Metamorphosis of Life*, Audiovisual Performance & Projection Mapping, Berlin  
• Halle-Neustadt Block Party — Facade Projection Mapping, Halle-Neustadt  

2024

• Fusion Festival  2024, Live Visual Performance, Germany
• Berlin Art week 2024, Group Exhibition, „Nothingness „ Video Installation, MMAE720 Art Gallery. 
• CTM – Vorspiel, Group Exhibition, „Echoes of the Sky“, Video Projection Installation, Pandora Art Gallery Berlin,
• Humboldt Forum, DurchLüften Festival, Live Visual Performance, Berlin, Germany
• Gropius Bau, Salt Moon (installation by Pallavi Paul), Projection Mapping Contribution, Berlin, Germany
• Shugar – Pink Istanbul Edition, Live Visual Performance, Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Bucht der Träumer Festival, Video Mapping and  Live Visual Performance, Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany
• La Nature Music and Art Festival,  Video Mapping and  Live Visual Performance, Vielsalm, Belgium
• Tanzpol Dance and Performance Festival,  „From Lips To Moon“, Live Visual Performance, Sophiensaele, Berlin, Germany
• 48 Stunden Neukölln Art Festival, Metapeacock, Iso-liiert and Nothingness, 3 Video Mapping Installations and Live Visual Performance, Berlin
• BrainTheft Concert,  Live Visual Performance, Urban Spree, Berlin
• Lev Radagan Concert Live Visual Performance, Urban Spree, Berlin
• TERRA XOXO Festival, Metapeacock – Terra, Visual Performance (Dance, Puppet Theatre, Sound), Prieros (Heidesee)
• Mika Yurdakul Concert, Live Visual Perfomance Series, Zemin Art Space & Nikodemus Church, Berlin, Germany
• BULLSEYE Theater Project,  Video Art & Projection Mapping, Bielefeld & Berlin, Germany