Gürkan Maruf Mıhçı

Descent into Concealment: Derinkuyu

“Descent into Concealment: Derinkuyu” features web-based artworks by Artist-in-Residence Gürkan Maruf Mıhçı. The exhibition includes an interactive 360 cinematic environment constructed from a recreated 3D model of Derinkuyu Underground City. The video is accompanied by an original soundscape rooted in ancient devotional atmospheres. Mıhçı’s work invites audiences to descend through underground corridors, thresholds, and chambers that can be interpreted as both survival infrastructures and ritual spaces.

“…The project reframes Derinkuyu Underground City—not as an archaeological site and museum, but as architecture of refuge: a living system built through ventilation, concealment, and collective endurance…”
— Gürkan Maruf Mıhçı

Gürkan Maruf Mıhçı, PhD, is an interdisciplinary artist, working at the intersections of creative technology and critical theory to interrogate complex topics in science, politics, and ecology. Mıhçı‘s work has been presented at Apartment Project (Berlin), Bilsart (Istanbul), Gallery 924 (Indianapolis), Maquis Projects (Izmir), Agitator (Chicago), Gallery 263 (Boston), 35 Festival Les Instants Video (Marseille/Milan), ALC Video Art Festival (Alicante), CuVo Video Art Festival (Madrid), Vertifilms Film Festival (Prague), and Miami New Media Festival (Miami and Táchira). He was an affiliated researcher and artist-in-residence at University of Greenwich, London, Sound/Image Center and an artist-in-residence on Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior Ship. He has been recognized with awards from The Christel DeHaan Family Foundation and Indy Arts Council, Art-X Gallery Innovation, and IU Presidential Arts and Humanities Awards.

360° interactive video tour of Descent into Concealment: Derinkuyu, 2026 (use headphones for an immersive experience)

VIEW 360° TOUR ON MOBILE DEVICE

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About the Work

Descent into Concealment: Derinkuyu is a web-based project that reframes Derinkuyu Underground City—not as an archaeological site and museum, but as architecture of refuge: a living system built through ventilation, concealment, and collective endurance. At its core is a YouTube 360° cinematic environment constructed from a recreated 3D model, paired with an original soundscape rooted in ancient devotional atmospheres. The work invites audiences to descend through narrow corridors, sealed thresholds, and communal chambers carved into volcanic stone—experiencing the underground as both survival infrastructure and ritual space. The soundscape treats silence as resonance: breath moving through ventilation shafts, footsteps echoing in compressed passages, and the sonic texture of life practiced below ground. By situating this encounter on the open web, the project prioritizes accessibility and cultural transmission, translating archaeological wonder into a format navigable by phone, laptop, VR headset, or gallery projection. The result is a spatial meditation on hidden circulation, engineered resilience, and the quiet technologies that sustained an entire civilization underground.
—Gürkan Maruf Mıhçı

Funded by: Indiana University Presidential Arts and Humanities Program
Supported by: University of Greenwich Center for SOUND/IMAGE; Plexus Projects; Indiana University Indianapolis Arts and Humanities Institute