Master's Thesis

The Self as Heterotopia

Final Thesis 3.1 MB

Author of thesis: BA Karya Öner

Acad. year: 2025/2026

Supervisor: MgA. Veronika Vlková

Reviewer: MgA. Barbora Ilič

Abstract:

The Self as Heterotopia is a mixed media and video project that explores identity, perception, and spatial experience through layered visual compositions. The project emerges from a personal need to translate internal complexity into visual form, reflecting an attempt to understand how the self relates to both inner experience and the surrounding world. Inspired by Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, the work focuses on spaces that both reflect and disrupt reality. Drawing on his notion of the mirror as a site where the self is simultaneously present and displaced, the project approaches layered images and reflective surfaces as structures in which meaning is continuously produced through overlap, fragmentation, and displacement.

The installation brings together personal photographs, landscapes, and fragments of everyday environments, which are reworked through collage and video. These visual elements are transferred onto plexiglass surfaces, where transparency and reflection generate depth, interference, and spatial ambiguity. Through this process, images are no longer stable representations but become dynamic elements that interact, merge, and transform within space. In this sense, images are approached not as fixed representations, but as unstable and accumulating forms that construct shifting environments of perception. The work engages with the conditions of image overload, reflecting how reality is increasingly experienced as fragmented, layered, and unstable.
Through the interplay of layering, reflection, and projection, the installation creates an immersive environment in which perception is continuously shifting and reconfigured. Within this space, identity is not presented as fixed or singular, but as something in constant transition, formed through the interaction between internal states and external visual flows.

Keywords:

Heterotopia, mirror, identity, environment, reflection, fragmentation, mixed media, memory, image, digital landscape.

Date of defence

22.05.2026

Result of the defence

Defended (thesis was successfully defended)

znamkaDznamka

Grading

D

Process of defence

Prezentaci studentky na začátku provázely technické potíže s přehráváním zvuku při promítání. Komise vstoupila do prostorové instalace složené ze dvou projekcí a objektů na pomezí malby, digitálního tisku, abstraktní a figurativní koláže. Vedoucí práce V. Vlková přečetla posudek, ve kterém se věnovala tématům heterotopie, vztahu mezi analogovým a digitálním, práci s urbanistickými vrstvami atd. Stručně popsala problémy v rámci procesu tvorby diplomové práce, kterým studentka čelila a které se odrazily ve výsledku. V posudku oponenta B. Ilić byly vzneseny otázky ohledně převedení teoretické roviny Foucaultového konceptu heterotopie do samotné instalace. Podle Ilić došlo k naplnění záměru díky použití materiálu plexiskla. Studentka zdůraznila „iluzi obrazu“ v kontextu digitální heterotopie. D. Alster zahájila diskusi ohledně procesu skenování městského a přírodního terénu a textur pomocí zařízení „hand-scanner“. Diskuse pokračovala otázkami, jak studentka volila tvar plexiskla, zda bylo záměrem, aby použitý materiál připomínal kousky skla, obrazu, ale také jaký je vztah mezi projekcí a objekty. Na závěr porota zdůraznila důležitost jasného výchozího bodu při práci s principem glitche, tedy objasnění toho, co glitchuje. Jinak lze tvrdit, že nevidíme glitch, ale pouze jeho simulaci. -- The student’s presentation was marred at the outset by technical difficulties with the audio during the screening. The committee entered the spatial installation, which consisted of two projections and objects that straddled the boundaries of painting, digital printing, and abstract and figurative collage. Project supervisor V. Vlková read the review, in which she addressed topics such as heterotopia, the relationship between analogue and digital, working with urban layers, etc. She briefly described the challenges the student faced during the thesis creation process, which were reflected in the final result. In the opponent's review, B. Ilić raised questions regarding the translation of the theoretical dimension of Foucault's concept of heterotopia into the installation itself. According to Ilić, the intention was fulfilled through the use of plexiglass. The student emphasised the "illusion of the image" in the context of digital heterotopia. D. Alster initiated a discussion regarding the process of scanning urban and natural terrain and textures using a “hand-scanner.” The discussion continued with questions about how the student chose the shape of the plexiglass, whether it was the intention for the material used to resemble pieces of glass or an image, and also what the relationship is between the projection and the objects. In conclusion, the jury emphasised the importance of a clear starting point when working with the principle of glitch, that is, clarifying what is glitching. Otherwise, one could argue that we do not see a glitch, but only its simulation.

Language of thesis

English

Faculty

Fakulta výtvarných umění

Department

Fine Art and Design Studio

Study programme

Fine Art and Design (FAAD)

Composition of Committee

Mgr. et MgA. Kristína Jamrichová, Ph.D. (předseda)
MgA. Veronika Vlková (člen)
MgA. Lenka Veselá, M.A., Ph.D. (místopředseda)
Mgr. Jakub Bulvas Stejskal, Ph.D. (člen)
PhDr. Ivana Rumanová, Ph.D. (člen)
MgA. Darina Alster, Ph.D. (člen)
doc. MgA. Hynek Alt, Ph.D. (člen)

Supervisor’s report
MgA. Veronika Vlková

Grade proposed by supervisor: B

File inserted by supervisor Size
Posudek vedoucí diplomové práce [.pdf] 94,61 kB

Reviewer’s report
MgA. Barbora Ilič

Grade proposed by reviewer: A

File inserted by the reviewer Size
Posudek oponenta [.pdf] 128,51 kB

Responsibility: Mgr. et Mgr. Hana Odstrčilová