Alkan Avcıoğlu

2025 RECAP 🧵 Looking back, this year has felt like a dream. So many things came together, and my work found its way into places I once only imagined. • My work Liquid Modernity was exhibited and auctioned at Christie’s, as part of their inaugural AI art auction. • I won Claire Silver’s AI Contest with my work Dromological. • I collaborated with world-renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky, one of the most influential artists of our time. We presented a solo exhibition of our Hypertopographics series at Heft Gallery, New York, later shown at Contemporary Istanbul and lastly at Paris Photo. • My work is featured in Dopamine at Le Cube Garges, Paris. A major institutional exhibition running until July 18, 2026, presented as part of Némo Biennale 2025, the International Biennale of Digital Arts. • Work from my previous collections continued to be exhibited internationally, from Shanghai to New York’s Times Square, my work was featured in many exhibitions across galleries and public spaces. • A defining chapter of the year was my AI generated feature documentary film Post Truth: - It became the first AI feature film in cinema history to secure a theatrical release. The theatrical deal was reported by Deadline Hollywood. - The film had its international premiere at Warsaw Film Festival, one of the only 14 A-list festivals in the world accredited by FIAPF. Variety announced the international debut. - The film subsequently screened at long-established festivals, including the 66th Festival dei Popoli, the oldest documentary festival in Europe, and the 62nd International Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, the longest-running festival in Turkey. - It received overwhelmingly positive reviews from professional critics in Turkey, Poland, and Italy. - The film lastly won the Audience Award at FrontDoc International Film Festival. • This year marked key milestones for our AI production company, Spongeworthy Studio: With Post Truth becoming a theatrically released, critically acclaimed film, while @VikkiBardot's short film Dreamt by Another, screened at over 20 festivals before being acquired by MUBI. • The soundtrack album of Post Truth was released in December via Tamar Records on vinyl, CD, and digital platforms. • Much of the year was focused on moving conversations around AI and art beyond online spaces, into wider public and cultural contexts. • From Paris Photo to international film festivals, I spent much of the year on panels and public discussions, contributing to the conversation around AI and art beyond Web3. • I was featured in major outlets, from The Observer to CNN Türk, and gave over 25 interviews across print, online, and television. • A curated image gallery of my work circulated widely across mainstream platforms, including Bored Panda, MSN, and AOL. • The year included several auctions, highlights including: – Hypertopographics #1 sold for $18,000 via Heft Gallery, New York. – Earth Misread sold for $8,100 via Asprey Studio Gallery, London. – Liquid Modernity sold for $5,040 via Christie’s, New York. I don’t take any of this lightly. This year raised the bar for what the work demands next. A key part of this year was seeing my AI-generated work move beyond online spaces and enter real-world galleries, institutions, cinemas, and publications. My interviews followed a wild path: I started the year talking about AI and photography around the Christie’s exhibition, moved into AI and filmmaking with Post Truth, and ended up discussing AI and music through the soundtrack. I’m genuinely grateful for every step along the way, and for the seriousness with which all my work has been received. New exhibitions are confirmed for the coming year, with several new projects set to be released. Major announcements are on the way. 2026 is shaping up to be an exciting one.

Our new AI-generated feature film A Woman Asleep has been covered by both Variety and Screen International over the past two weeks, following its selection for the main competition at 36th FilmFestival Cottbus. At Spongeworthy, we've now produced two AI-generated feature films that are being taken seriously by established film festivals, critics, and the international film industry. Our first feature, Post Truth, has already reached several important milestones for AI filmmaking within the traditional film industry: A commercial theatrical release, over 30 international festival selections, awards, nominations, critical acclaim, an international sales agent, film market screenings, and distribution deals across multiple territories. And now A Woman Asleep by @VikkiBardot is taking things further, with its festival journey just beginning. The response we've been receiving from festival programmers has been particularly encouraging. It will premiere tonight at the longest-running film festival in Turkey: 63rd International Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival. None of this has been easy. We're working in an environment of considerable backlash against AI-generated films, while the conversation around AI filmmaking is dominated by clickbait, misleading marketing, inflated claims, and announcements from companies that have yet to complete a single feature. There's no shortage of AI filmmaking news, but very few completed films that have earned genuine recognition within the established film industry. At Spongeworthy, we're not selling the promise of what AI filmmaking might become, nor are we chasing the next viral moment, nor are we saying Hollywood is cooked. We're making feature films that are selected, reviewed, awarded, sold, and distributed through the same channels as other independent films. We are making feature films that are pushing the the cinema beyond traditional narrative forms. We're not interested in short-term attention. We're thinking long-term. We want to make films that stand the test of time, that can be revisited, recontextualized, and perhaps understood differently as the years go by. IYKYK.

"The most ideological illusion of all would be to believe that documentary realism is realism." Alexander Kluge, 1974, Film Comment interview

Honored to be featured in the latest issue of PHOTO, one of the world's most iconic photography magazines, published since 1967. The 16-page feature explores the future of photography in the age of AI, including a double-page spread of my new series Disreality, which will debut in a solo booth at Paris Photo this November. The article also explores my collaboration with Edward Burtynsky, Hypertopographics, and my perspectives on the evolving language of photography.

Super happy to share that my film Post Truth has won the Discovery Award (Prix Découverte du Jury) at the 20th CinéAlma Film Festival in France. The festival took place from October 9–18, with 18 films competing for the awards. Here is the jury statement: "The jury has chosen to honour a documentary film that stands out for its original approach and the way it opens our minds, reminding us that: “The world is no longer the same.” A work that makes artificial intelligence a true cinematic language, used to explore an essential question: our relationship with images and truth. In a world where truth and falsehood becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish, this documentary invites us to question the way we see things, and our trust in images. We were impressed by the remarkable harmony between its form and its subject, its artistic boldness, and its ability to make us think long after the screening. For its formal freedom, its cinematic rigor, and the relevance of its perspective to our time, the jury is delighted to present the Discovery Award to... Post Truth."

DISREALITY My new series. Solo booth presentation at Paris Photo. Grand Palais, November 2026.

My film Post Truth has its French premiere tonight at the 20th CinéAlma Film Festival, where it is screening in competition.

Today, last year.

Glad to share that I've started teaching AI & Filmmaking at Istanbul Kent University. This fall, the course is part of the core curriculum for third-year Film and Television students. It's my second course this semester, alongside AI, Art and the Moving Image in the department of Visual Communication Design.

Update: Post Truth won Special Jury Prize at 10th International Film Festival “Eurasian Bridge" The film was in documentary competition and awarded Special Prize by the jury.